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 how this would work), you don't need a special service. Here are instructions for qmail users for how to set up throwaway addresses:

First, check your home directory (if you have one--if not, sorry, I can't help you) for a file name ".qmail". It will be a hidden file, so do whatever you have to do on your system to list hidden files. If you can log in using telnet or SSH, type "ls .*" and press enter.

If you have a .qmail file, skip this paragraph. If not, you'll need to create one. If you have a directory in your home directory named "Maildir", then the contents of your .qmail file should probably be "./Maildir/" (just one line, without the quote marks). If you have a file named "Mailbox", then it should probably be "./Mailbox" (again, without the quotes). If in doubt, check with your server administrator.

Now that you've got a .qmail file, you can create additional email addresses by making copies of it with new names. For example, if your email address is joe@mycompany.com, you can create a new address joe-throwaway@mycompany.com by copying .qmail to .qmail-throwaway. Whatever you put after ".qmail-" gets added on to "joe-". You can make as may of these as you want, and then email will all end up in your mailbox.

Finally, when you start receiving spam to one of these addresses, create a new one, notify any legitimate senders of the new one, and delete the file for the old one. Any mail sent to the old address after the file is deleted will automatically be bounced back to the sender, and voila! No more spam.

One final note: even if you're protected from spam, it might be a good idea to have a virus/worm filter protecting your email address, because people you know could get infected and accidentally send infected emails or files to you.