Alonline » email

Microsoft opens up Sender ID to curb Spam

Al — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:15:45 +0000

It’s good to see Microsoft gradually changing their attitude towards their licensing, and the way they have always enforced their licenses. I have read rumours that they may yet open-source their entire Operating Systems and concentrate on providing large scale products, but I think that other Open Source OS’s would need to get to around 40% popularity before they would really think of this. However every little bit helps and releasing the license on their Sender ID will certainly help in the battle against Spam, even if that battle is a losing one.

What I did find interesting about this article, though, was the idea that email may be on it’s way out as Instant Messaging and texting takes it’s place. I can’t see this happening in business situations at the moment, as email is so entrenched as a business tool that it will take a few years yet to replace it. But I was thinking that if you used something like Skype then identifying who was sending you a message would not be a problem. Because Skype has to be able to establish a secured end-to-end communication channel for voice calls if the same guaranteed connection was used for sending messages then no spammer would be able to send you anything. You could just close your connection to anyone not in your contact list, therefore you would always know who is sending you any message. As you can move your Skype login from PC to PC then there would be no problem sending emails from different PC’s, or whilst abroad for example. Currently I’m not a great messaging fan, and although I always have Skype running I speak to people very rarely using it – this might just change in the near future.

A good way to deal with spam – tarpits

Al — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 23:55:32 +0000

I like the idea of tarpits – SMTP server that restrict the sender (normally their the spammer themselves or their spambots) to a slow connection: sometimes even as slow as 1 character per tcp/ip packet. this leads to them taking 30+ minutes to send a spam email which is often then rejected and they are forced to sen the the same email again, costing more time and bandwidth. if you’re running Linux and want to really annoy spammers then this guide to dealing with spam may be for you.

Drugs advertised in Spam may be real after all

Al — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:21:09 +0000

Now that’s something I didn’t expect: while investigating spam emails, form their origins, to their links and all the way through to the experience of actually clicking on one of their links these investigators found that when they ordered drugs those drugs actually arrived through the post. What drugs they were, and whether they matched the descriptions, is yet to be seen, but who would have thought you’d actually get anything once they had your money? I’m impressed and if I ever need for Cialis or whatever the latest drug of the moment is I may consider clicking on Spam in future – but then again maybe not.

Kablooeymail – self-destructing emails

Al — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:07:26 +0000

Now this might be a very useful idea, or alternatively may be completely useless, it is definitely an interesting development though. Kablooeymail.com allows you to send emails which are only viewable though it’s web based system, which allows you to set some very specific constraints on the email, and it’s contents. You can set a time limit for how long the email will be viewable, you can prevent copying of the content, and you will always get delivery and read receipts for every email. If you need to send secure emails, and you don’t want them being copied or forwarded to others, then Kablooeymail may be just what you need.

Inbox.com – better then GMail?

Al — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:07:09 +0000

I’ve just discovered Inbox.com, and it’s GUI looks a LOT better than GMail’s GUI. For some reason GMail has never felt as though it ever got out of Beta – it has always looked very simple and unsophisticated. Now this can be a good thing, but when you see the nice, pretty GUI that is offered by Inbox.com then you realise that not enough effort has been put into GMail over the last year and it really is faling behind. Inbox.com looks professional and is somethign that you would want to use daily, whereas GMail looks cheap in comparison. I think Google need to do something if they want to maintain anmy kind of market lead. Oh yeah! – did I mention that Inbox.com comes with a calendar built in rather then having to switch apps to Google calendar?

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Businessman wins e-mail spam case

Al — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 22:34:32 +0000

This may be a small step in the right direction. However I feel that spammers will simply stop working from EU countries and carry on regardless, still at least there’s a chance now that this spam case has happened.

Email Roulette

Al — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 01:05:51 +0000

This could lead to some interesting emails. Alternatively playing Email Roulette may also be a sign of being a complete loser and having no friends. If I ever decide to join up then I’ll keep you posted.

Gmail Power Tips

Al — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 22:19:42 +0000

Google This set of tips for using GMail is informative – I never knew that you could mutate your email address by adding text after a “+” symbol. This effectively gives you unlimited addresses and also allows you to filter emails more effectively. Next time I subscribe to a mailing list I think I will try this out.

eMailman — electronic superhero?

Al — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 00:54:45 +0000

I’m not sure but I think this site may be useful at some time in the future.
Although it’s not as specific as this site which tells you everything you need to know about Outlook Express.