Keep your e-mail mungled.

Buck said:

I thought you folks would like to hear the results of a little experiment of mine. I created a
hotmail address to see how quickly the usenet bots would grab the address.

The second interesting event is the large number of "microsoft" security/network/bug/whatever
updates that this new address is

Quoted message said:

being four random numbers) and each is coming from a different origin. Perhaps it is another worm
trying to take over the 'net, but it is surprising how quickly a new e-mail address, one which
shouldn't be in anyone's contact list, has become a target.

From the Washington Post, headlined "Worm comes disguised as Windows warning" news.google.co-news.google.co-Open ↗
m/url?ntc=0M4B0&q=washingtonpost.comA35735 2003Sep19.htmlOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion.

Another solution: www.mailinator.com

Quoted message said:

The second interesting event is the large number of "microsoft" security/network/bug/whatever
updates that this new address is receiving.

Quoted message said:

random numbers) and each is coming from a different origin. Perhaps it is another worm trying to
take over the 'net, but it is surprising how

quickly

Quoted message said:

a new e-mail address, one which shouldn't be in anyone's contact list, has become a target.

Here is a link to an article about all of the "microsoft" mail bouncing around the net right now:

techweb.comTWB20030919S0005Open ↗

This is a new version of the W32 worm and it can spread via e-mail, a hole in Internet Explorer
5.01, internet relay chat, Kazaa and other file-sharing programs, and not mentioned in the article,
grab e-mail addresses off of usenet.

Keep your virus scanners up to date and don't run any attachments!

-Buck

Quoted message said:

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion.

Why bother. I'm not ashamed of anything I post and it's easy to reply to me if you choose to do so,
the spam is easily deleted.

Just delete it.

The whole point of the Internet is open access, this might seem naive but it's more clever than
stupid if you think about it.

--

_______________________ALL AMIGA IN MY MIND_______________________ ------------------"Buddy Holly,
the Texas Elvis"------------------
__________306.350.357.38>>[email hidden]__________

"Eric S. Sande" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion.

Why bother. I'm not ashamed of anything I post and it's easy to reply to me if you choose to do
so, the spam is easily deleted.

Just delete it.

The whole point of the Internet is open access, this might seem naive but it's more clever than
stupid if you think about it.

It's not a matter of being ashamed of somehting. It's a matter of stemming the tide of spam that you
receive every day. At one of my previous addresses, I was receiving over 200 spam messages a day.
Filters helped, but I still had to run through the messages to make sure I didn't miss something
from someone I wanted to hear from. It wastes even more time every day than rec.bicycles.* does!

Mungling an address is easy and it isn't hard to leave instructions for fixing it if someone wants
to reply. So, you keep wasting your time deleting unwanted spam and I'll keep my address mungled.

-Buck

Quoted message said:

So, you keep wasting your time deleting unwanted spam and I'll keep my address mungled.

Yeah, but you won't get any mail from people you want to hear from.

--

_______________________ALL AMIGA IN MY MIND_______________________ ------------------"Buddy Holly,
the Texas Elvis"------------------
__________306.350.357.38>>[email hidden]__________

"Eric S. Sande" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So, you keep wasting your time deleting unwanted spam and I'll keep my address mungled.

Yeah, but you won't get any mail from people you want to hear from.

Perhaps I won't get any mail from people too dense to figure out the instructions or take care of
the obvious. Here, let me give you some examples using my old e-mail address:

b u c k @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m - here you just remove the spaces to reply.
[email hidden] - here you remove the "ihatespam." to reply.
[email hidden] - this one is usually followed by the tag "remove clothes to reply"

Now, if you are smart enough to recognize that cycling is a good thing, I'm sure you are smart
enough to de-mungle and address so you can reply, right?

🙂

-Buck

Quoted message said:

Now, if you are smart enough to recognize that cycling is a good thing, I'm sure you are smart
enough to de-mungle and address so you can reply, right?

It ain't worth my time if you give a bad address.

--

_______________________ALL AMIGA IN MY MIND_______________________ ------------------"Buddy Holly,
the Texas Elvis"------------------
__________306.350.357.38>>[email hidden]__________

"Eric S. Sande" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Now, if you are smart enough to recognize that cycling is a good thing, I'm sure you are smart
enough to de-mungle and address so you can reply, right?

It ain't worth my time if you give a bad address.

It isn't a "bad" address, just an address with an obvious correction to make it harder for spam bots
to troll them from usenet. But I am surprised that you are more willing to spend your valuable time
working your way through spam than deleting a small phrase in someone's e-mail address who you
really want to contact.

I guess you and I will just have to keep our chats on usenet.

-Buck

Buck said:

"Eric S. Sande" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So, you keep wasting your time deleting unwanted spam and I'll keep my address mungled.

Yeah, but you won't get any mail from people you want to hear from.

Perhaps I won't get any mail from people too dense to figure out the instructions or take care of
the obvious. Here, let me give you some examples using my old e-mail address:

b u c k @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m - here you just remove the spaces to reply.
[email hidden] - here you remove the "ihatespam." to reply.
[email hidden] - this one is usually followed by the tag "remove clothes to reply"

Now, if you are smart enough to recognize that cycling is a good thing, I'm sure you are smart
enough to de-mungle and address so you can reply, right?

