Ever Bought Because of Unsolicited Spam?

Jim wrote:
And again, the quickest, most expeditious manner in which to do
exactly that, is delete, NOT another flawed software or government
intervention thrown at it.

I agree that government intervention is misguided -- however, telling
people to just press "Delete" is insufficient, for at least two reasons:

1) I get over 100 spams per day. Even figuring that pressing Delete
takes only a few seconds, you're talking minutes per day of my life
wasted.

2) My daughter gets spam offering to enlarge her penis or show her
people having sex with animals. Pressing Delete still requires seeing
the emails to recognize their spamness. I'd rather her not even get
those. (I don't particularly like seeing them either.)

Maybe my ISP's at fault -- I'm still undecided about it, but
fundamentally I don't like someone else filtering my mail for me. (I do
wish they'd take out obvious stuff, like Klez and the like.) Good or
bad, I think I want all email *for me* delivered *to me*.

Fortunately, software has come to the rescue in my case. The filtering
program I use is not keyword based, so false positives are minimized
(I've had exactly two since I've been using it, and both were from
friends forwarding on stuff to me that was somewhat spammy). And it's
running about a 98% success rate in clobbering spam -- so instead of
seeing 100 per day I get only 2 -- and at that rate, I can just Delete
them.

Bottom line, if you're not being overwhelmed by 100s of spam per day,
don't try to tell people to just press Delete. I ain't buying it.

--
Bob

In article ,
rosit (Jim) wrote:

The comment was just made, that spammers continue to operate in the black
(that
means "make money" for all you non-bean counters out there) because people
don't GAS (Give A S***) about the plague of spam.

My question is "really" simple.

How many of you reading this, have "ever" purchased "anything" as a result
of an unsolicited spam e-mail to your home or office account?

I subscribe to the tenets of the Boulder Pledge, so NO ...

http://www.panix.com/~tbetz/boulder.shtml

I also never buy anything marketed via unsolicited cold call
telemarketing, and in fact have cancelled accounts and changed
providers on more than one occasion as the result of unwanted
interruptions by my then-current suppliers ...

--
Ken Barr Numismatics
P. O. Box 32541 website: http://www.kenbarr.com
San Jose, CA 95152 (souvenir cards, MPC, Hickey Bros tokens)
408-272-3247 Next show: Modesto 7/12 (tent., no table)
ADVANCED NOTICE: ANA World's Fair of Money, San Jose, CA 7/27-31/2005

Yes, a Spam killer.

Pete

www.dylancoins.com

In article , Jim spoke
thusly...

3.) People simply replying to spam (BTW, I thought all spam addys were bogus?
Gee Wally, how do they then reply?)

No, as I suspect you know, they are not all invalid.

validate their own address and in doing so,
become an authenticated addy for sale to the next guy. So the commodity can be
as simple as a "good list".

Simply opening an email can get your email added on a spammer "good
list". Ever get a spam email with an image or broken image that is on
someone's web server (ie: not a message attachment)? Guess what, the
spammer now knows you read his message.

BTW: My domain gets around that by sending the suspected spam email
to me as an attachment to an email alerting me that the attached
message it probably spam and giving me a little of the text in the
email. That way I can preview it if I am in doubt (99.9% of the time
it is way obvious) and then delete it.


--
Stu Miller
Read about Coins in the News:
http://www.thestujoecollection.com/news.htm
Director, RCC Mint
http://www.TheStujoeCollection.com/rccmint

In article ,
rosit says...

Just answer yes or no......period.


NO.

