Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Spamproof email
Reverse-psych spammers into removing your email address from their lists.
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Here's one Halfbakers can try at home. Pretty simple: register a freebie email address that contains the string "nospam." Spammers are wise to "spam-blocked" email addresses and filter out any address with "nospam" in it. You can take it one more level -- spammers also filter out anything ending in "master" to avoid annoying the postmasters and webmasters of the world (who might have the savvy to retaliate). In two years of promiscuous posting, my email "nospam-master@[masked].com" has yet to recieve a single slice of spam.

Note when dealing with real people one needs to emphasize that the apparently spam-blocked address is in fact legit. I also feel slightly guilty that "master@[masked].com" may be getting some of my spam.

2003 update: How naive this all sounds today. I've masked the domain because of, well, spam. (Not a lot, mind you, but it doesn't work as advertised anymore).

rmutt, Mar 24 2000


Short name, e.g., Bob's Coffee

Destination URL. E.g., http://www.coffee.com/

Description (displayed with the short name and URL.)







       It's become necessary for me to change ISPs just recently, and I've been giving serious thought to using the username 'Nospam' for just that reason...Didn't know about the 'master' thing, though...is good idea...
StarChaser, Mar 24 2000
   

       how about 'spam-master'...?
ps, Mar 27 2000
   

       'spam-master': should work, but I wouldn't want the connotation of being a master of spam!
rmutt, Mar 30 2000
   

       <grin> Am considering using 'nospamabuse', so when they delete 'nospam' they end up going straight to my ISP's spam complaint dept...
StarChaser, Mar 30 2000
   

       also effective would be PornosPamela@.
gnormal, Feb 04 2002
   

       I seem to go through ISPs about once every two years. It's now about two months short of my first annotation up there, and I'm about to change ISPs AGAIN...
StarChaser, Feb 04 2002
   

       How about SpamMeAndDie@bigfoot.com? It may not keep you from getting spam, but maybe someone will think you are putting a hex on them.
bspollard, Sep 13 2002
   

       As a webmaster, postmaster, abuse, usenet, root email receiver, I would judge by the prodigeous quantity of spam I receive that the "master" measure would not work. The spammers of the world do not seem overly concerned about annoying me.   

       In fact, I'm convinced that they harvest domain names, and then just prepend all the common account names, such as the ones I listed above, because they know that generally, a human being has to actually read those.   

       I'm sticking to my proposal to introduce the death penalty for spammers.
dijontoothpaste, Sep 11 2003
   

       A recent correspondent to New Scientist pointed out that some Spam does indeed have its benefits.   

       Apparently, he took advantage of all the free offers and advice, and now has a 15 foot long penis!
Sir Jekyll Shave, Sep 11 2003
   


 
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