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Preventing Spam

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the too-late dept

Fri, Jul 6th 2001 3:36pm — Mike Masnick
News.com has an article about a new service from MailShell.com that allows you to create temporary or disposable email addresses to use in situations where spammers may snap them up. This, of course, is more or less the same thing that Sneakemail.com does, and I have to mention them, since they read Techdirt. Anyway, both seem like pretty cool services - but don't solve the underlying problem. Too many of my email addresses are already out there, getting spammed, and there's really nothing I can do about those any more. But, if I ever have to start using email in a public place again, I'll be sure to try one of these.
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5 Comments

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  • identicon
    mhh5, 6 Jul 2001 @ 4:39pm

    you forgot my favorite...

    http://www.mailexpire.com/

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Other Ryan, 6 Jul 2001 @ 4:41pm

    Explain please

    I don't think I understand. You give out your email address but it's not your real address, and then when you start getting spam you change your fake email. Correct? How is this different than signing up for a new Yahoo or Hotmail account every few months? And who the heck wants to try to send email to someone who keeps changing their address?

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    wonko, 6 Jul 2001 @ 6:11pm

    Learn to enjoy spam

    My email address has been very public for several years now, the result of which is lots and lots of spam. The solution? I've learned to enjoy it. It's a game. Every time a new spam gets through my filters, I have to modify the filters to catch it the next time. It's actually kinda fun, and I almost look forward to spam now...

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    kevin, 6 Jul 2001 @ 6:47pm

    Brian Livingston is an asset to his readers.

    This Brian Livingston guy is obviously uninformed about things. Sneakemail was the first service to exclusivly offer disposible address that can be managed, mailexpire was the first to off expiring addresses, new there a about 10 services like them out there. The idea goes back a way to things like dating services and proxymate. I contacted this guy a week ago in anticipation of this article to mention that Sneakemail was not a new service, fully expecting an article about Sneakemail, but much to my surprise he writes an article about this simplistic service from a company that a few months ago was doing a mailing list service. This guy probably also broke the story that Microsoft came out with a new type of user interface that uses windows and folders.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jason, 6 Jul 2001 @ 10:07pm

    Been doing this for years.. what I forgot was...

    What I forgot to do in using this scheme to protect against spam was to have a separate email address for my website.

    I put my email address that I used for my friends, and all the spam spiders picked it up.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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