Are you afraid of your e-mail?

[T'krau]

In the past week or so, my e-mail has been a real adventure. I've gotten phishing notes from banks where I have no accounts (one from a bank in London saying that my investment accounts were frozen, and I don't need to go to the bank to 'fix' it, just e-mail the info to them - I live, and bank, in Central California...); my virus scanner has quarantined a dozen or so versions of 'mydoom' attachments; I'm getting more and more porn-site messages (and no, I don't go there...); someone even tried to convince me that my Earthlink account had been cancelled, and I had to re-submit all my info (if my internet access was off, how did I read THAT one?). I've got a firewall, virus scanner, spyware scanners, etc., so nothing's getting thru, but still...

Is anyone else seeing this kind of shite in their mail?

[BloodBuster]

Oh yes! I have to deal with this everyday at work. Every morning I arrive, login, then have to go through all the mail for the company that has not been forwarded - and 99.9% of it is 'You have qualified for a loan', 'Do you want sex to be like it used to be?', 'Your email account has been frozen..', 'please check the attachment' and on and on and on.

And now, as if we did not have enough to worry about, there's a new breed of scumbag trying to infest our machines with spyware/adware. When these people are caught they should be charged for the 100's of hours of wasted time that have been spent fixing PC's because their intrusive crapware broke them. Tosspots!


AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[Bjossi]

T´krau, you must be new to email if you open spam...

And yes this happens to me too. But with Yahoo email accounts, all emails that you flag as spam will be remembered by a spam guard. So you´re teaching it what´s spam and what´s not spam.

Pretty nifty. Now I rarely get any spam to my inbox. The only drawback is that it happens that emails that are not spam gets into the spam folder.

[PainKilla]

**** me I can show you the 500 emails I got from pretty much the same spammer...

I get these "remember we were supposed to meet at the cafe tonight" and "hey i just wanted to say hi" and "i enjoyed last time, lets get together again"... Maybe those emails would work the first time, but don't ******* spam it over 100 times.

**** annoying spammers, would you believe they only do it because people have better computers/internet than them?

[RichmanRush]

that's email for ya hehe

If you don't know the sender, even if the subject line looks legit, I just delete it (or vice versa).

All it takes is for you to open ONE false email, and you'll be getting about 7 spam emails every half-hour till you get rid of the infection. When it comes to your computer, you can never be too cautious.

[fleabay]

35 spam email today already and I try to be careful about disclosing my address. Of course it doesn't help when so called 'friends' send &*(#&% free horoscopes and ecards to your addy. That just puts your name on another list.

It seems like porn spam is down a lot in the last year.

[T'krau]

T´krau, you must be new to email if you open spam...
I never said I OPENED them...geez, I'm not an idiot. :p

And, yes, I get spam in my usual e-mail. What I'm saying is that all the junk I mentioned above is on top of the usual amount of junk I can expect to see - the stuff 'Buster mentioned. This has all happened in the past week or so - the virus', the phishing, etc. Last month, I'd get one or two. This morning, I had 5 quarrantines, 2 phishers, and something I didn't even get to see (just the warning that it was being held on to by my ISP).

I'm just surprised at the sudden increase in this shite.

[Bjossi]

Email viruses can´t go into your computer unless you either use a program for email, or you open the attachment. (download the virus to temp folder)

But yeah, spam sucks. Imo, spammers should pay $1000 dollars for every spam email they send. They´re very unlucky if they need to pay $1 million if they send to 1000 people...

[BloodBuster]

You have to be reeeaaaly careful with your mail. Configure your mail program so it does not display external content, or 'lazy' html. This is stuff where the images or controls in your mail are downloaded from a website.

Not only is external content being introduced to your computer, but the spammer will then know that your address is a valid address which is then sold on to the twats who compile these lists in the first place. I often see spam messages offering to sell me lists of 5000 *legitimate*addresses, or invitations for product details to be distributed via lists which have *millions* of addresses.

They're a bunch of scumbags

NEVER open mail if you are not expecting it, you do not recognise the subject line, or you do not recognise the sender. If you recognise the sender but not the subject (or the subject seems out of character), or you were not expecting mail from that person you should contact them and verify they intended to send it. Delete it. If genuine, the sender can always resend it.

And like Fleabay says above - it's not helped when your address is passed on so that an e-card (for example), can be sent to you. If you want to do this, check the site's privacy statement and ensure they will not pass your details or the details you submit on to anyone. It's best to create a 2nd email account that you can use for forums, purchases, and other e-gifts. It can be deleted when overburdened and you also stop a ton of crap crash landing on your hard drive.

Boy, do I rant. Better book a couple of hours with the shotgun in Docks and work it off heh heh

[CHFlagg]

I agree the spam and other garbage coming to email is getting ridiculous.

Now that I have retired, it gets only worse. Everytime I receive another ad for a powerchair, I want to send back asking if they can set up duel gaittlin guns and armour for my gaming. But my deleted button is the best way to deal with them at this time.

Bloodbuster, I agree it time to go shoot something: 20 paces at the docks??

[BloodBuster]

I agree the spam and other garbage coming to email is getting ridiculous.

Now that I have retired, it gets only worse. Everytime I receive another ad for a powerchair, I want to send back asking if they can set up duel gaittlin guns and armour for my gaming. But my deleted button is the best way to deal with them at this time.

Bloodbuster, I agree it time to go shoot something: 20 paces at the docks??

Hey.. Grumpy Old Lady.. 10 paces for me! I like to get all close and personal ;) I'm seriously into insane slaughter in the digital world, now that I can play PK 'at leisure' I just run around with my shotgun, lifting everything into the air :)

Depending on which email program you are using, you can normally get it to filter out spam. Mozilla's Thunderbird has an intuitive spam learner - I tried it - I marked the first 5 -10 spam emails, it learnt them and has picked up virtually every other piece of spam that arrived in my inbox since.

[CHFlagg]

I have no problem deleting the spam.

If you really want up close and personal carnage. Use the painkiller blades and just run into the hordes. Talk about quisenart. A whole lot of fun to be had.

[BloodBuster]

Ha Ha! You like it too. One of my favourite attack tactics is "BB's BeRsErKeR ModE" I morph into this hideous creature and run through my 'victims', blades-a-whirling, bodyparts-a-flying, then, just to keep this post vaguely on topic, I force the last few victims to eat cold raw spam ahhhh.. I can barely watch...

[T'krau]

Use the painkiller blades and just run into the hordes.
This is what I do if I find myself cornered...geez, what a mess! :D

[CHFlagg]

Messy yes!! But well worth it.

[BloodBuster]

Messy yes!! But well worth it.

Probably one of the most gratifying experiences of the game.