What kind of a lowlife loser becomes a spammer? Or, worse, a forum spammer, someone who spends their time going from forum to forum sending "personal messages" to people in the pathetic hope that they'll click the link that sends them to a mal/spy/ad-ware site brimming with viruses and other digital nasties?
Of course they aren't doing it because they think they are the scum of the earth, though maybe some do and they relish being the lowest form of life on the ladder.
If there were no financial incentive then that would weed out the vast majority of the jackasses. There would probably still be some griefers that get their jollies by pissing in other people's cornflakes but there will always be trolls and douchebags like that. It is the people that do it as their living that really annoy me.
One of the people I follow on Twitter got something like 220 spam comments on his blog yesterday morning. To what end? Those comments get deleted, the IP's used to leave them get blocked and yet there will be hundreds more today. It is an endlessly frustrating cycle of annoyance, persistence and jackassery.
Also, I'd like to understand how GMail is able to block 99% of the spam I get and Yahoo Mail is able to block maybe 20%? Seems a little ridiculous. Especially when many of the spams have the exact same message sent from the same person. No wonder Yahoo continues to circle the drain, Google does what they do better in almost every way. If Google ever gets into the fantasy sports game then it'll be lights out on Yahoo for me completely.
Showing posts with label email. Show all posts
Showing posts with label email. Show all posts
4.03.2009
Simple Protective Measures
There are an awful lot of people on the internet that don't know some basic mechanisms to protect themselves from identity theft online. So I thought I'd share a few.
Spam is garbage or snake oil. Do not ever respond to it. Don't reply, don't click links and don't ever, ever, ever buy something from spam. At best you are supporting a grey market. At worst, buying from spam infects your computer with malware or spyware, turns your PC into a soldier in a zombie computer army, makes your cat lose her hair and gives the spammers more reasons to keep spreading their annoying and badly spelled spiels. Do Not Respond to Spam. Ever.
Phishing - this is an attempt by a scammer to get you to click a link in an email and go to a site that looks like your bank or Ebay or whatever the flavor of the day is, enter your personal information or update it and then they own you. There are several easy things to do to prevent this from happening.
Here are some things you can do to better protect yourself:
- Don't click links in email. Period.
- Type the url of the site in question in the address bar and go there under your own direction.
- Remember that banks and Ebay and other sites will never, ever, ever require you to submit information based on an email.
- Put your cursor over the link but don't click it. See where it is about to direct you in the status bar at the bottom of your browser window (note, you may need to turn this on under the View menu).
- Use FireFox.
- One thing that phishers do regularly is forget to spell check their spam. Banks and other reputable companies do not email badly spelled missives. Misspelled words are a pretty clear indication that its a phishing attempt.
- When in doubt, call the "sending" company and ask them if they sent it (of course, don't use any contact info contact in the email for this).
- Check which email address the email is sent to. I use specific email accounts for specific uses, if I get a bank email to my intellectualpoison.com account, I know its fake.
- Similarly, check who sent it. If the name attached to the email bears no resemblance to sender then its a good bet that its a scam/phishing attempt. Honest people do not feel the need to hide their identities.
- Use Gmail. Google puts alot of effort into identifying scams and letting users know about them. They can help head off most attempts for you. Yahoo Mail, by contrast, appears to have no filter whatsoever and delivers nearly every piece of crap to my in-box.
- If the offer is too good to be true then it probably is.
If you take most of this advice to heart then you are unlikely to fall prey to a phishing attempt and/or spam marketing. If there is no market, i.e. nobody falls for it, then spam will die off. The only reason there is spam is because people keep falling for it.
Spam is garbage or snake oil. Do not ever respond to it. Don't reply, don't click links and don't ever, ever, ever buy something from spam. At best you are supporting a grey market. At worst, buying from spam infects your computer with malware or spyware, turns your PC into a soldier in a zombie computer army, makes your cat lose her hair and gives the spammers more reasons to keep spreading their annoying and badly spelled spiels. Do Not Respond to Spam. Ever.
Phishing - this is an attempt by a scammer to get you to click a link in an email and go to a site that looks like your bank or Ebay or whatever the flavor of the day is, enter your personal information or update it and then they own you. There are several easy things to do to prevent this from happening.
Here are some things you can do to better protect yourself:
- Don't click links in email. Period.
- Type the url of the site in question in the address bar and go there under your own direction.
- Remember that banks and Ebay and other sites will never, ever, ever require you to submit information based on an email.
- Put your cursor over the link but don't click it. See where it is about to direct you in the status bar at the bottom of your browser window (note, you may need to turn this on under the View menu).
- Use FireFox.
- One thing that phishers do regularly is forget to spell check their spam. Banks and other reputable companies do not email badly spelled missives. Misspelled words are a pretty clear indication that its a phishing attempt.
- When in doubt, call the "sending" company and ask them if they sent it (of course, don't use any contact info contact in the email for this).
- Check which email address the email is sent to. I use specific email accounts for specific uses, if I get a bank email to my intellectualpoison.com account, I know its fake.
- Similarly, check who sent it. If the name attached to the email bears no resemblance to sender then its a good bet that its a scam/phishing attempt. Honest people do not feel the need to hide their identities.
- Use Gmail. Google puts alot of effort into identifying scams and letting users know about them. They can help head off most attempts for you. Yahoo Mail, by contrast, appears to have no filter whatsoever and delivers nearly every piece of crap to my in-box.
- If the offer is too good to be true then it probably is.
If you take most of this advice to heart then you are unlikely to fall prey to a phishing attempt and/or spam marketing. If there is no market, i.e. nobody falls for it, then spam will die off. The only reason there is spam is because people keep falling for it.
8.16.2007
Confirmation of a Suspicion
You know, I've always had a distrust of Gmail and I've now had it validated in the course of trying to get Disk Warrior 4.0 delivered. They strip emails with zip attachments as a matter of course in the war against spam. Which is a problem if I'm expecting and need that freakin' zip file.
I am all for fighting spam but not at the expense of my legitimate email.
I've often thought that my Gmail sent emails aren't being delivered or are being tagged as spam and trash canned. I sent an email to my extended family a little while ago and didn't get a single response. Which tells me that my family doesn't like me very much or that the Gmail address doesn't get through.
So I guess I need to figure out a new email system because I can't have my mail getting blocked by a spam filter either coming or going. I appreciate the thought but the reality is that it makes my life alot more difficult and I don't need more difficult, I need easier, smoother and less hassles.
Oh yeah, the tech support guy at Alsoft (who was very helpful) let me know that I will likely not be able to recover all of my data on the dying/dead drive. Great! At this point, I want as much as I can get.
Has anyone else had problems with Gmail blocking or getting blocked?
I am all for fighting spam but not at the expense of my legitimate email.
I've often thought that my Gmail sent emails aren't being delivered or are being tagged as spam and trash canned. I sent an email to my extended family a little while ago and didn't get a single response. Which tells me that my family doesn't like me very much or that the Gmail address doesn't get through.
So I guess I need to figure out a new email system because I can't have my mail getting blocked by a spam filter either coming or going. I appreciate the thought but the reality is that it makes my life alot more difficult and I don't need more difficult, I need easier, smoother and less hassles.
Oh yeah, the tech support guy at Alsoft (who was very helpful) let me know that I will likely not be able to recover all of my data on the dying/dead drive. Great! At this point, I want as much as I can get.
Has anyone else had problems with Gmail blocking or getting blocked?
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