The Logic Off Topic list

Thoughts from the mind of Jeremy Martin, 18-05-2002:

[spam]
>Anyway, you might consider changing your email address. I recently made
>this a new one and the only spam I'm getting is because of spam sent to
>"owner" addresses for various lists on Yahoo that I'm a moderator of.
>The more you give out your email address on web pages (signing up for
>free contests, registering with companies to download their software,
>etc), the greater the odds become that one of those companies will sell
>your address (even if they say they won't) to spammers, if not just send
>you some spam of their own... A new "clean" email address will easily
>avoid the majority of spam, unless of course your email provider is
>giving out your addresses (e.g. hotmail/msn, maybe even yahoo).

What I did some time ago was create a free hotmail address and use 
that whenever I had to provide an email addres somewhere, thus 
leaving my real address alone.  The problem with that however, is 
that you have to regularly check your mailbox, since otherwise it 
will become invalid (after 3 months of non-use I think -- which is 
exactly what happened in my case).

Anyway, gettting a new email address often isn't really an option. 
Either you have to pay for 2 accounts for some time, or have to 
switch provider -- and send everyone address changes.  And then, 
you've registered software with companies (liek Emagic) where you'd 
like your address to be known.  Etc.  Such a hassle...  And after one 
or two years (if you're lucky) the spam-fun start all over again.

I agree with John P though that the spam-count has risen considerably 
lately.  I could have had 10 houses by now, if I'd taken all mortgage 
offers seriously.  And a 3 meter penis as well, if you can believe 
some of the spam you get :-).

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html