--
~~~Chrysta~~~

ANA#R-206318

My Collection: http://www.geocities.com/chrystawilson/index.html

The Truth About Eric Tillery:
http://www.geocities.com/chrystawilson/aboutk6az.html

"Bob Flaminio" adds....

I agree that government intervention is misguided -- however, telling people
to just press "Delete" is insufficient, for at least two reasons:snip

I applaud your tenacity and your pioneer workaround spirit. May you positively
infect someone with the same every day.

Always here for my fellow syngraphist or oenophile.
--=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=--

In article , Bob Flaminio
spoke thusly...
Jim wrote:
And again, the quickest, most expeditious manner in which to do
exactly that, is delete, NOT another flawed software or government
intervention thrown at it.

I agree that government intervention is misguided -- however, telling
people to just press "Delete" is insufficient, for at least two reasons:

1) I get over 100 spams per day. Even figuring that pressing Delete
takes only a few seconds, you're talking minutes per day of my life
wasted.

Maybe I am the exception. I really do pity those that get that many
spams a day.


Maybe my ISP's at fault -- I'm still undecided about it, but
fundamentally I don't like someone else filtering my mail for me. (I do
wish they'd take out obvious stuff, like Klez and the like.) Good or
bad, I think I want all email *for me* delivered *to me*.

My gut feeling is to be bothered by having them filter my email
before it gets to me too but I think that a good filtering system can
certainly improve their service to me. I have no idea how many emails
Ameritech filters for me but I know that it has been a LONG time
since I received a virus and I don't get much spam (maybe a couple a
day on average) considering how much I do on the Internet. All the
emails I do want seem to come in just fine.

Fortunately, software has come to the rescue in my case. The filtering
program I use is not keyword based, so false positives are minimized
(I've had exactly two since I've been using it, and both were from
friends forwarding on stuff to me that was somewhat spammy). And it's
running about a 98% success rate in clobbering spam -- so instead of
seeing 100 per day I get only 2 -- and at that rate, I can just Delete
them.

One thing I have wondered about software filtering is...How do you
check to make sure it is not deleting wanted email? And, if you have
to check the messages to ensure it, how is it saving you any time
from just deleting them from your inbox?

Bottom line, if you're not being overwhelmed by 100s of spam per day,
don't try to tell people to just press Delete. I ain't buying it.


--
Stu Miller
Read about Coins in the News:
http://www.thestujoecollection.com/news.htm
Director, RCC Mint
http://www.TheStujoeCollection.com/rccmint

"PJZ" wrote in news:TK_Na.51071$hV.3070410
@twister.austin.rr.com:

Yes, a Spam killer.

Pete


Very funny.

No!

Stujoe wrote:
1) I get over 100 spams per day. Even figuring that pressing Delete
takes only a few seconds, you're talking minutes per day of my life
wasted.

Maybe I am the exception. I really do pity those that get that many
spams a day.

Here's the report from my spam filter for the last *five* days:

Total number of emails processed 1,002
Number of Good emails processed 69
Number of Spam emails processed 933
Percentage of emails that matched whitelist rules 0.2%
Percentage of emails that matched blacklist rules 26.2%
Number of emails re-classified to Good 0
Number of emails re-classified to Spam 29
Percentage emails misidentified as Spam (false positives) 0.0%
Percentage emails misidentified as Good (false negatives) 2.9%
Overall accuracy 97.1%


One thing I have wondered about software filtering is...How do you
check to make sure it is not deleting wanted email? And, if you have
to check the messages to ensure it, how is it saving you any time
from just deleting them from your inbox?

When I first started filtering, I checked the list regularly. The
software I use requires to be "trained", so in the beginning it was
missing a fair amount of spam -- but it only ever missed two legitimate
emails. After a month or so of checking the spam list with no misses, I
stopped. It's entirely possible that a legitimate email got caught, but
if so it's probably so spammy I didn't want it anyway. These days, I
never look at the spam list, so having the filter saves me a lot of time
per day.

There's also the fact that I get so much spam I may inadvertantly delete
a legitimate email by accident. If I'm in my Inbox hitting "delete
delete delete" it's easy to miss a good one. I think the program
probably does a better job of identifying spam than I do.

I'm regarded in my circle of friends as a "guru", so I often get spam
forwarded to me asking "is this a scam" (answer is always "yes") -- this
sort of mail is tough to filter, but I have all my "friends" whitelisted
so I won't miss any of that. The only thing I could miss is if a
complete stranger forwards me a spam for advice -- and I'm not too
concerned about missing that.

--
Bob

In article , Bob Flaminio
spoke thusly...
Stujoe wrote:
1) I get over 100 spams per day. Even figuring that pressing Delete
takes only a few seconds, you're talking minutes per day of my life
wasted.

Maybe I am the exception. I really do pity those that get that many
spams a day.

Here's the report from my spam filter for the last *five* days:

Total number of emails processed 1,002
Number of Good emails processed 69
Number of Spam emails processed 933

That is a lot of spam! I think I am one of the lucky ones. Do you get
most of it through your ISP or your flaminio domain?


One thing I have wondered about software filtering is...How do you
check to make sure it is not deleting wanted email? And, if you have
to check the messages to ensure it, how is it saving you any time
from just deleting them from your inbox?

When I first started filtering, I checked the list regularly. The
software I use requires to be "trained", so in the beginning it was
missing a fair amount of spam -- but it only ever missed two legitimate
emails. After a month or so of checking the spam list with no misses, I
stopped. It's entirely possible that a legitimate email got caught, but
if so it's probably so spammy I didn't want it anyway. These days, I
never look at the spam list, so having the filter saves me a lot of time
per day.

Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering if you basically let it
go on Auto Pilot after a while. It seems like it does a good job.
What software do you use? I hope to never need it but someday I may.


--
Stu Miller
Read about Coins in the News:
http://www.thestujoecollection.com/news.htm
Director, RCC Mint
http://www.TheStujoeCollection.com/rccmint