🙂

-Buck

As I've always said ;-)))
--
Perre

You have to be smarter than a robot to reply.

On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 21:09:22 GMT, Buck" c h w i n n _ f o r _ s a l e h o t m a i l . c o m

@ said:

[email hidden] - here you remove the "ihatespam." to

Heh...I post with my [email hidden] addy, and that address gets very little spam. I suspect that
the address is automatically removed from spam lists, or the "spam" is removed from it and the junk
sent to "[email hidden]".

Maybe that could be a good strategy for others. It's just lately that I've realized that it
works so well; I really set it up to just be a big spam sink -- like a heat sink, but to get the
spam instead.

I also use it when filling out forms.

Quoted message said:

-Buck

--
Rick Onanian

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion.

Why bother. I'm not ashamed of anything I post and it's easy to reply to me if you choose to do
so, the spam is easily deleted.

Just delete it.

The whole point of the Internet is open access, this might seem naive but it's more clever than
stupid if you think about it.

Eric: The problem is the sheer volume of viral-laden email going around. I don't just get a few...
I'm now clocking over 200 PER HOUR!!! That is nothing short of ridiculous, and begs for some sort of
structural solution. This stuff is choking off a bug piece of bandwidth, since the attachment is
about 100k each... I can only imagine what it must be for someone with dial-up service.

I'm not willing to go to a "munged" name; I don't think that's a good solution for someone in
business with the public. But I am (desperately) looking for a solution, and find it incredible
that the virii aren't removed at the ISP level, before it ever gets to my computer. Norton/Symantec
ought to offer a two-pronged product, one that exists in a program at both the ISP and your own
computer. You'd still pay/subscribe for it to work (they're not going to do it for free!) but it
would be far more effective. If somebody doesn't want to pay for it, fine... their emails will be
sent to them intact.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReaction.com

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion.

Why bother. I'm not ashamed of anything I post and it's easy to reply to me if you choose to do
so, the spam is easily deleted.

Just delete it.

The whole point of the Internet is open access, this might seem naive but it's more clever than
stupid if you think about it.

Eric: The problem is the sheer volume of viral-laden email going around. I don't just get a few...
I'm now clocking over 200 PER HOUR!!! That is nothing short of ridiculous, and begs for some sort
of structural solution. This stuff is choking off a bug piece of bandwidth, since the attachment
is about 100k each... I can only imagine what it must be for someone with dial-up service.

I'm not willing to go to a "munged" name; I don't think that's a good solution for someone in
business with the public. But I am (desperately)

That makes sense.

Quoted message said:

looking for a solution, and find it incredible that the virii aren't removed at the ISP level,
before it ever gets to my computer. Norton/Symantec ought

Some ISP's, especially the smaller local ones do offer that service; in fact many of them don't give
you a choice with virus scanning. As far as spam goes, at my office we have had good luck with
iHateSpam from Sunbelt Software (www.sunbeltsoftware.com). I haven't tried other solutions, but this
one seems to be good so far.

--
Dave Kerber Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

In article <[email hidden]>, "Buck" <[email hidden]> wrote:

.

Quoted message said:

The second interesting event is the large number of "microsoft" security/network/bug/whatever
updates that this new address is receiving.

Quoted message said:

random numbers) and each is coming from a different origin. Perhaps it is another worm trying to
take over the 'net, but it is surprising how quickly a new e-mail address, one which shouldn't be
in anyone's contact list, has become a target.

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion. Add extra words or spaces into the
address both in your newsgroup client and in the message itself. It's turning into a jungle
out there.

Next experiment: posting another new hotmail address but this time being mungled....

-Buck

TEll me about it, I'm getting bombarded with those dumb emails and the endless attachments. I'm a
mac so I don't think the virus would affect me, but I'm constantly having to delete those &^%$$*
attachments. When will this end???

Marlene Blanshay <[email hidden]> wrote:
: TEll me about it, I'm getting bombarded with those dumb emails and the endless attachments. I'm a
: mac so I don't think the virus would affect me, but I'm constantly having to delete those &^%$$*
: attachments. When will this end???

what i can't figure out is why no one thinks to hold microsoft responsible for their [censored] coding
practices. instead the DOJ holds press conferences featuring microsoft "security experts". my god
that's good PR!

i'm getting about 50-75 an hour. postini isn't getting them and neither is spamassassin. but
procmail is, thank god they're easy to regex for.
--
david reuteler [email hidden]

"Mike Jacoubowsky/Chain Reaction Bicycles" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion.

Why bother. I'm not ashamed of anything I post and it's easy to reply to me if you choose to do
so, the spam is easily deleted.

Just delete it.

The whole point of the Internet is open access, this might seem naive but it's more clever than
stupid if you think about it.

