As with many people who have been using the Internet for some time I have many, many email addresses; ISP pops, web mail etc as well as the addresses I maintain for the domain names I own. Some of the addresses I've had for many years and of these most I no longer use in earnest - often due to the shear volume of spam.
Many of these addresses are purpose specific - I have addresses for each band I run and for my 'record label' etc.
A couple of years ago I set up a new domain and associated email addresses (all of which I access via forwarding to Gmail) and knowing how SPAM works I have made every effort to maintain the purity of my in-box. This is something I had managed to do with some success until about a month ago. Now the trickle of SPAM has turned into a torrent and I can trace the event that triggered it.
One of the music promoters I have worked with had my private email address a while back as I was away from the net for a few days while we were finalising the details of a gig, and unlike my band email address, I can get my personal mail via a cell phone.
Then last month, horror of horrors it arrived - a gig listing mail out with about 100 email addresses IN THE CC FIELD!!!!!
Now thanks to a couple of compromised mail boxes by members on the list the SPAMMERS now have my purest of email addresses.
I don't really blame the promoter in question - BCC is often misunderstood, and the consequences of a large CC list are not really understood by e-mailers at large - but in the interest of all those who don't want to help the SPAMMERS I call on every one to spread the message - 'USE BCC'.
If ever there was a case for the value of netiquette this is it.
Fortunatly I find that Gmail's SPAM filter works very well, but the 'count' next to the SPAM folder link offends my eye and I can't not zero it at every session!
Many of these addresses are purpose specific - I have addresses for each band I run and for my 'record label' etc.
A couple of years ago I set up a new domain and associated email addresses (all of which I access via forwarding to Gmail) and knowing how SPAM works I have made every effort to maintain the purity of my in-box. This is something I had managed to do with some success until about a month ago. Now the trickle of SPAM has turned into a torrent and I can trace the event that triggered it.
One of the music promoters I have worked with had my private email address a while back as I was away from the net for a few days while we were finalising the details of a gig, and unlike my band email address, I can get my personal mail via a cell phone.
Then last month, horror of horrors it arrived - a gig listing mail out with about 100 email addresses IN THE CC FIELD!!!!!
Now thanks to a couple of compromised mail boxes by members on the list the SPAMMERS now have my purest of email addresses.
I don't really blame the promoter in question - BCC is often misunderstood, and the consequences of a large CC list are not really understood by e-mailers at large - but in the interest of all those who don't want to help the SPAMMERS I call on every one to spread the message - 'USE BCC'.
If ever there was a case for the value of netiquette this is it.
Fortunatly I find that Gmail's SPAM filter works very well, but the 'count' next to the SPAM folder link offends my eye and I can't not zero it at every session!
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