Don’t even open spam mails

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net1

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Many spammers are including illicit code in their unsolicited mail to help them detect active email addresses, according to a ZDNet article.

Security firm MX Logic claimed that nearly 50 percent of spam sent over the last 12 months included a 'spam beacon' -- a piece of HTML code embedded in the email that detects when an email is opened, or even just previewed.

This information is then relayed back to the spammer, telling them that certain email addresses are in use. Similar techniques are also used by marketing companies to track behaviour and detect the response rate to targeted emails.

"Millions of users are unaware that spammers have the ability to track when they view and open their email," said Scott Chasin, MX Logic's chief technology officer.
 

Channel Hopper

Suffering fools, so you don't have to.
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The answer is to
1) collect the daily email,
2) disconnect from the internet,
3) preview and respond/delete as appropriate,
4) Carry out a Spyware/Adware check
5) Reconnect
6) send the responses

easy
 

rolfw

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When I'm in the computer is on, I use MailwasherPro and it has now significantly reduced the amount of incoming spam, to the degree that my mail program only now has to download about 20 messages a day excluding the satellites.co.uk notifications.

Most of these spam E-mails are pretty easily identifiable, so no need to look at them.
 

PoloMint

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Outlook 2003 can also be set so it will automatically display all new emails in plain text, therefore not running any html code or downloading pictures. If you then want to display the email with code and pics then right clicking on a picture will do so.

This stops any tracking scripts and pictures from showing your email address is active.

If you have broadband and want to read email offline a decent firewall will have a setting to stop all internet traffic while you read them, in Zone Alarm just click on the icon in the taskbar and select stop all activity, you are then in effect offline.

These measures aren’t as good as a spam stopper program, but can help prevent the amount of spam you get from increasing.
 
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