How many of you set up “out of office” messages for those who send you e-mail while you’re, well, out of the office? I can’t deny their usefulness for providing people with immediate notification of your unavailability, but for some reason they annoy the heck out of me. I’m glad to know I’m not the
A new tactic for defeating spam
By Tom Mighell on
One of the unintended (and unwanted) side effects in the fight against spam is that while only 25% of all spam gets blocked by spam-killing software and blacklists, fully 35% of all legitimate e-mail is also blocked by these services. Now, two companies are focusing on that problem – their new programs will make sure
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Sometimes these Spam fighters work TOO well
By Tom Mighell on
I mentioned back on November 5 that the Federal Trade Commission receives about 70,000 spam messages sent in by Internet users. This article from Wired notes that the FTC itself is bouncing many e-mails for coming from blacklisted Internet service providers. Fred Langa noted earlier this month in Information Week that while spam filters statistically
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Spam is going to destroy the universe
By Tom Mighell on
A little melodramatic? Maybe not. Consider this: to fight junk e-mail, we employ spam filters and other programs, that put the unwanted e-mail on a “black list.” Unfortunately, these black lists are preventing hundreds of thousands of legitimate e-mails from getting to us. I recently had the same problem — my ISP thought my
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Yahoo! e-mail — for those who want to pay
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Email
If you like your Yahoo! mail but want more features, today the portal announces expanded storage and new account management features, including the ability to filter and/or block spam. The new service will cost between $29-$59/year.
Awash in a flood of spam
By Tom Mighell on
Since 1998, the Federal Trade Commission has requested Internet users to forward unwanted spam to it for investigation. The agency now receives over 70,000 forwarded e-mails a day. What does it do with all of them?
Soon, it WILL all be spam
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Email
Last week, Earthlink mistakenly refused a large number of e-mails coming from various domains, thinking it was spam. This just happened to me — I regularly forward e-mail from my work address to home, and for the past two weeks Southwestern Bell refused the e-mail from my law firm domain name, thinking it was…
New report on employer monitoring of e-mail and Internet use
By Tom Mighell on
The GAO released a report yesterday showing the results of a survey of the e-mail/Internet use policies of 14 employers. Interestingly, the report shows that while most of the companies surveyed have implemented procedures to protect their networks from outside attack, none changed their computer use policies in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Do you own your e-mail?
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Email
When the U.S. Post office cannot deliver a letter to you, it returns the mail to the original sender, assuming a valid return address. But what about e-mail? This CNet article reports on how an ISP suspended a user’s Internet account, but continued to accumulate e-mail without notifying the user or the senders of the…
That admin alert may be spam
By Tom Mighell on
Clever spammers are now creating junk mail that masquerades as an alert from your network administrator. Tricky, tricky….now you don’t even have to open your e-mail program to get spam.