Just today

How many viagra ads can one ignore? How many viagra ads does one need to receive before they actually breakdown and respond?

I really should keep better track of the stats on this. It's a joke around my friends when my blackberry vibrates at the strangest times and I respond - oh yeah there's my viagra order coming in.

However, let's just use today's spam for our sample. 41 ads a day times 7 days times 52 weeks = 14, 924 spam ads received for viagra and other nonsense in one year. Let's see - I have tried filtering out this filth through my webmail spam filter. Bad idea. As soon as I put an address on the blocked list from my webmail account I receive at least one third more trash than I had before. Okay that wasn't a good idea.

Next step - Norton Anti-Virus - same deal - it's like if you try to block this shit with anything reputable you are just opening yourself up to receiving even more filth. Last resort - using the junk mail feature in Microsoft Windows - this has actually had a minor impact on the filth. The same spam is just cloned to a different email address - and since there are millions of iterations of email addresses I believe I'm doomed to receive this shit. The only problem with the Windows filter is for those really smart people who have devised a way to hide their email address windows doesn't have an adequate filter to prevent these from coming through (ie: filtering on the subject line). I know I could use the rules and alerts but then that clutters up my rules and alerts for every iteration of strange fonts in the subject line. Besides the subject line is always ever so slightly changed each time so this would be an exercise that would be doomed to fail.

The last, and not really an option, option is to change my email address. Now this would cause a major uproar amongst my friends and family. It's bad enough I change phone numbers (home, cell or work) on a regular basis. I have stopped moving around the country (at least for now) so at least my home address hasn't changed in the last 6 years. But my email address - that is sacrosanct. I could use one of the other 4 email addresses I have accumulated over the years as my main email address but it would be like giving up my identity. I just won't do it.

I have sent emails to my provider asking if there is anything they can do to prevent the onslaught. I also inquired as to why when I put the spam filter on through webmail it just appears to create more filth. So far, deaf ears.

Tags: Observations, Personal Lessons, Technology