Spam from Photo.net

I use a service that gives me as many emails addresses as I want. I

use a different one for each service I sign up for to determine who

is spamming me. I just got spam for printer supplies at my photo.net

address.

 

I'm not saying that photo.net sold my email address. But a spammer

got my address from here. Is there any good reason why it's

necessary for other members to see my email address?

I've had the same problem. So I moved my listed address from (something)0 to (something)1. I think that the move to having a twenty second delay before displaying a user's email address is an attempt to stem the tide of spammers trawling photo.net for addresses for personal use. It's a pain, but when you post something to the Internet (especially an email address) at some point it's going to be harvested. I've said it in the past elsewhere and I'll say it here: Spam will be the downfall of email.

Yea -- my oldest (valid) email address is over 15 years old and I'm getting over 100 'spam' messages a week mostly from .cn, .kr, .th. Luckly I send most of the email I get from those countries to > /dev/null. Still it is bloody annoying. Grrrrrr wished I could charge em for the bandwidth usage.

There are ways you can block and/or report SPAM. Take a look at www.spamcop.net.

A little off topic, but, check out www.mailwasher.net....You can bulk delete and/or bounce your spam-mail prior to downloading. You can blacklist (auto delete) individuals or domains !

 

I also think the 20 second delay on email req's from photo.net will help tremendously to curtail trolling.

<blockquote><i>I also think the 20 second delay on email req's

from photo.net will help tremendously to curtail trolling.

</i></blockquote>

I think you meant to write "harvesting" instead of "trolling".

<P>

I disagree. If you set a computer to harvest e-mail addressess,

having a 20 second delay just means it takes longer. Since the

computer can run unattended, 24 hours a day, there is little

hinderence other than to other photo.net members legitimately

wanting to find an e-mail address to write an e-mail reply.

<P>

Alternatives? How about:<br>

. A web form to send e-mail directly from photo.net

(and not divulge the address of the recipient)?<br>

. Encode the e-mail address as a human-readable image?

Harvesting....that's what I meant.....really I did. :-)

 

More time = less volume. But I like your alternatives better.

 

Cheers.

<i>...If you set a computer to harvest e-mail addressess, having a 20 second delay just means it takes longer. Since the computer can run unattended, 24 hours a day, there is little hinderence other than to other photo.net members legitimately wanting to find an e-mail address to write an e-mail reply.</i><p>

Maybe Brian will jump in here to confirm but I believe that there is a method in place to detect that kind of activity.

The 20 second delay is only part of the defense. If you don't actually put your email address in the clear in a forum posting, it is now quite hard for anyone to harvest any significant number of addresses from photo.net. We know of one incident in the past where some unknown number of addresses were gathered before we intervened, and it is possible that somebody is selling these addresses, but we think this is now a lot more difficult. If you think I am wrong and would like to tell me about it, I would be very appreciative.

 

A photo.net member can still manually gather a few addresses of other members, but this isn't usually of any great interest to spammers.

Brian,

 

When did you implement your procedures? My email address was created May 8/02.

<i>Spam will be the downfall of email.</i>

<p>

If this were true, wouldn't telemarketers have killed Ma Bell by now?

Brian

 

You can still mine certain parts of photo.net quite easily and grab unprotected email addresses. I'd better not say how here in the open though. I'll send email.

Peter, we did it after that, but the harvesting incident that we know about was before that. This doesn't mean that there wasn't another raid after you created your account and before we put in place our current measures. I just learned of another place where addresses can be found, although in relatively low volumes. I'll close that loophole soon. Perhaps Bob is going to email me about some colossal loophole, and I'm going to be red-faced. Anyway, we are trying to protect the email addresses short of totally hiding them, or becoming the intermediary in every email exchange between members.

I have found that yahoo does a pretty good job of filtering spam. Right now, there are 182 messages automatically placed into "Bulk" folder of my mailbox (in the event if I feel like reading spam), and I did not have to see any of them.

 

If spam get through, you just click on a button that reports message to yahoo support and they take care of it.

I wish they'd make it a federal crime to spam anybody, period. I've even gotten spammed by the Republican National Committee!!! Can you believe that? Me, of all people, spammed by THEM.

GT toner supplies can suck my hicky dicky. I get the same spam to my special photonet email address at least once a month.

You could always make it optional to show your email address. Me, I've always preferred to deal with the spam rather than hinder any legitimate person trying to talk to me. I love getting real mail and don't want to get in the way. :) But others might rather lose the communication from other members and just keep the emails that are generated by photo.net itself.

To institute optional tax for sending e-mail, let us say 1 cent per message.

 

Not that much for real communication, but enough to make spam business unprofitable.

 

Tax is charged by service providers. Sender has per-message option whether to pay this tax or not. If he pays, provider includes digitally signed header saying tax was payed. Header is analyzed and is either accepted as trusted or rejected by receiving machine using conventional certificate chain authentication technologies.

 

Receptient has (1) global option in account preferences whether he wishes to receive unpaid mail; (2) filter of addresses or zones that may deliver unpayed messages (i.e. known friends or relatives).

 

If message is rejected, it is bounced back as undeliverable.

 

Tax can be payed to the government, UN fund, or (for die-hard libertarians) simply carried in the header from sender's VISA account to recepient's AmEx account (accumulated by provider and forwarded to bank or credit company on monthly or similar basis).

 

False header generation is persecuted along the same lines and existing laws as financial/credit card/Enron fraud.

 

Now, if anyone reading this happens to have a lunch with his representative...

 

(Special note for government haters: deployment of the above scheme does not require government or other dedicated central hub, other than existing infrastructure of certificate issuing companies and law-enforcement agencies. The latter is optional, since certificates are revokeable, but desirable for greater efficiency of the scheme and to minimize permutations to it.)

Michelle, I don't see the option to hide my email address.

You mena those poor guys in Nigeria who are trapped there

aren't actually going to deposit several million dollars in my bank

account for safe keeping? Darn!

One thing that left me wondering after reading this thread is if poor guys on the other side of support@hp.com have to spend half of their time sorting through the messages offering them to fix their credit history, save on life insurance, look at xxx pictures or try ointment for growing hair -- all as part of their daily job.

Here perhaps is an overlooked solution to the spam issue - at least, as regards photo.net: If I'm not mistaken, Phil G's/ars digita's anti-spam filters are exceptionally robust; and, if my experience is any indication, Phil implemented them on photo.net mail servers. I came to this conclusion (perhaps Brian can corroborate?) based purely on my own experience here.<P>

 

For six years the amount of spam sent to my hotmail account was negligable. Within a couple of months of listing that address here, however, the amount of spam sent to it went through the roof (eventually resulting in my having to virtually stop using the account). Upon joining photo.net (paying the $25 fee) and listing my address as "@photo.net" - thereby <I>filtering the mail through p-net's servers</I>, which then forwarded it to another address - the spam dropped to near zero (in the last several months I've had maybe three spam messages). This other account is at yahoo, so maybe their filtering, as well, has something to do with it.

Aside to Ellis: Actually, Ellis, while what you say about the Nigerian fellows is true, it happens that I have - and please keep this under your hat - several million drachma in need of a parking place. Just deposit a few hundred in my account as a show of good faith.

Peter - As far as I know, there isn't one. That's why I suggested they add the option. :)

About photo.net filtering spam: I don't see that happening. I included my photo.net email address below the articles I've written (so that people can contact me personally with questions or comments if they don't feel like leaving a comment on the page itself). Within a few weeks of adding the address, I started to receive spam on my photo.net address. Weird.