Spam-proof Email

I've never seen a spam message that wasn't a scam of some sort as well. Spam likely carries malware too. That's why I set up a highly spam-resistant email system for myself.

Key Objectives:

1. Get zero spam messages on a day-to-day basis.
2. Keep trouble for my contacts to a bare minimum.
3. Be able to plug any spam leaks quickly and easily, no matter who I give addresses to.
4. Be able to change my master email address without requiring my contacts to make changes. I've used both Yahoo! and Gmail.

What won't work?

• Spam filters/blockers: You can come close with an excellent filter, but some spam will always slip through, and some valid messages will be rejected.
• Blacklists: These used to work great, but spammers never use the same address twice these days.
• Whitelists: Various versions of this strategy can be quite effective, but they can frustrate the very people whose messages are important to you. They can be high-maintenance too.
• Secrecy: Another method that used to be effective. If you only gave your email address to people you trusted, you were safe. No longer. If an Internet worm infects even one of the computers your contacts use it can "scrape" your email address from their address book or an email that you've sent them.

So, what's a person to do?

Agent 007 would know what to do: First, never reveal the real you, or in this case your real email address. Second, make everything except your real self — in this case your real email address — expendable. Here's some rules to follow:

1. Start with a new, unsullied master email account. It's nearly impossible to clean up an address that is already attracting spam.
2. http://www.yahoo.com/ and http://gmail.google.com are two email providers that I know work well with Spamex. Many others leak your hidden email address by including a revealing message ID in the message header [how to read] that points to your master address.
3. Instead, give virtual addresses to all your contacts. Keep in mind that these are virtual addresses. You may need to abandon some of them later, so think of the consequences if that happens.
4. Never, ever give that master address to anyone. Be careful -- it is very easy to slip up here. The next item is one way to avoid that.
5. Never, ever send anyone a message except via a virtual address. If you use your master address, it ends up on your contact's computer. That means, sooner or later, some miscreant will find it. [instructions]

Things will go wrong:

• Your trust can be misplaced, and a virtual address sold or rented to a spammer.
• There other ways for virtual addresses to leak, and even though they are not too likely, you have little or no control of them.
• Spammers might even guess a virtual address. This rarely happens if they are obscure, like [email protected] instead of [email protected]

That's why the plan looks ahead. You have several ways to recover from a leaked address, depending on circumstances. Continue below:

What you can do when things go wrong:

These actions are listed in order of increasing inconvenience for your valid contacts.

1. Blacklist the spam sender(s), i.e., block their address(es) as they intrude. This seldom works today, as spammers use a different address for each message.
2. Change the contact list to a whitelist. Only addresses that are whitelisted can get through. Any of your contacts who change their own address will not get through to you unless they inform you first.
3. Turn the address off. You'll have to give a new address to everyone who was using it.

Assigning virtual email addresses:

Wondering how you're going to get all this set up? It's not real simple, but most everything you need is provided by Spamex, or other email services that provide disposable addresses.

Remember Rule #2? Never give your real email address to anyone (except your virtual email address provider). :-) Here are some alternative ways to assign virtual addresses to contacts:

• Use one virtual address for your critical business contacts, another for trusted contacts, and a third for everyone else. This is the weakest strategy. You'll end up changing the third address frequently, and maybe even the second.
• Give everyone a different address. It's hard to keep track of them this way, particularly because of the rule to never send anyone a message from your real address.
• Use three addresses, but change the third one frequently so that only a few contacts have each third level address. That way, fewer contacts will affected when one of them gets spammed.
• [Examples and more]