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Open thread: Favorite spam blocker service?
Merlin Mann | May 21 2006
I've been relatively fortunate with filtering spam over the past couple years (knock on wood). But despite a kickass three-tiered system that includes the world-beating server-side Sieve, plus Mail.app's pretty good client filtering, it's inevitable that even my best-loved private email addresses would find their way into the wrong hands (it's why I recently created "ThanksNo.com" -- an experiment in social re-engineering that you are free to use as well). So, now that the spelling-impaired Lords of The Dark Side have such renewed interest in my investment options and genital proportions, I'm considering joining a service like Spam Arrest or the apparently deceased Knowspam. I mostly plan to run this on the addresses I use for strictly personal stuff, so I'm satisfied I can start with a "whitelist" to ensure I don't generate loops or dead ends for the "good" senders. But, you tell me... Apart from running smart filters on your server and in your mail client, what's the best way to protect a mydomain.com-type email address from becoming compromised and punked-out? What are the dangers and cons of using a challenge/response service like Spam Arrest? Apart from abandoning it wholesale, what's the most effective and non-annoying way to rehabilitate a compromised address? 57 Comments
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 I abhor challenge response systems,...Submitted by Zeb (not verified) on May 21, 2006 - 3:32pm.
I abhor challenge response systems, too. I've been using disposable email addresses via Mailshell for years, since spam meant lunchmeat. They don't seem to advertise their consumer service. I think they make it incredibly hard to figure out that they even offer a free service. As far as I know, though, you can still sign up for a free account. See http://www.mailshell.com/mail/client/visitortour.html/step/5#3. What this service does for you is let you create a new disposable address (by way of unlimited aliases) for any and every signup you make online. E.g. vendor@chooseyoursubdomain.mailshell.com, or amazon@merlin.mailshell.com. You can direct mailshell to forward all disposable emails to one genuine email address. If you get spammed at any of those addresses, you can just delete the disposable address via Mailshell's admin. It helps me get out in front of spam. It does not help clean your existing address -- unless you buy mailshell premium service. I find the free version adequate for my needs -- I cannot attest to the quality of their paid product. Using the disposable addresses, I sign up for all kinds of crap but keep my genuine emails very clean -- only about 5 spam emails per (per account) reach me a day. I recognize this is just a part of a total spam solution, but it has been the most effective spam fighting agent for me for a very long time... » POSTED IN:
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