[OT] Finally.. the evil of SPAM is being defeated!

[Tsyr]

200 a day? *laughs*

I went for 6 days once without checking my e-mail. I had well over 2000 emails waiting when I returned. Mind you, the e-mail adress in question I've had for something like 5 or 6 years now. But I don't give my e-mail adress out any more than I can help.

Without a good anti-spam program, I couldn't even *use* email... Even with it set up as strictly as I can make it and not risk blocking real stuff as well, that over 2000 email list was only reduced to about 300 to sort though.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

This will not change things.

The spammers will just move offshore.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I think my big problem with spam is this...

I recently got my daughter her own email account, on our dialup ISP. She went to the Nicolodean site, the cartoon network site, and other places.

Two days later she got a "RAPE PORN HERE!" email with a sexually explicit picture.

Hundreds of email a day hit my email addy. Nearly all of them spam (I've had this email address since 1997) and some of them absolutely disgusting.

They just fire this stuff off to email addy's. If I opened my mailbox, an open Hustler isn't going to fall out. They don't know if the email is a child or not, they just send it.

And despite my love for free speech and freedom of expression, the line needs to get drawn.

 

[Mercule]

i must have had a different experience, 200+ a day seems insane.

Depending on ISP and your activity level, this sounds fair to me. It's also the reason why I no longer use MSN (my ISP was bought out, otherwise, I never would have tried it in the first place).

When I switched to MSN, it took me a couple of days to set up my computer for the new servers, etc. (it was Thanksgiving or something). By the time I downloaded my first batch of email, I had 50+ spams, most for porn, viagra (I'm 30, try back in 30 years), or breast enhancements (I'm a _man_, the last thing I want to bigger breasts). Needless to say, I hadn't been surfing the web in that time, so no one picked up my ID that way. I hadn't even given out my email to friends and family. I shudder to think what it would have been like if I'd kept MSN for very long.

FWIW, I'm usually very carefull with me email address. My current email was fine until I started doing some job searches. Believe it or not, once I signed up for Monster, etc. I started getting a significant chunk of spam. It's sad when you can't even give out your email when you're looking for a job.

There's a reason I always use a pseudonym on the web. I really don't care if most of the people on this board or the DnD-L know my real name. You just never know who else is going to pick things up.

 

[Morrus]

why is this kind of emotion not felt towards junk mail, which is much more damaging to the environment, or telemarketting, which wastes more time?

why the particular hatred for spam?

I hate junk mail equally. I've never received a call from a telemarketer.

Spam, though, is the worst in my case. I used to get over 100 spam items a day until I had to change my email address. It has started to build up again.

Also, the nature of email spam tends to be different to regular junk mail. I'm not so averse to receiving something about a new pizza place in town as I am to receiving explicit emails about pornography and such.

 

[KB9JMQ]

As head tech support / owner of a very small independent ISP I can say Spam SUCKS !!!

I would guess a third of my bandwidth is used by worthless spam either making it through or bouncing back. My email servers are in constant need of upgrading due to the workload they are under. Spam costs ISPs money.

We stop over 2.5 Million pieces a day and we have less than 2000 customers. We have a test account to count spam and it will get between 100 - 300 daily. It is ridiculous.

I wont say more due to Eric's Grandma

Darrin

 

[EricNoah]

I have found that a $30 investment in spam-filtering software has been totally worth it. I would easily pay $30 to filter out telemarketers.

 

[Gez]

Junk mail is costly for those who send it. They *pay* for each sample, for the paper, the ink, and the mailing.

Spam cost nothing at all.

As a result, junk e-mail is much more invasive than junk snailmail. Much more people send spam, and they do this much more often.

The nature of spam is also 90% of time obscene, and 100% of time useless (what need do I have of mortgage stuff from a company based in the states ?). Junk paper mail is at least somewhat relevant (you are in the proper geographical region).

Finally, spam is usually dishonest: the originating adress is hidden or scrambled so as to prevent you from knowing who really send it to you, and make adress-blocking software less efficient. I've banned all adress from "@yahoo.com", for example, as I received too much spam from yahoo adresses. However, I couldn't block the domain hotmail and AOL, because I do have friends or family who use them...

Unwanted paper mail is easier to avoid. Often, a "No advertising here" mark on the mailbox is enough.

 

[Psion]

why is this kind of emotion not felt towards junk mail, which is much more damaging to the environment, or telemarketting, which wastes more time?

why the particular hatred for spam?

Who says I don't. I ask the credit agencies and marketing agencies not to contact me...

That said, two points:
1) Junk mail, while annoying, is usually honest. I can open a peice of junk mail with promises of low mortgage rates and get an offer to refinance my home. I never get a peice of junk mail pretending to be from one of my friends of business associates.

Junk mail and telemarketers have to have some sort of authentic pitch or they go out of bunisess. They have to pay for postage, printing, paper, and call centers.

Junk email is under no such obligation. A junk email program with a good harvester can email MILLIONS of people for under $100 dollars, and costs companies and individuals way more in terms of employee/personal time and bandwidth/email handling than the paltry amount that the emailer makes. Basicall, junk email is like junk mail sent postage due.

2) Junk mailers don't forge their return address to mine. I have been able to filter my junkmail to a trickle (1 orr 2 a day), but recently, I started getting returned email with my return address on them sent by a spammer... which I obviously never sent. This makes me really angry, much more so than anything junk mailers could ever hope to do.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Does anyone remember the big time SPAM guy who built the million dollar house I believe in the Detroit area?

A less than friendly reporter did an article on him and just happened to include his REAL mailing address.

Within days he was receiving hundreds of pieces of junk mail (real mail not email) every single day as angry people signed him up for every single free offer or junkmail offer they could find.