A History of Spam

[Lemur]

Here's a well-written essay on the history of spam, starting with the very first bulk email advertisement (DEC's Gary Thuerk on the 1978 Arpanet FTW).

I maintain two email addys, and of the two, I find that Gmail does a much better job of filtering out the spam. It nails almost everything, and I've only had legit mail shunted into the spam folder twice. Not a bad track record.

I've pretty much given up on my friends with Hotmail accounts, however. Try sending them anything, anything at all, and you're rolling the dice. Did you BCC them? They ain't gonna get it. Did you attach a file? The odds are 50-50 it will get there.

What's your experience with the different services? And for those Orgahs who are Admins, what strategies do you use to combat the spammy tide?

[Stig]

I myself have the email address of a normal internet provider, and so have my parents, but I never get spam, and they do. It all has to do where you leave your email address, and if you have those irritating people who send you those mails which everyone sends eachother.
People who forward you every mail are the main cause of spam in my experience ... and they should be shot.


Next to that I admin the forums for the game Aevum Obscurum and there used to be loads of spambots ... hence why I became admin. I looked around the internet for some mods for phpbb2 and I installed one, no bots ever since.

[Husar]

I use gmail and the adress is somewhat long, the filter works nice with the few spam mails I receive sometimes. It's also easy to mark things as spam and vice versa, seems like the system also notices this for the future.

I also have an adress from my ISP that I hardly use, don't remember ever seeing spam there.

Then there is my adress from uni which I also hardly use, can't remember any spam there.

I think one key to less spam is choosing a long adress, I had one with husar@soandso once and that one received a lot of spam.

edit: And usually noone sends/forwards me anything.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Peculiarly, the only e-mail provider I have ever suffered spam on was MSN Hotmail. I changed my e-mail address several times, but the robots still managed to track me down and send me several un-solicited e-mails within a couple of weeks. After so many attempts of finding refuge in an alternative address, I began to wonder how they managed to locate me so efficiently. In the end I just gave up fighting their annoyances and began using my ISP's e-mail address - it's benefits out-weigh it's minor disadvantages.

[drone]

I've pretty much given up on using email at home. Way too much crap (Cox high-speed ISP, no real filtering), and I don't really miss it. At work, we use it for problem reports, but have a pretty hefty filter to the outside world that cuts out most spam. So instead I get work-spam, which is just as bad. Email is dead to me.

Nice article though.

[AntiochusIII]

People who forward you every mail are the main cause of spam in my experience ... and they should be shot.

Damn. Just about all my old friends (in another country than I am in) have been doing that since antiquity. I didn't like it but it never stops. Explains how my hotmail is so badly infected.

They also like social networking services, which I hate hate hate. Gah.

Goddam. And I can't change it either since I use it for college and other stuff.

Spammers, once caught, should be shot on sight.

[naut]

I have a Gmail and Hotmail address. I make sure I never give out my email address so I don't get much spam. I tend to get heaps of rubbish from Apple sent to my Gmail, which is annoying because it's all spam or ads really even though its from a legit source.

[edyzmedieval]

I use Yahoo as my service provider, because it's an online thing. But I also use a fixed provider, and Microsoft Outlook does a pretty good job, but it still passes spam into my Inbox.

[Drisos]

I'm using Hotmail/Live/Whatever.. my parents are using the email services provided by our internet provider. they get tons of spam. I get like 2-3 spam mails in a week. While I've been far more active with my email adress then them. I've been entering it in all kinds of places, registrations etc etc for years, and still, I get very few spam?

[Caius]

I'm using Hotmail/Live/Whatever.. my parents are using the email services provided by our internet provider. they get tons of spam. I get like 2-3 spam mails in a week. While I've been far more active with my email adress then them. I've been entering it in all kinds of places, registrations etc etc for years, and still, I get very few spam?

Using the same, the only problem is in the messenger, I have a lot of unknown contacts.

[Drisos]

Me too But normally they ignore me and I ignore them. Sometimes I get in strange conversations with some. Lately one started talking spanish to me (I don't speak spanish!) Found out that he knows TW, but doesn't know the .org, and never played MP or was on other forums.. so weird enough, he picked the same email adress as someone who used to play stw mp whose adress had expired. coincidence..

I'm not having problems with it, tough.

[edyzmedieval]

I had problems with the messenger. I once got a chinese guy who spoke English, then a girl from Hong Kong, and then a girl from Montreal who asked me if I am the Chinese guy from New York.

What the?!