# Email Spam Question



## SeaBreeze

Let me start off by saying that I don't get very much spam in my email at all, and I'm grateful for that.  One of the spam emails I have been getting for quite awhile, is starting to bug me.

The sender is always different various regular names, like Lester Johnson.  The message subject title always varies, but it some form of odd letters and punctuation marks...nonsense completely.  Something like _a'^`~'^*/,c.  _I can't even try to duplicate it, as I don't have all the characters they use on my keyboard.

Although the names are constantly changing, the message subject titles make me sure that these people are spammers who are all working together...or one spammer, just using different sender names.

Needless to say, I've never opened even one of them, and always deleted them.  It's hard to report them as spam on my computer, because the sender name is ever changing, so they never go to the junk mail folder.  Anyone else ever get these spam emails??  Any idea who's sending them and why?


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## Old Hipster

That's weird, I can see that trying to "Block Sender" would be hard. 

I have never got anything like that.


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## Diwundrin

I did get a couple that were along those lines SB, a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't open them either, just the title and/or unrecognized name and some odd symbols sent them to the delete bin.  Only had 3 or 4 and they stopped.


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## SifuPhil

There are "black hat" programs / techniques available to spammers that automatically generate thousands of email accounts and subject titles for a piece of mail. 

They _can_ be difficult to block or report. Luckily my email client is smart enough to pick up most of them (Buddha knows I've trained it long enough). The thing is, even though the name changes they might be sending from the same IP address, unless they're rotating that as well (Yes, there's an app for that ) or going through the Dark Net. 

As to WHY they're sending them? Same reasons as always, I guess - either to make a profit or to cause havoc. 

Best you can do is to just manually categorize these as spam and hope your email client learns.


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## SeaBreeze

Thanks Phil, I have netzero email, not sure they'll pick up on it.  I put them into junk, then I delete them.  I blocked a couple of them, but that made no sense, since the sender is always a different name.  I guess if it's from the same IP address, it might help.  Don't know anything about stuff like Dark Net.  With my limited computer knowledge, don't want to.


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## SifuPhil

SeaBreeze said:


> Thanks Phil, I have netzero email, not sure they'll pick up on it.  I put them into junk, then I delete them.  I blocked a couple of them, but that made no sense, since the sender is always a different name.  I guess if it's from the same IP address, it might help.  Don't know anything about stuff like Dark Net.  With my limited computer knowledge, don't want to.



Do you know how the part of an iceberg you see is only a small percentage of the entire thing? Well, the 'Net that you and I use every day is like that - just the small, visible portion. The Dark Net is the huge, hidden section. 

There was a Dark Net site that recently became infamous - The Silk Road. It was a marketplace for anything and everything, and you paid by BitCoin. You could purchase pirate software, porn, weapons or drugs of any description. That its founder was finally arrested and the site shut down made news, but what isn't commented upon is that there are hundreds of other sites that are ready to take its place. 

One interesting facet of the Dark Net for us, however, is its ability to shield or hide our actual identity and location. It does this through its "browser", by bouncing and re-routing your Net connection through several different locations and encoding your identity. Theoretically you are untraceable, although places like the NSA can no doubt follow you if they want to, but for honest folk it can be a great aid in maintaining their privacy. 

Not as sure, but I think there are email hosts on the Dark Net that can scramble your outgoing mail as well, so that you cannot be traced. They do this by again re-routing your mail through several locations and IP addresses. It's like sending out chain-mail letters and putting a different fictional name and return address on each envelope. 

As for NetZero, in looking briefly at their security policies it seems that you would need to use a third-party program such as Norton to safeguard your email and automatically pick out the spam. The only alternative would be to continue what you're doing - hand-picking them and deleting them. I suppose it would depend upon how much of a pain in the neck it all is for you.


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## SeaBreeze

I do have Norton Anti-Virus through NetZero...I'd like to see what the Dark Net is about, but on someone else's computer.


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## SifuPhil

SeaBreeze said:


> I do have Norton Anti-Virus through NetZero...I'd like to see what the Dark Net is about, but on someone else's computer.



Well, this is a shot of me accessing the Dark Net ...


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## That Guy




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## SifuPhil

That Guy said:


> * SPAM *



Spam, spam, spam, spam, ham and eggs, spam.


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## That Guy




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## terra

I've been using Spamihilator for a few months now.  It sits between your regular email program such as Outlook Express or Thunderbird and heads off the baddies before they reach you... and it's free.

http://www.spamihilator.com/en


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## That Guy

Spamihilator!


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## Jackie22

I have Gmail...it does have a spam blocker, but just for anyone thats thinking about changing to Gmail, there is no way to block a certain sender if you need to, you can send their email to trash but you cannot block it, I found out the hard way.


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## That Guy

Working for a major player in the modern information age, we are behind massive firewalls with extensive security and still spam gets through.


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