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Do you hate Spam?. Everybody does, because the people that send
this garbage are totally unscrupulous or maybe even try to steal
directly from you and that is the main reason you should not
receive any Spam email.
Over the years, I developed several lines of defense and a system to prevent practically all Spam to my new email addresses (in fact, I don't received a single Spam in the email I use to receive newsletters in the last 2 years now, and I'm subscribed to more than 100 email newsletters) and I want to share this with you so you can enjoy a clean inbox, free from all the scams, frauds, hacker attempts and other type of malicious activity from the Internet. Defense #1: Whois Information This is only important to know if you own a domain name. The Whois database is a public place which stores the information of the domain owner, his name, address and... email address. This email address is very attractive for spammers because the target is likely the owner of a business on the Internet. Lately, spammers are very cautious about reading this info since it is illegal and some traps have been implemented, but it is better to protect not only from Spam, but also, from identity theft by activating the privacy feature on domain names. Some registrars offers this feature for free and others offer it as a plus, but even if your domain will cost a little more per year, it is definitely worth it Defense #2: Brute Force Protection This is only important for domain name owners. The people sending Spam email are so desperate to gain new email addresses that they won't hesitate to test emails one after another in order to come up with a valid email. This happens this way: the software test: a@domain.com, then b@domain.com and so. When they reach z, they start testing: aa@domain.com, ab@domain.com, and so. Normally the servers are configured to respond with a message: "No such email" when the email doesn't exists, which is an error because when that happens, the hacker know that the others that don't respond really exists. The solution to this is to activate the "Blackhole" option in the email "Default Address Maintenance" inside email options in the control panel of your hosting account. Defense #3: Don't be Naive Sometimes you will receive some emails like:"You like me so much", "Accepted Document" or similar things. The only thing that those spammers are waiting is that you answer those emails in order to verify that someone is there. If you follow the recommendations of this page, there are good chances that you will not receive any Spam, and if you do you will be able to delete the source of Spam immediately. You always have to be very suspicious on the Internet because there are people that do WHATEVER to get a new valid email address. Chain letters where someone requests that you tell other people about some dying child or some important news. Don't pass this chain letters to other people. Some spammers put an unsubscribe link in their emails, but in reality they only confirm that this is a working email address and maybe you will receive more Spam. You can safely unsubscribe from legit newsletters, in fact it is better for the overall Internet that you do this instead of complaining about Spam, but in order to this safely, you should know how to differentiate between what is Spam and what is not. If it has gibberish, rare images, something about Viagra, Penis enlargement, casinos and the email has many errors, you are seeing a Spam and you should NOT use the unsubscribe button. If you use the forwarder method explained later, you will never have to unsubscribe from any Spam. When you receive Spam, only delete the forwarder and the email you use with this person will disappear, but the underlying email will receive email as usual. This is a very powerful way to control the email you receive. Defense #4: Don't Expose Your Email Address The obvious question is: how people will get to you if you don't give them your email address? And the answer is that you should not give your email address DIRECTLY. Instead of this, you give people a contact form in a website and you can see an example in our own website: http://www.SafeComputer.org/contact, which forwards the text to a secret email address, not known even by my mother. In order to host your redirection script, you need a hosting account with PHP language support. If you like our php script, you can send $7 dollars by PayPal and I will send you the script, along with the instructions on how to upload it to your hosting account. When participating at forums, give an super filtered email address such as Hotmail or Yahoo, and if you have a website and want to add your website to the search engines, use a temporary email in your domain and delete it a week after the submissions. Defense #5: Give Each People a Different Email This is a little time consuming, but if you do it, you will have control of many things that with normal email are impossible. The process works as this: the person just filled your contact form and the text was forwarded to your secret Gmail account (he doesn't know the email). Now, if you reply from Gmail, the sender will know the email and if he is a spammer, you are toasted. Suppose your Gmail account is: billshaft_secret@gmail.com and the name of the person that have just written something to you is: Norman Craver. The process is described shortly in this video: Maybe this looks like a lot of work, but it is very fast and you will have to do it only for people with whom you email frequently and that list is probably very short. The other casual contacts (one time, or very few times you can do it with another email). This is all for now. There are more defenses but I will tell you them in the next email. |
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