Consulting the Geek Oracle: Spam

[Nanohedron]

My email has had a pretty spam-free existence up to now. But today I checked it, and what should I find but well over 400 spammings, and they keep coming. This is totally new and uncharacteristic. Any ideas as to what I can do about this?

[Peter Duggan]

http://www.firetrust.com/products/mailwasher-pro

There's apparently a free version too, but I've used Pro for many years.

[kkrell]

I use SpamHero.com, $5/month, & worth it to me. Better than filtering from my domain.

[Tor]

I moved my personal email account to gmail, with all that implies - but it gives me spam-free living. Well, there's a spam folder, and I empty it now and then - the number of false positives is nearly zero (0.000x or better), and it seems to catch absolutely everything.

Incidentally, I didn't have any spam at all until I emailed somebody that clearly had some problems with their setup - probably malware stealing all their contacts (and those were probably auto-generated from every email they had ever received).

Same happened to my father. No spam at all, communicated with three or four people for years, then a single time with someone who he met on a travel - *bam* hundreds of spam messages, and continuing to this day. Fortunately gmail as well, so it all goes into the spam box.

[An Draighean]

Like Tor, I have a free gmail account that I use to sign-up and register for everything, and that I give to everyone I meet.

I own several domains and use two of them for businesses that I own; only clients, partners, family, my pipe maker, and proven trusted friends get those email addresses. I run the mail on those through the Microsoft Exchange server (small cost per year), and they catch 99.7% of the (few) pieces of spam that manage to find me on those.

Honestly, what irritates me more than spam is people that forward me "cute" emails and chain mail, on purpose.

[Innocent Bystander]

I have four email accounts, two of which I hardly use. My work email gets about ten spam emails a day. That's not counting the ones that Microsoft (Bless 'em!) send me to tell me about their wonderful new box of tricks this week - despite the fact that I'm on the wrong continent.
The two dead-ish email accounts get some dross now and then - even the gmail one.
The hotmail account, which is my go-to account gets about a hundred spam a week, and I clear out the junk folder every few days. I'm well aware that hotmail is not secure. I know that bots have trolled it for its addresses and I will keep getting this stuff. But it's the devil I know. One day I might actually unsubscribe from every online vendor I've ever bought from ("You are important to us"!) but until then it's a regular trawl through my junk folder to see if there is anything worth shifting. Now and then there is.

Here's a cautionary tale. Some friends had set up a business valeting yachts. Apparently they did good business for a while. Then they upgraded their computer. (Singular.) Someone I know - not me, thank goodness - was given the task of clearing down the malware they managed to get on it, and they did, but slowly, the business died. Why?
They never looked in their spam folder. They just left it alone, and periodically it got cleared out. So anyone new who emailed them for work - they never found it. No new business? Slow death.

No advice to offer, I'm afraid. But I thought I'd share this little tale with you.

[Nanohedron]

I moved my personal email account to gmail, with all that implies - but it gives me spam-free living.

Yep, that's me. Gmail. Used to be almost totally spam-free for years, but apparently that honeymoon is over.