<font color="blue"> ... I have several junk accounts now. In fact, I had to change my real email address to a junk account... </font>
I probably took this a bit further than most people.
When I was setting up my first web site, I realized that eventually I'd like more than one. So, I searched for a company that had reseller accounts. I found one that allows me to set up as many as 100 diiferent domains (NOT sub-domains; those are unlimited in this plan), and provides a goodly amount of space and bandwidth. The idea is that one can re-sell web domains to others. The cost is $220/year paid annually, which is the same price I used to pay for one domain at another provider. (
page-zone.com if anyone is interested)
I don't resell them; I provide space for family members, my daughter's high school band, a community forum, the local historical society, etc. It's a cheap way to make myself an internet hero. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
I discovered GoDaddy, one of the lowest cost registrars of domain names. For $9/year or less, one can register domains. I think I own 8 or 9 domain names currently, including my name, my wife's name, etc. For a few dollars more, they will set up the domain name with a proxy so your identity is completely hidden.
When I finally got tired of spam, and wanted an untraceable junk email address, I registered a new domain called nodamspam.us , and set it up so my ownership does not show. Then, I set up server space for that domain out of my reseller space. That server includes an unlimited number of POP3 Email accounts for each domain. Since it's my domain, I can call the email addresses anything I want. I now have several email addresses I use for various purposes; based on the name, I can tell who is abusing. If mail suddenly steps up for fred @nodamspam.us (not acutually one of the accounts), I know to whom I gave the 'fred' address, and know who sold it. I can quickly cancel the 'fred' address if I choose. I use Eudora for my mail reader program (fewer attacks than Outlook Express), and I can quickly set up as many accounts as I like to be downloaded from the POP3 servers. I filter them into appropriate mailboxes to manage the chaos.
Also included in my server account are several different email filters, the SpamAssassin program, and a new feature called "Box Trapper". It works like SpamArrest, which is a fee-based program, but Box Trapper is free with my account. What it does is intercept every email that has the feature enabled, sends a verification email back to the sender, who has to reply to the verification to prove they are human and be added to the "white list" of approved senders. They only have to do this once. Machine based email cannot respond.
After setting up my nodamspam accounts, I activated Box Trapper on all my normal email addresses. Thus, if you send an email to
don@hornerfamily.com or
don@donhorner.com, among others, you will receive the verification request (these are real addresses; I no longer have to fear giving them out, because the spam has dropped to virtually NOTHING.) If someone DOES figure a way to get offensive mail past the Box Trapper, all I have to do is switch them from the White List to the Black List, and they'll never get through again.
So, I'm spending a couple of bucks to set this all up. It's cheaper than the SpamArrest program and cheaper than many of the so-called spam-free email address programs that abound.
Finally, I'm FREE of spam at the addresses that matter, and can elminate any of the junk addresses that get abused. It takes a bit of work to remember where I used which address, but it's not bad. I also have to manually add some valid senders manually to my White List; just the other day I got notice from my broker that the online proxy feature for which I had signed up could not get through until I added their name to my White List. That just takes a few seconds.
