darcyb62.
ZynewaveOver the last few months there have been a steady growth of fake spam account registrations on this forum, and about 20-50 spam emails arriving daily at zynewave.com. However, during the last couple of hours I have received well over 1000 emails with the fake subject of “undelivered message” disguised as a reply to an email sent from zynewave.com. After googling this appears to be a common problem, and there apparently is nothing to do about it. I assume it’s just a bot that has stumbled upon the zynewave.com domain. Hopefully the bot will move on to pester another domain in a few days. What a stupid waste of time and computing power.
Conquistador@Zynewave wrote:
After googling this appears to be a common problem, and there apparently is nothing to do about it.
There may be something you can do to deal with the problem…
I assume it’s just a bot that has stumbled upon the zynewave.com domain.
Most likely.
What a stupid waste of time and computing power.
Yes. It is an incredible waste of time.
I have lost patience with spam as well, I get about 10 -30 spam emails a day. Not nearly as much as you, but 1 spam email is too many.
Some suggestions…
…after reading your comments I thought it is probably time for me to look into a dedicated spam filter than can work with any email client not just Outlook or Outlook express. I have used ZoneAlarm (pretty good spam, firewall, virus scanner in one, triple layer) but it’s spam filter only works with Outlook express and Outlook). I use Thunderbird now.
I think a single dedicated spam filter is probably better.
Some interesting tips to avoid spam.
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page4782.cfm
The link above has some helpful tips that should help you tackle this problem.
Software:
1.Mailwasher
This could be an ideal solution possibly the best option (cheap as well)
http://www.mailwasher.net/
2.Choicemail
Another very popular solution free and commercial version available
http://www.download.com/3000-2382-10434830.html
3. Spamfighter.
If you use Outlook or Outlook express this may be another highly effective option. It may even be worth switching to Outlook express even if you do not use it just to have this software tackle your spam problems.
Another option worth a look.
http://www.spamjab.com/index.shtml
I think once you have gone through all the options here you really should have less of a problem. Some of the options bounce back your address to spam senders giving them the impression you email is no longer active.
Some of the solutions I have listed send a verification email (only once) to a sender for verification, so for instance someone interested in registering as forum member would never actually get registered if they do not reply to that verification message.
When you can, I think it is well worth your time to look into each of the suggestions above. They all do the same thing but you might prefer one over another for your own reasons.
I hope that helps. 😉
ZynewaveI’m using SpamAssassin, which is installed by my host provider on the server. This adds a spam notification in the subject (e.g. “**SPAM**”) to all suspected spam emails so that I can filter them in my email client. If the problem persists I can also activate automatic deletion of the spam emails at the server, so that I won’t receive them at all.
Conquistador@Zynewave wrote:
I’m using SpamAssassin, which is installed by my host provider on the server. This adds a spam notification in the subject (e.g. “**SPAM**”) to all suspected spam emails so that I can filter them in my email client. If the problem persists I can also activate automatic deletion of the spam emails at the server, so that I won’t receive them at all.
Did you use SpamAssasin before today or is this something you have just started using? I am just curious as of course if it is not working for you then why not try something else?
If you mean you are now just starting to use Spam Assasin then hopefully that will help eradicate or at least reduce the problem for you. 😉
ZynewaveI activated SpamAssassin last night after I got the 1000 spam emails. I’m still getting the emails, but at least now I can sort them from the regular emails and delete them in a single action.
Conquistador@Zynewave wrote:
I activated SpamAssassin last night after I got the 1000 spam emails. I’m still getting the emails, but at least now I can sort them from the regular emails and delete them in a single action.
Ok…good for you then! Light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully the hassle and time wasted will be reduced now. I hope it goes well. 😉
PodianerHi Frits,
I realise that there are numerous forum registrations almost on a daily basis. You always have to delete them manually. Why don’t you consider a different registration form, such as most other forums have nowadays. The ones where one has to enter certain numbers shown on a graphic. Perhaps this way you can get rid of all the “bot-registrations”.
Max
ZynewaveWhy don’t you consider a different registration form, such as most other forums have nowadays. The ones where one has to enter certain numbers shown on a graphic.
The registration form already uses that feature, but most bots have become so smart that they can decode the picture. There are a lot of different “mods” available for the phpbb forum software that can help limit the automatic bot registrations. I’ll probably try one of those soon. See this link:
Podianer@Zynewave wrote:
The registration form already uses that feature, but most bots have become so smart that they can decode the picture.
😳 My registration was in summer 2005… 🙂 It was different then, right? 🙄
These Bots are very annoying! I can’t imagine any reason why those people, who are responsible, think, that anybody appreciates their work..
Zynewave@Podianer wrote:
😳 My registration was in summer 2005… 🙂 It was different then, right? 🙄
Yes, I think I enabled it later on. You can see the image if you log out and click the register link.
darcyb62At home my internet provider does a pretty good job of blocking so I get about 10 a day.
At work we use a Barracuda Spam blocker, and just looking at the stats we get about 4,000 emails a day of which about half are blocked at the spam firewall.
We have been getting an increasing amount coming through so we will be updating this weekend. Currently I get about 10 spam messages coming through in a day.