Ok a couple of days ago I switched onto bigpond cable.

Within ONE DAY my brand new email address was being spammed with a s***load of crap. How is this possible?

Then I look up on bigpond and see that if u want a spam-filter, it costs an extra $2.50 a month or so. What the f*** is this. c***s are running a scam i swear!

I used outlook express - is there anyway to stop this spam myself, whilst not losing any real emails?

Switch to thunderbird or run your own mail server, or get a virus scanner that does mail filtering asd well (ie, zonealarm or something).

Thunderbird is your best bet.

Within ONE DAY my brand new email address was being spammed with a s***load of crap. How is this possible?

Because larger well known ISPs are often hit with dictionary attacks which basically make the email address up. Also it's possible somebody had the email address before you.

or you were looking at gay porn on day 1.

or you were looking at gay porn on day 1.

lol i'll pay that. but i wasnt. seriously. :D

hmm ok will look into zonealarm. impossible that someone had this email before me tho.

Doesnt matter, like it has been said. Its a dictionary based attack, look at the list of adresses it has been sent to. Its completely random. It happened to me the day i got a bigpond adress as well. Just use any anti virus with an email filter. Also you can create your own filters in outlook.

If you spam filtering is clevr enough tell it to look for 5 or more of the same email domain in a To or Cc list. Here's my postfix header_check that saves a heap of spam. I've change the domain to bigpond to make the example more on topic.

/^(To|Cc):\s+(.*\@bigpond\.com){5}/ REJECT MORE THAN 5 bigpond emails IN To or CC LIST

SPAMBAYES!

Seriously, if you're not using a mail client that has decent spam filtering like Thunderbird, install and use SpamBayes. Its just scary how goddamn awesome this application is in all respects. I will help you get it working via this thread if you have problems.

It works with OE, which I assume you're using, and there's an Outlook plugin as well. Why anyone would pay for a spam filter when there's ridiculously awesome open source freeware like this available is beyond me.

Edit: here's how to get it working with OE in step by step instructions:




last edited by trog at 17:18:10 09/Feb/06

hmm ok will look into zonealarm

As opposed to getting freebie Thunderbird and using it?

Outlook 2003 ftw

use gmail?

seriously, who uses their isp based email these days?

Also it's possible somebody had the email address before you.

No it isn't. At one stage Telstra allocated email addresses For Life due to privacy concerns. Not sure it is that long still, but i'd highly doubt any address you have picked up on Bigpond has been allocated to someone else unless your account is just a first name.

The big question is, why would you care if your ISP email addy fills up, you shouldn't be locking yourself in to using it anyway. I've not even logged in once to my last two isp's emails. If they've got something important to tell me they can ring.

It's not for me, its for my pappa.

Thanks trog - i'll look into installing that program.

Stez, if you're using Outlook proper, there's a cool plug in that makes it even easier (apparently - I haven't actually used it but it is sposed to be pretty solid).

Bigpond are the kings of rip-off.

I recently switched my dsl link to iinet's braodband 2; with a bundled home phone and ipphone. My reasons were price and speed.

When I called up Bigpond to tell them to disconnect me and got forwarded through to their last line of defence to try and keep you as a customer; they asked why. I said to them simple: you're too expensive. They ask what i'm paying for dsl at iinet; so i tell them the plan; and Bigpond say oh but that's waht we charge. Well hang on a minute, how long have you been at that price, i ask? 2 years or so. Filthy so and so's have been charging me a $20-per-month premium for 2 years without even once bothering to tell me that their price has changed. They'd even called me 18 months ago to "optimise" my billing with telstra and make it "cheaper" for me, since i had home, mobile and internet with them. You can see exactly how they went and optimised that, cant you!

Now, i'm in marketing so I understand the motivations of the western world and profit-taking; however this sort of disregard for customers is unfathomable. I wouldn't care if osama bin laden or some other big bad dude owned the competition; i'd gladly give them my hard earned than give it to telstra.

venting feels good, doesnt it :P

Anyway, good luck with your telstra cable :P

id just get pops a gmail account
pops@gmail.com

its so easy, even old people can do it (gmail that is)