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What is SPAM?

SPAM is the term used to to define unsolicited email, often sent to thousands of people at once. 99% of these spam messages are illeagal or shady types of deals. I doubt there will ever be anything that is worth purchasing because of spam.

How to kill spam in your favorite newsgroups

Are you tired of having your favorite newsgroup filled up with off topic messages? Well there is a way that you may be able to get rid of those SPAM messages. I have found I can cancel some messages by simply filling in the posters email address in to my identity box in netscape. Then I can go to edit cancel post. It really works, but remember only use it to kill spam. If you have any doubt as to if it is spam then leave it.

I only cancel posts of those spamers that send me spam to my private email. With some ISP you may not be able to kill spam. Try it with other programs and see if it works.

What can you do to keep your name off the SPAM lists -

Spamer's can get your name from newsgroup postings, if you post do not use your real email address or spam proof it some how. Just remember to leave a way for those that want to respond to you by email to find you. This is often done by putting your real email address at the bottom of the page.

As you can see I simply replace cities with a pound sign. The # is not a digit found in email addresses.

By altering the domain name it prevents the spam from getting to your ISP. The spamer message will never leave the ISP of the spamer. This is what we want, why should our ISP be stuck with the spam, keep it in the spamers domain.

Another way to prevent spam is to get your name off of lists. AOL member list is a prime source of email addresses for spamers, take your name off this list. There are many others, when you find one ask for your name to be removed. If ask have your email be unpublished. Most of all be careful who you give your email address to.

Software to help you fight spam

Bounce SPAM Mail - Allows you to send fake email saying your email address is invalid, the hope of this is the spamer will get the message and take your name off the list of people to spam. I don't know how good this works, but it is my favorite to use. It is real easy and the message is quite convincing.

Spamicide - moves the "spam" to a Trash folder and lets your ordinary e-mail program fetch real mail. I have not tried this yet, but if you have email filters you can set up you own system to do the same thing.

Netscape Communicator - This version has email filters. I set it up so that any message without my address in the TO: or CC: is deleted automatically. This works since spamers often use the blind cc field to send email so you can not tell how many hundreds of people got the same message. I sent every thing to the trash for a while to test this out. once I saw it was only trashing SPAM I then deleted it all.

SPAM Attack Pro - SPAM Attack Pro sits in the background and checks your incoming E-Mail against a list of over 2100 known spammers. If a message is determined to be a SPAM, it is either deleted or retrieved to the users hard drive. The user will never see this message. 30 day free trial, I still like the filters in netscape.

SPAM Killer - It screens your mail and automatically deletes unwanted messages. This means you will not have to retrieve, read and delete much of the junk mail that you would otherwise receive. When in doubt, Spam Killer will not delete messages, but mark them as possible spumes. You may then preview the message, and optionally delete it yourself. If you decide you do not want any more messages from that company or individual, you can add the sender to Spam Killer's list of banned addresses. The next time you receive a message from that address, Spam Killer will automatically delete the message for you. Again 30 day trial, etc..

There are more out there, let me know what you like to use.