0spam - anyone here a user?

[Damini]

http://www.0spam.com/

I just stumbled across this, sending somebody an e-mail. The e-mail is refused to be sent, until you have gone to a remote page and typed in the number that is in apicture on the screen, to stop spammers just bulk mailing. Once you have done this once, your e-mail address can permantently get through.

Does anyone here use it? Heard anything good or bad about it? As someone who currently recieves more junk than actual mail, this does seem tempting. Any thoughts?

 

[Xavier]

I've encountered a couple of similar services, they're great in theory but it still means having someone bother to go to a page etc, which you can't guarantee everyone will make the effort to do.

The best antispam solution I have found so far (and I've tried a LOT) is CloudMark SpamNet. When spam arrives in your inbox you select and block it, which informs Cloudmarks central server that you've identified that particular email as being junk. Once a couple of other SpamNet users report the same email anyone else who recieves the email has it filed directly in their junk mail. This 'peer2peer' approach is pretty infallible because of it's distributed nature, and no matter how clever the spam senders get, it only takes a handful of people to tag email and save hundreds of thousands of others from having to read it. The more emails you report accurately (accurately as in emails which other users agree as being spam) the more trusted you become by the system, making your future reports more 'valued' and thus allowing you to contribute to blocking junk even faster.

If a spammer were to try and use a cloudmark accout to attempt to pevert the data, marking their own crap email as good to sidestep filtration, they wouldn't get far because the blocking reports of the emails would outweigh their own 'good mail' reports and quite quickly the system spots this and simply ignores that accounts input.

With the possible risk of lost email through 'false positives' (emails identified as junk which aren't) the idea of having mail blocked isn't an option for me, I'd much rather opt for something which does a good job of tagging or moving junk email which I can check through once weekly, and for that SpamNet does a great job. I empty my junk store monthly after scanning though it just in case and it usually prunes between 8k-10k emails, well worth the couple of quid a month to subscribe.

Xav

 

[Draylor]

Its just another challenge/response filter, loads of these around. Sadly all they really do is add to the problem they claim to fix.

As well as requesting this (simple) confirmation for geniune mails it will do the same for all the spam you receive. Since the majority of spam these days uses a forged 'from' address your esssentially sending 1 spam mail for each 1 you receive.

Using this - or similar services - would help solve your junk mail problems. But it would also add to other peoples

 

[Athan]

I just stumbled across this, sending somebody an e-mail. The e-mail is refused to be sent, until you have gone to a remote page and typed in the number that is in apicture on the screen, to stop spammers just bulk mailing. Once you have done this once, your e-mail address can permantently get through.

Arghgh, these things are fucking annoying.

Bear in mind that a lot of spam forges the FROM address. Now, think, where do the emails go TO about having to go to the URL and fill in the form ?

In other words, although these things might protect the initial recipient against spam they CAUSE MORE SPAM FOR OTHER PEOPLE. It's as bad as those virus scanning servers that send email to the FROM address saying "you sent a virus".
It is HIGHLY tempting to just go to the URLs and fill them in ONLY when you get such an email when you were NOT the sender. Let the buggers actually get the spam in future.

Just use a spam filter that utilises Bayseian filtering and allows you to whitelist people, you'll catch 99%+ of spam that way.

-Ath