On Tue, 24 Sep 2002 21:31:50 +0900, Tom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I have recently been getting spam from "herbal remedy"
>dealers. I wonder if they mined the list for e-mail
>addresses? Anyone else see this recently?

Preventing spam is virtually impossible.

I once signed up for a new account with email with Earthlink (who, by the way,
have the reputation of being very anti-spam).   However, after signing up, I
didn't have time to do anything at all about the account for a week, and gave
the address to no one.

A week after getting the account, I checked the email (there is always a
"Hello, Welcome to..." email which is a good test that one has setup email
retrieval correctly) and there was about a dozen spam email messages.

So, even if you don't give out the address, you are going to get spam.

The best option is to setup a filter in your email program to put the spam in a
separate folder (check the program help files, or read a web site about the
program to find out how to do that) and then check it about once a week to see
if something worthwhile ended up being sorted to there, like an email from
grandma...


--
Cheers,

Ken
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