Antivirus Programs

A Useful Spam Tracking Trick
Start using e-mail addresses that are specially -- and easily -- coded. Create a new one for everything you sign up for, things like newsletters, banking, coupon sites -- whatever. If you receive an e-mail from that address with anything other than what you asked for, you'll know the company's been breached -- or is selling your e-mail address to spammers.

The technique is called plus addressing and the trick is to create an e-mail with an extra character between the real e-mail address and the @ sign and domain. Don't fret, it's easy to understand.

Many ISPs let you do plus addressing, but I'll use Gmail to describe how it works.

Let's say your Gmail address is computeruser@gmail.com (and for the reasons I'll explain in a minute, you ought to use Gmail). When you sign up for a newsletter, say, SuperUser, use computeruser+superuser@gmail.com. Banking with Chase? computeruser+chase@gmail.com. Got the idea? [top]
 

Use a throwaway e-mail
to track spammers

Gmail understands what you're doing and the e-mail still lands in your inbox.

However, if you get something other than the newsletter at that address, you can stop it in its tracks. Just create a filter in Gmail (yep, I'll get to that, too) that automatically deletes anything from computeruser+superuser@gmail.com and you'll never see it again.

Of course, once you filter that specific address into the trash, you won't see either the spam or the newsletter. If you still want the newsletter delivered, create a new plus address and resubscribe.

Besides Gmail, I've tested plus addressing with EarthLink and Yahoo (they use a hyphen -- computeruser-superuser@yahoo.com instead of the plus sign). Neither MSN nor AOL is smart enough to use it; experiment with your ISP to see if it works.

This article borrowed from the Steve Bass newsletter.
 
 
 
 

Gorze, France 2008

Gorze, France 2008