Comments for Anti spam and general email security in a business environment

Comment on CAPTCHA Cracked Again by Diego Peña

Diego Peña — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:47:59 +0000

I agree with you Martin… but with captcha you can keep out a lot of spammers and bots not all of them but a great number will not be able to login.

Comment on Celebrity Spam Club by Steve Deangelo

Steve Deangelo — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:16:58 +0000

When I received emails and Facebook messages & status posts from several friends that Whitney Houston is dead I though it was another instance of celebrity death scam. Well, I was wrong. Because of these so-called death scams, I don’t believe anymore online news about a certain famous person’s death.

My remedy to this is to always verify news on reputable news agencies such as CNN, Fox, and BBC. Some Hollywood gossip websites are full of false news. Yes, TMZ and Perez Hilton are not reputable sources – much more to those unpopular blog sites who are only after Google Adsense revenues.

Comment on Hotmail Contest Pits Webmail Providers Against Each Other In Spam Battle by Jake Levovitz

Jake Levovitz — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:37:27 +0000

I both have Gmail and YahooMail email accounts for almost seven years now. I used them for personal and work purposes (almost always at the same time using a POP3 forwarder). Why the two accounts you may ask? It’s because I’m a freelance web and apps developer for two companies. I use one account for one client.

What I noticed is that Yahoomail tends to receive and unfilter junk mails more than Gmail especially spam emails with real estate, care to know you, and pharmacy topics. Although Gmail has also its share of spams, Yahoomail tops the numbers for the past seven years. For now, I love what Google is doing specifically on its Gmail Labs tool.

Comment on Canadian Anti-Spam Law: High Time or Orwellian Nightmare? by Johanna Matthews

Johanna Matthews — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:24:16 +0000

The $1 million per infraction for individuals is too harsh – much more the $10 million for enterprises. This is the reason why the Internet industry (specifically on the business areas of SEO, Internet marketing, web & software development, apps, and the likes) in Canada is not as booming as the ones in the United States and Europe. The country even lagged behind the online emerging markets of India, China and Russia.

This is one of the bad sides of having a very strict anti-spam law. The Canadian government should realize that in order for businessmen and investors to pour in some money towards their Internet industry, they should give some slack and un-tighten some regulations.

Comment on Oregon Legislator Dubbed Spam King by Johanna Matthews

Johanna Matthews — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:13:16 +0000

I don’t think that what State Representative Dennis Richardson did can be considered as spam. Sending massive emails for and with a cause can’t be considered as a spam for two main reasons. First, the content of these messages has a definite purpose – and that is to inform the receivers about something important. Second, these emails are non-profit. Did Richardson earned something out from this? I doubt he did.

We can’t just accuse others as spammers or “SPAM KING” for that matter without divulging to the main issue. In fact, I commend Richardson for what he did. Nowadays, email is the fastest way to connect and re-connect to your constituents.

Comment on 5 Ways Your Users Can Help You Fight Spam by Joseph Clay

Joseph Clay — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:48:45 +0000

The advice you give is sound one and all these steps do help. However, the hardest is to make users contribute to your spam efforts. Without them, no admin can fight spam successfully. Unfortunately, it is common to hear that spam is not my problem because we have an IT guy to deal with it.

Comment on Top 10 Spam Trigger Words by Joseph Clay

Joseph Clay — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:44:17 +0000

At first, I also thought that “free” must be at the top of the list but maybe “free” has gone out of fashion because it is the first word that is entered in spam filters and because of this spammers had to diversify their wording.
Also, another common tactic is to start the subject line with “Re:” to make you think you have written them and they are simply responding.

Comment on 9 States Now Selling Email Addresses to Political Spammers by Eve Leigh

Eve Leigh — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:40:35 +0000

Yes, political spam is about free speech – MY voiced desire NOT to be contacted and they are not obeying it! Political spammers seem privileged in many ways, which isn’t fair – they are just spammers, like the rest. The worst is they are using MY money to spam me!

Comment on Canadian Anti-Spam Law: High Time or Orwellian Nightmare? by Jessica R.

Jessica R. — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:36:13 +0000

I think we have come to the crucial point to decide if we value freedom more than being spam free. I regret to admit but when basic human rights are at stake, I can take all the spam but remain free. This must be good news for spammers but actually we need to admit that we can’t fight spam without compromising basic rights of ours. The spammers have won the war.

Comment on Spamfighting Bootcamp Week 2: Beware of Friendly Fire by Eve Leigh

Eve Leigh — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:32:26 +0000

All these steps are fine – we must do our homework for sure but wouldn’t it be nice to ask the receiving parties to put us in a whitelist? This will help much more, I think.