Eric: The problem is the sheer volume of viral-laden email going around. I don't just get a few...
I'm now clocking over 200 PER HOUR!!! That is nothing short of ridiculous, and begs for some sort
of structural solution. This stuff is choking off a bug piece of bandwidth, since the attachment
is about 100k each... I can only imagine what it must be for someone with dial-up service.

I'm not willing to go to a "munged" name; I don't think that's a good solution for someone in
business with the public. But I am (desperately) looking for a solution, and find it incredible
that the virii aren't removed at the ISP level, before it ever gets to my computer.
Norton/Symantec ought to offer a two-pronged product, one that exists in a program at both the ISP
and your own computer. You'd still pay/subscribe for it to work (they're not going to do it for
free!) but it would be far more effective. If somebody doesn't want to pay for it, fine... their
emails will be sent to them intact.

Well, here's a solution for you. I use POPFile, a smart filtering system that learns your email's
patterns and filters huge volumes of mail with very close to 100% accuracy. If it makes mistakes at
all, it's usually a spam or two getting through, rather than a legit message gone missing.

How well does it work? Well, I should be so lucky to get only 200 messages a day. For example, today
I left my computer mid-afternoon, and when I came back around 10:30pm, over 2000 messages had been
downloaded. That's typical. When I was away sailing this summer, I could get online only every
couple of weeks. I'd have over 20,000 messages waiting, which took a couple of hours to download.
POPFile handled it all flawlessly -- or at least I haven't had any complaints. Try:

popfile.sourceforge.netpopfile.sourceforge.netOpen ↗

Yes, I need an IMAP server, and my filters moved onto it. I'm working on that. Yes, ISPs should
implement this kind of technology. Some do, as do specialty email providers. The latest Mozilla mail
client has this kind of smart filtering built in. If you really want to blame someone for falling
down on the job here, blame Microsoft.

About "munging" your name -- it shouldn't be necessary. Filters work fine for
me. However, on web pages it helps to cloak your address by writing it in raw Unicode. Browsers
will show it normally, but it will fool most "screen scraper" programs because they
typically look for the "@" character. You can get a little free program called E-Cloaker to
do this for you:

codefoot.comecloakerOpen ↗

I'm going to put up a web page about this stuff soon. Email drives people batty, but there *are*
simple solutions that work.

Matt O.

"David Reuteler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

what i can't figure out is why no one thinks to hold microsoft responsible for their [censored] coding
practices. instead the DOJ holds press conferences featuring microsoft "security experts". my god
that's good PR!

I hold them responsible. There's no excuse for how easily Outlook Express and Outlook can be foiled
by worms and viruses. There's certainly no excuse for the lack of built-in smart filtering to deal
with spam, which has been mature technology for a couple of years now.

Matt O.

"David Reuteler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

what i can't figure out is why no one thinks to hold microsoft responsible for their [censored] coding
practices. instead the DOJ holds press

conferences

Quoted message said:

featuring microsoft "security experts". my god that's good PR!

i'm getting about 50-75 an hour. postini isn't getting them and neither

is

Quoted message said:

spamassassin. but procmail is, thank god they're easy to regex for.

This isn't a Microsoft coding problem. This is someone trying to get you to open an email and run a
program. Microsoft is not responsible if someone were to run format.com on their computer. It is up
to you personally to decide which programs you want to run.

"Matt O'Toole" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I hold them responsible. There's no excuse for how easily Outlook Express

and

Quoted message said:

Outlook can be foiled by worms and viruses. There's certainly no excuse

for the

Quoted message said:

lack of built-in smart filtering to deal with spam, which has been mature technology for a couple
of years now.

Outlook and OE have filtering built in. You just have to decide to use it. I used to receive over
200 spam emails per day. Now I receive about 20 because of how I have the filter set up. Set the
filter to delete the spam email from the server and you don't even have to download it. I could get
rid of most of the remaining spam, but then some legitimate email might get deleted.

Viruses and worms have a difficult time getting to me because I have OE set to delete all messages
with attachments from the server immediately.

Some of the bigger ISPs have the option to turn on spam filtering by accessing the web based email
service that they provide. I turned this feature on and a lot of spam was immediately gone. This
rest I catch myself.

"Eric S. Sande" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Everyone beware. Keep your address mungled in some fashion.

Why bother. I'm not ashamed of anything I post and it's easy to reply to me if you choose to do
so, the spam is easily deleted.

Just delete it.

The whole point of the Internet is open access, this might seem naive but it's more clever than
stupid if you think about it.

Just delete it! Eric, in the last 24 hours I have received, I would estimate, approximately 800
copies of this %$#@& worm! Each one is ~150kb. My yahoo in-box holds about 5mb at this time. I have
had to go to my in-box on the order of every two or three minutes to keep the thing from completely
overflowing and shutting out all other mail. It's been probably 10 minutes since I last flushed it
out, and god knows, it's probably completely jammed again.

Just delete it? Eric, would you like to camp in front of my computer all day, and do nothing but
delete it, all day long? That's what yesterday largely looked like. Plus I got a flat on the way
home. And my period, too, to cap it.

Warm Regards,

Claire too [censored] for a sig this morning, just deal