Ban spam to the can

I'm not unique in this regard, but I get a shitload of spam now. In the past week or two, it feels like it's escalating at a geometric rate. It isn't unusual to check my mail and find six out ten emails are spam. My email client is smart enough to bin about a quarter of this automatically, and it flags another quarter as dubious. But, I only use this client when I'm home, so if I check for email from the web or with my wireless PDA, I get full frontal spam.

A more advanced human could be very zen about it, perhaps doing some sort of finger tai-chi exercise while sending the offending unsolicited email to the trash. Unfortunately, I'm a New Yorker, so spam isn't an opportunity to meditate, but an occasion to get aggravated.

When seven out of eight emails are spam, that's when I can't take it any more. But can anything really be done?

Enter Spamcop.net. For a small fee, it's possible to have your in-box scoured by a rather clever piece of software that's constantly being updated. I took the plunge, and I'll give it a few weeks. I'll let you all know how well it works.

So far the biggest drawback to Spamcop is up to a 10 minute delay in receiving email, but there's probably a more optimal way for me to configure it. The folks at Spamcop are on the brink of a big upgrade that'll make the service easier and faster (and flat rate, right now it's based on bandwidth used: $12.50 gets you 25MB of filtering. Soon it'll be $3 a month.) The biggest plus is it nails spam with great accuracy, and it's easy to check that it's just pulling the spam.

posted 2:38 PM | link |