FIB - Scams 101

Spam: Yum Yum, Eat 'em Up!

Posted By: eDave
Date: Monday, October 30, 2006, at 5:10 a.m.(pst)

I found an awesome service that I've been using lately to cut down on spam. For one, I created a new online "personality" with a new email address at my ISP. I can't tell any of you what the new address is or I'd have to kill you. :-)

Anyway, I then use the free service over at http://www.spamgourmet.com/ to protect my new ISP account. Basically, whenever I register at a website, sign up for a newsletter, give my email address to some schmo at a department store, or whatever, I just make up an address on the fly.

Here's how it works... I have a base username at SpamGourmet. In this case, it's eDave. Then, I can make up any email address like: FIB.20.eDave@spamgourmet.com. Everything gets forwarded to my ISP account.

The first word is anything I want to make up on the fly. 'FIB' might remind me of where I used the account or who I gave it to. The number, 20, indicates how many emails I want to receive at this address before spamgourmet starts dumping the mail - at which point I'll never see another message sent to that address. And the "eDave" part is obviously my user account.

As the emails come in, spamgourmet forwards them to my real account and they change the header to indicate how many message I have left (ie. 1 of 20). At any time, I can log into my account and charge up the address with additional messages so it will receive more. Or, I could add a trusted sender so it will continue to receive messages from that address regardless of the counter.

You can also substitute a word for the number, and it will use the first letter based on it's position in the alphabet with a max of 20. For instance, FIB.to.eDave@spamgourmet.com is the same as FIB.20.eDave@spamgourmet.com, since T is the 20th letter in the alphabet.

It's great for those opt-in lists where you want to get some free bonus and then never hear from the website again. Just use an address with "3" as the number. You'll get the initial optin verification, and then only 2 more messages which should be enough to get the download instructions for the freebies.

There are actually a few more advanced things you can do with it, but that should give you a basic overview. It sounds a bit complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty cool. They can even mask your return address so everything goes back through their servers when you reply to an email from your "protected" ISP account.

Oh, did I mention it's all free? :-)

Dave

PS. I wonder how long it will take for the spambots to pick up the address from this post and start sending crap to it. I'll post back here and let you know. At least I know I'll never see more than 20 messages! :-)

Spam is yummy when it gets eaten!

Messages In This Thread

• Spam: Yum Yum, Eat 'em Up!
  eDave -- Monday, October 30, 2006, at 5:10 a.m.(pst)
  • Whoa Doggy!
    MaaMaw -- Monday, October 30, 2006, at 5:14 a.m.(pst)
  • Re: Spam: Yum Yum, Eat 'em Up!
    pete -- Monday, October 30, 2006, at 8:19 p.m.(pst)

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