SPF is an emerging standard that let’s the owners of domain names tell people who receive email claiming to be from that domain name which SMTP servers are allowed to send email from that domain name. That’s a slightly complex sentence, so let me give you an example. Then I’ll make a note or two [...]

Every time I hear someone suggest the idea of using an RSS client to access their email, it boggles my mind anew. I can understand people casting about for a solution to the problem of spam (and the flood of legitimate email some people receive, for that matter), and the fact that newsfeed items disappear [...]

We all know that keeping computers up-to-date on security patches is important to fight computer viruses and worms, but did you know that it also helps reduce spam? For around a year now, spammers have been writing worms of their own (or paying someone else to do so) which infect vulnerable computers and use them [...]

Back in March, I wrote about using throwaway email addresses–addresses that you use in places you’re afraid you might get spam from and then delete if spam starts coming in. Services are available online that offer throwaway addresses. But if you’re mail server runs qmail (and probably if it runs other software–I just don’t know [...]

One spam solution I’ve often heard bandied about is to launch DDoS attacks against the perpetrators. This would be done by having spam filters automatically load and reload every web page linked to from email it identifies as spam, and perhaps crawl the websites pointed to. With enough spam filters responding this way, the spammers’ [...]

In April 82% of email was spam–a new record. And yet, 36% of those using spam filters don’t refine them after initial installation. Even worse, 28% of companies in the same survey don’t use spam filters at all. I read these statistics, and they sound alarming. Why would so many people leave themselves so woefully [...]

Yesterday, I questioned whether legislation can stop spam. Today, I found and article discussing whether technological solutions can stop spam. The level of optimism in the article seems about on par with the level of success that technology is having in blocking spam: it helps, but the battle is far from over.
One proposed solution addressed [...]

If you’re like me, you’ve seen not a decrease, but a dramatic increase in spam since the US anti-spam law was enacted. Why is this? Honestly, I don’t know. Does it mean that anti-spam legislation doesn’t work? It’s obviously not a cure-all. But last month, the first four spammers were charged under the act. While [...]

One source of email addresses for spammers is email messages that have been sent to groups or forwarded from one person to another. Today, I’ll talk about how to avoid giving out your friends’ email addresses when you email them.
We’ll start with forwarding. When someone sends you a message and you forward it to someone [...]

A number of services are available these days which offer what they call throwaway email addresses. These are addresses that you use when you don’t want to reveal your regular email address. Once they’ve served their purpose, you stop using them, so it doesn’t matter if they get added a spammer’s mail list.
An example of [...]