Just a note to remind folks to be very careful in opening email. I get a ton of spam each day, but recently, I've been getting a lot of junk with the sender's name very closely resembling names of folks in here, such as Myles B., Emory H, M Joyce, Crouse M, Upton, Tom K, and several others, some even mixing names like Emory Joyce, James Vivona, etc.

I was in a hurry the other day and when a cursory glance at a sender name told me I would be okay, I opened it and it was pretty messy.

Keep a sharp eye on your subject lines, and if you send email, put in a decent subject line.

That's really disturbing. I usually do not send unsolicited E-Mail however on occasion send it because my answer to a board question is either too Long or repetitive. The subject line will parrot the question title or make the subject clear. I have my spam blocker set on high so if I don't recognize a name and no request to be added to my address list has been sent I delete them all.

My local email client (set up direclty on my ISP's server) is set up to reject all email from individuals not in my email address book, and consequently everything but gets filtered out. No spam.

For all email exchanges due to business, online boards such as this, product registrations, etc., I use a yahoo account that is adaptive in that over time it "learns" what you want discarded as junk mail. I may get 1-2 pieces of junk mail A WEEK anymore, I don't ever see it since it is filtered out.

Sometimes this stradegy in getting rid of spam may cause problems, esp when someone whose ISP has been blackballed as being an originator of spam. So either the sender needs to change ISPs or bmail has to be used, OR I have to add their email address to the filter to be allowed in. I never open unsolicitated email.

Lou

Shame about the @#$%&, Mick.

I'm very happy to hear that my name,along with other names, are being used as SPAM baits...I've used bait, but have NEVER been used as bait........I'm honored to be in the same category as the other baits.

Looks like everyone who doesn't run a up- to-date virus program should download the latest virus deffinitions and run their anti-virus software, just remember to scan all folders and drives. Also if you want to remove adware and spyware download two free adware/spyware programs and run both together. Two good programs available AD-ware SE personal edition and Spybot.

Hey Mick,
Most people regard my emails as spam anyway.

I use yahoo mail... I have 3 accounts,,,, between two of the accounts I get almost 2,000 spams a day..... THAT IS RIGHT !!!!!! TWO THOUSAND A DAY !!!!!!!!!!!! I think yahoo sells email addresses to who ever has the money..
But this just looks like someone or many are looking here and taking up names..
If you deal on @#$%& at all then you are aware of the spoof mail.... made to look EXACTLY like @#$%& and paypal mail... I get hundreds of them a day,,,, wanting me to "update my account" I get them from banks and credit unions I have never dealt with. So, I guess it is just a sign of the times..

Keep your eyes open and beware !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By using Yahoo - you are creating spam, or at least, providing spammers with addresses to use.

I've said this many times before - free email accounts like Yahoo and Hotmail exist for one reason - to mine email addresses to be sold to spammers. If you use one of these accounts, rest assured that anyone to who you send mail to, has had their email address recored by Yahoo, Hotmail, etc., and anyone who sends you email has had their address recorded by same. Then, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc., take these addresses and sell them by the millions to advertisers (spammers). That's what they do. That's the purpose of the "free" email accounts.

Nobody it taking addresses or names off this site (what a waste of time that would be). They're coming from emails which people with Yahoo, Hotmail, etc., accounts have sent to you, me and others here.

.................

Tom is 100% correct!! We cause most of our computer related problems ourselves!!
Personally, I would never even consider using a pop up blocker or spam filter. I think that both have a much larger downside than up! Control your cookies and regularly update and run a program such as Ad-Aware and you will never have a problem with pop ups. As far as Spam, the same things will help. Avoid e-mailing people that you receive forwarded e-mail (jokes, etc) because if they are forwarding mail to you, chances are that they are forwarding your e-mails to others who in turn forward them.. This can result in your e-mail address ending up in the headings of millions of e-mails within days. I rarely open forwarded e-mail. I have received e-mails that have been forwarded so many times that there are litterally 100's of addresseson them. I have received jokes that I sent to friends, back from others months later with numerous forwarded headings on them. Since I quit that, I get no more than 2 or 3 junk e-mails a month and rarely get a pop up!!

Sorry for the rant, but as a recently retired IT, this is a sore point because over the years at that job, I have found that the vast majority of problems are caused by the user and adding a piece of software cannot replace common sense and think for you. I would never let a machine decide what I get to see or read!!! Off of Soap Box!!

Also, if you receive spam, NEVER, NEVER, EVER respond that you want to be removed from the mailing list. Doing that verifies that your email address is correct. If you want to report spam, go to www.spamcop.net.