Spam: Prevention is Key

I have three different email accounts that I check daily. Each account gets a different amount of spam. Each account gets spam for slightly different reasons.

My first account is nearly free of unwanted messages. It's used with my, "day job" for things related to that day job. It probably gets about 4 or 5 pieces of spam daily. Most of those messages are the result of having, "registered" for something semi-legitimate online without unchecking the "keep me updated about your business" box. A lot of these messages aren't even really spam in the worst sense of the word. They were in effect requested, but just not that intentionally.

The account has a fairly obscure name, so large scale efforts to send messages to every common account name in the domain usually don't hit it. The email address is not published online anyplace that I know of.

My second account is related to the SpamButcher spam filter. It gets about 40 pieces of spam each day. This account has several aliases, all of which have common names. These addresses are also published numerous times on high-profile websites. This account is about 4 years old, which isn't entirely ancient by internet standards. As a result, it's not included in a lot of the spammer's, "master lists" as of yet.

My last account is a nightmare account. It gets around 350 pieces of junk email each day. There are a number of reasons.

First, it's old. The mistakes I made with this account 10 years ago are still haunting me. It's had plenty of time to migrate from small-scale spammers' private lists to major spam-lists which are sold on ebay.

Second, my "friends" (in this case I use the term lightly) have sent me dozens of e-cards over the years. E-cards themselves border on spam, but a lot of the nastier ones in fact sign up the target account for spam.

Thirdly, back in the day this account was used to register dozens of domains. Up until around 2000, the entire database of internet domains and contacts was entirely public. Being in it meant getting spam.

Fourth, the account does appear online in several locations.

Fifth, I probably signed up for some opt-in services over the years without knowing it. I know better now.

So, the lesson is that your behavior does impact how much spam you get. If your spam blocking software is blocking 95% of 20 emails daily, vs. 500 email daily, you'll clearly be a lot better off. Choose your actions wisely.

Back