Blocking SPAM on Earthlink

[Andy Dannelley]

It seems that the new virus/worm/whatever is still going around is still
sending lots of email to clog email boxes.

The problem I was having is that each night enough email with
attachments is being sent to cause my email space to be overloaded. I
have a suffcient for most of the time 10MB of email storage. When my
allocation goes over, I don't get the rest of themessages.

Well, to combat this I firs went to Earthlink's Web Mail interface and
started using SpamBlocker. It really didn't seem to do much good. With
it I was able to add some 500 addresses to my blocked sender list, and
still I get the same amount of junk, and now I can't add anymore
senders.

I am afraid that some of the senders I have blocked may be customers or
potential customers who may require support. So maybe I should unblock
the email addresses that do not look like obvious fakes.

I found a way to keep my allocation from overflowing... I just have Mail
check and delete from server every hour.

This does have a disadvantage, I can no longer put my system to sleep.
It appears that I can allow the HD to spin down, and I also put the
display to sleep.

Has anyone else had simular problems? (I'm sure some have)

More importantly, what solutions did you use? I don't reall y think
mine is the best long term, so I'm looking for ideas.

Thanks,

AndyD

[Alan Anderson]

[email]andyda@earthlink.net[/email] (Andy Dannelley) wrote:

> It seems that the new virus/worm/whatever is still going around is still
> sending lots of email to clog email boxes...
> I found a way to keep my allocation from overflowing... I just have Mail
> check and delete from server every hour...
> Has anyone else had simular problems? (I'm sure some have)

For a while, my email quota was filling up with swenspawn after fifteen minutes.

> More importantly, what solutions did you use? I don't reall y think
> mine is the best long term, so I'm looking for ideas.

My ISP refuses to do any sort of filtering on incoming email. My
"solution" is the same as yours, except I'm using POPmonitor to check
every half hour and delete anything with an .exe file (and all fake
Microsoft updates) without downloading.

I've got two problems with doing it that way, though. First, my computer
is an iBook, so if I want to take it with me my incoming email will get
clogged about 20 minutes later. Second, I use a dialup connection...

[B Collins]

Andy Dannelley wrote:

>
> It seems that the new virus/worm/whatever is still going around is still
> sending lots of email to clog email boxes.
>
> The problem I was having is that each night enough email with
> attachments is being sent to cause my email space to be overloaded. I
> have a suffcient for most of the time 10MB of email storage. When my
> allocation goes over, I don't get the rest of themessages.
>
> Well, to combat this I firs went to Earthlink's Web Mail interface and
> started using SpamBlocker. It really didn't seem to do much good. With
> it I was able to add some 500 addresses to my blocked sender list, and
> still I get the same amount of junk, and now I can't add anymore
> senders.
>
> I am afraid that some of the senders I have blocked may be customers or
> potential customers who may require support. So maybe I should unblock
> the email addresses that do not look like obvious fakes.
>
> I found a way to keep my allocation from overflowing... I just have Mail
> check and delete from server every hour.
>
> This does have a disadvantage, I can no longer put my system to sleep.
> It appears that I can allow the HD to spin down, and I also put the
> display to sleep.
>
> Has anyone else had simular problems? (I'm sure some have)
>
> More importantly, what solutions did you use? I don't reall y think
> mine is the best long term, so I'm looking for ideas.
>
> Thanks,
>
> AndyD

I'm using Earthlink web mail to look at the headers and delete all the
swen stuff. Have to do it every few hours to keep the 10 MB mailbox from
filling up.

My difficulty does not concern putting my computer to sleep; I just wake
it up again when I want to go to Earthlink web mail to delete spam. My
problem is puttin myself to sleep: The mailbox fills up in a few hours
while I am sleeping.

I opened a second mailbox in Earthlink and notified my contacts of the
new address. I am keepin the old one open until I am sure I've notified
everyone of directinterest of the new address.

As you see from this message, I have begun using a phony From address on
my Usenet postings, and do not use my real e-mail address. Maybe this
will help in the future.

Bill
--
Return address intentionally altered to avoid spam.