[updated 2024]: Here’s another resurrected post from back in the ancient times. Sadly, the content in this one is still relevant. The options I’ve listed, not so much. Yahoo Address Guard seems to be long gone. But Spamgourmet is still a thing. It looks exactly like it did back in 2004, but I imagine it still works as intended. I just had a look at my account and it still seems to be “eating” my spam.
Intro
Please note, this is not about spam filtering. Filtering is like
shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. Having said that, it
is often necessary, but luckily can be done when it is.
This document is about protecting your email address so that it does not
get into the hands of those who would abuse it. Now that is easier said
than done. Consider all of these things that you may do on the internet:
Post to a publically viewable forum, mailing list or usenet group
Sign up for a "special offer"
Register for access to a site
Put your contact details on a web page
etc, etc ...
Each of these things (and no doubt many more that I haven't thought of)
put your email address within reach of friendly spammers. Once they have
it, it has a tendency to multiply as those helpful people share their
information with each other!
So prevention is much better than cure.
How to do it?
Only one option: Never. Give. Your. Email. Address. To. Anyone.
That's it, problem solved, no more spam. What? You want to get email?
Then why are you reading this? Oh, you want email from friends? Well,
that's different!
OK, you can't not give your email address, but you can be careful who
you give it to. My advice is this:
Never put your true email address on posts to mailing lists or
forums.
Never give a company your true email address.
Never put your true email address anywhere on the web where it can
be freely read.
Be very careful which people you give the address to. Are they
likely to send pointless messages to everyone in their address book,
which then get forwarded on and on and on, with the entire history
of to: and cc: there for the whole world to see. Unfortunately, you
may be related to such people and have no choice, but just think
about it.
Notice I said TRUE email address. The alternative is to use an address
that is not true. What do I mean?
Wherever possible you could just make up an address, but we are
assuming that you want to receive at least some mail from this
person or group (even if it is just a confirmation to your
registration). This option is obviously limited.
For web pages etc, you could always do something like this:
myusername at bigpond dot com. Spammers use "robots" that scan web
pages for text in the format of abc@def.net. This avoids that, but
the spammers and their bots are getting smarter, so this way
wouldn't work for long
Use an unimportant webmail address (hotmail, yahoo, gmail etc) for
spam-attracting stuff. This could lead to problems later, but you
could always delete it and start again.
I consider the best option to be Disposable Email Addresses .
This is basically what this document is about. I personally use a
combination of two systems, which I will outline here.
Address Guard by Yahoo!
This method requires that you have a Yahoo! account and have activated
your web mail with them. If you don't want to
give Yahoo your true email address, go to the following section first
then come back here.
From the main yahoomail page, click on "Mail Options", then click on
"Address Guard". I suggest you take the time to go through the "tour".
First of all, you will need to create a "base name". This forms (as
you would expect) the "base" of your disposable email addresses. Make
it different to your Yahoo! ID.
Then you can create a disposable email address as you want one, just
follow the prompts. The addresses take the form of: BASENAME-AFFIX@yahoo.com,
where
BASENAME is your base name and
AFFIX is whatever characters you
want (make it something related to what you are using it for so that you
can recognise it later!)
A few points:
It is possible to use the addresses so created to send mail from
(using Yahoo mail) if you set them up to allow that.
It is possible to filter the email so that all the messages to the
DEA go to a certain folder (again, this is set up when you first
create the address, but you can go back and edit these settings
later.
If you start getting spam to that address, simply delete the address
(It's disposable, remember!) And as an added bonus, you also know
who is responsible for selling your address (you only gave this
address out to one person/organisation right?)
Spam Gourmet
Spam Gourmet is
the ultimate in on-the-fly disposable email addresses. The name comes
from its creators desire to "eat" as much spam as possible! Its use is
somewhat complicated at first, so listen carefully...
First, go to www.spamgourmet.com and
create an account. Standard fare, nothing to see here folks. Just two
quick points though:
They do ask for an email address. This is important as they forward
the "real" mail that comes through their system to it. So don't
make one up!
Try to make your username as small as possible (ie with as few
letters/numbers as possible). This just makes your disposable email
addresses shorter. Handy, but not essential
That's basically it. You do not need to create your addresses first
like you do with Address Guard, they are literally created
"on-the-fly".
The addresses have the following format: EMAILNAME.NUMBER.USERNAME@spamgourmet.com,
where:
EMAILNAME = the name you give the address. This could be anything.
For example, if you are signing up for an amazon account, you could
make it "amazon"
NUMBER = How many message do you want to receive to this address
before they start getting "eaten". This can be any number (but the
most you can set it to is 20, any higher number will still only
allow 20 through) or any letter or word. If alpha is included
instead of numberic, then the point at which the first letter of the
word appears in the alphabet is the number allowed (a=1, b=2 etc).
NB: It is possible to "reset" this number on the spamgourmet page,
but I won't go into that here.
USERNAME = your spamgourmet username
@ spamgourmet.com - there are other alternatives (all the domains
registered by the spamgourmet folks). I personally use xoxy.net
because it is the shortest.
So when you sign up to amazon, put your address at
amazon.10.user@xoxy.net and you will get up to 10 messages from them (or
whichever spammers they have shared your address with) and then all
further messages will be "eaten".
A few points:
You can add "trusted senders" (or domains) so that all messages
from that address will get delivered and not advance the number of
messages. You can add any number or senders to your account (which
will work for any of your addresses) and/or each individual address
can have one trusted sender.
If you reply to a message that comes through the spamgourmet system,
it goes back via spamgourmet and looks to the recipient as if it had
come from your disposable email address.
You can (using a form on the spamgourmet page) generate an address
to send a message to so that it will appear as if it has come from
one of your email addresses (this works in the same way as the reply
trick above)
The home page has heaps of added features for managing your
addresses. Please explore further (though I am happy to help if I
can, email me at public.email.mule@xoxy.net for assistance)
If you start to get lots of unwanted messages from an address you
can always drop the number of messages remaining down to zero and
hide it and not use it any more. You do not delete these addresses,
because if you did, it would just get regenerated the first time
someone emailed it again!
Conclusion
OK, this is a real hack of a document, but it's a start.
Bottom line is: prevention is better than cure. Watch who you give your
unprotected address to and where you put it where it can be seen!