For a while I have been growing increasingly annoyed by
Unsolicited Email or "
Spam" . I have a few really old
email accounts that seem to attract every
spammer in the world. Spam is a real
nuisance for me because I get sent so much of it. The older an email address is the more
lists it is likely to be on, and the more spam mails I am likely to receive.
Previously the only ways to protect yourself from spam were to never publish your email address or change it so often so that spammers would not have a chance to get a fix on you. This is not practical for people like me who want to publish their email address but don't want to change it.
This is why I love SpamCop:
For about $25 a year SpamCop filters any mail that I send through it. I have configured my most spammy email accounts so that all the mail they receive gets sent directly into the SpamCop filtering service.
Any email message that fails the check gets detained. A message that looks okay will be forwarded on to my secret address so that I can pick it up. It will use a number of techniques to confirm that you are not a spammer before it passes the email on to me. Unlike some free Spam-reduction services like "Brightmail" this one really works. I received 8 bulk mails today... all 8 messages were caught.
It also has one edge over every other spam reduction system I know... Revenge! I can use SpamCop to analyse Spam mails and generate formal complaints to the ISP of the spammer. It is able to see through any of the usual 'spoofing' tactics that spammers use to disguise their identity. Retribution is only a few clicks away.
All I see in my inbox is the messages from my friends, with the occasional congratulation note to tell me that my SpamCop has permanently shut down somebody's spamming operations. I think my $25 is helping to make the internet a better place to live.