Spam (was an incomprehensibly long subject from another list)

[Guest guest]

> I was wondering if everyone on this list gets them too.

 

Everyone does. Everywhere. It's the scourge of the internet and

there's nothing you can do about it, other than employ spam filtering.

Most good email programs should have something built in. I use Apple

Mail and it does a fairly decent job.

 

> This would seem to indicate that we have been infiltrated!

 

Not really, see above. No spam comes through this list, and if any

does the sender is banned. This is also not a very effective system

for collecting spam, although it is both possible and unavoidable. If

you use an email address in a public place then someone will find it.

If you have an email address with a popular provider (such as ,

hotmail, aol, talk21) then you will find spammers will just guess you

address. Automated programs will send mail to every combination of

address possible because there is a good chance of getting a 'hit' and

if the user does not exist then it makes little difference to them that

it gets bounced.

 

> and maybe someone is passing our e-mail addresses on......

 

Nope, very pointless. You can't sell address as they are freely and

easily getable for a spammer (unless you are selling a CD of millions

of addresses) and so there is nothing in it for someone to just offer a

couple to someone. And if someone is trying to collect addresses for

spam they will use a program (a bot) with a fake mail address that

would be fairly obvious (usually spammers on groups have a

address) and none of them have d recently.

 

> Peter is this possible?

 

Who is he and why is he the only one who knows? Is he the spammer?

 

And please trim emails before replying.

 

Michael