Comment on Celebrity Spam Club by Kim Parker

Kim Parker — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:03:21 +0000

Btw, it was from a legit email – i.e. a mail list about TECHNOLOGY I had subscribed to that I learned the unfortunate news about the death of Whitney Huston. At first it looked surprising to have a TECH email with a headline about her and of course I had doubts, even though I know this particular emailer isn’t a spammer or scammer but then I checked with the mainstream media and it turned out to be true. Probably the sender was a huge fan of Whitney’s and this is why he put the news about her death in the subject line.

Comment on Oregon Legislator Dubbed Spam King by Eve Leigh

Eve Leigh — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 07:57:57 +0000

Haha! Politicians go tech! To me this sounds more like lack of knowledge what spam is and where the boundary of legitimate email use lies. Still, this is no excuse.
I think that even though an address is in the public record requests, it still should require explicit consent from the user, especially for sending newsletters.

Comment on ASU vs. change.org: Spam or Free Speech? by Malcolm James

Malcolm James — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:08:40 +0000

@Kevin

Are you the Kevin I used to know who worked for Coca-Cola? Of course you’re not, but a shout-out to you either way. I must agree with you on this one. There’s no acceptable precedent that opens the door for unsolicited spam. Unsolicited is unsolicited. Here endeth the lesson.

Comment on Canadian Anti-Spam Law: High Time or Orwellian Nightmare? by Malcolm James

Malcolm James — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:06:34 +0000

@Chad,

Really good points. Interesting that several EU countries have backed out, too. I don’t have an opinion either way, but it does look like the legislation is dying on the vine.

Comment on Spamfighting Bootcamp Week 2: Beware of Friendly Fire by Johanna Matthews

Johanna Matthews — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:00:03 +0000

All Internet marketers and online entrepreneurs have the most sacred cardinal rule of all – and that is to put an unsubscribe option to every newsletter, email campaign, and subscription journals. This can either be a link or a button.

If you are a budding online businessman or is planning to put up an Internet enterprise, and you don’t know about unsubscribe options or opt-in lists, then you have no right to be one.

In this day and age where social media can spread the word easily about your business, labeling you as a “spammer” can wreak your enterprise into pieces.

Comment on Celebrity Spam Club by Kevin Fraseir

Kevin Fraseir — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:39:14 +0000

We can’t blame the spammers – Hollywood celebrities, athletes, TV personalities, and politicians are great junk mail subjects. Their lives are too interesting and therefore worth reading – not to mention worth our precious time.

But I pity users who STILL fall victim to this kind of spam technique. I mean this method is sooooo 2008. It’s already an old news. AND don’t get me started with the fake death news. Comeooon people. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the spam book. If I were the spammer, I would resort to new techniques of spamming and phishing attacks.

Comment on Oregon Legislator Dubbed Spam King by Chad Martinez

Chad Martinez — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:14:34 +0000

Very few things that you would need to file with a government office explicity require an email address, and so it’s only provided if you elect to do so. That being said, writing your email down on a form with today’s disclosures and public records legislations is just as dangerous as posting it on a public forum. If you think it’s a bad idea, don’t do it. And if someone is forcing you into it, have a dumpster account where it won’t get to distracting you.

Comment on Canadian Anti-Spam Law: High Time or Orwellian Nightmare? by Chad Martinez

Chad Martinez — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:11:44 +0000

People can’t have it both ways though, and that’s the biggest problem facing legislation such as this. For decades now, the internet has been treated like international waters in terms of free speech and content, and yet if somebody gets hacked or spammed, they want law enforcement to step in and do something. If you want to subject a series of laws to an area, you need a body of government to draft and enforce those laws, ultimately dictating what it thinks is best for its “citizens.”

Comment on Hotmail Contest Pits Webmail Providers Against Each Other In Spam Battle by Chad Martinez

Chad Martinez — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:07:22 +0000

David Law makes a valid point here. I wrote Hotmail off as a ship sunk under the weight of its own spam years ago, but I had the chance to create a new account there just a few months ago thinking that if I needed a spare account to attract spam, might as well do it there, and I haven’t received one piece of spam. That being said, ultimately, I think my Gmail account is much more public than my Hotmail, and is used far more frequently, and for that address to get little to no spam is equally impressive. So let’s see what Yahoo can pull off next, I guess.

Comment on ASU vs. change.org: Spam or Free Speech? by Kevin Fraseir

Kevin Fraseir — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:59:58 +0000

There’s a boundary between spam and free speech, and I think change.org has crossed that demarcation line. Even if your organization or company is engaged into doing something good or with a cause, it does not give you permission to send unsolicited email messages. Heck, even if you’re the Metropolitan Cathedral or the Pope, you have no rights in engaging to all types of spam activities. This should be a blessing in disguise for us all. We should learn something from this.