[OT] Handling Returned Virus Mail

[Timothy Miller]

>scott,
>
>one thing that has stemmed the tide for me is to start putting your 
>email address on all your web posts as a java encoded text (there 
>are several schemes out there to do this) instead of straight html. 
>while this wont get rid of things immediately, it has slowed the 
>tide a lot for me and many clients over the last couple of years 
>since i started doing it. spam lists are constantly being generated 
>by spiders all the time looking for emails in html, so it does help 
>prevent you getting on new ones. im sure there are some spammers out 
>there that are now using bots to run the java scripts to see if they 
>get any email addresses back, but thats not as easy.
>
>its never ending war... you might also try and forward your email 
>over to a hosting account that has a spam filter on it.

My ISP has installed a spam filter called "Vanquish" that works, 
well... perfectly.

Vanquish doesn't attempt to filter by content, subject line or IP. 
Instead,legitimate senders not on my "allow" list get directed to a 
website where they have to type some graphic characters into a field. 
They only have to do it once. After that, they go on the allow list, 
unless I remove them. At first, I worried that legitimate senders 
would be put off. I've not heard a single complaint. The only comment 
has been, "Hey, where can I get this?"

My outgoing email gets added to my allow list. Bonded senders are 
also allowed, unless I exclude them.

Highly recommended.

Tim