I'm a qualified Computer Engineer.

[Mikheil]

I have qualifications in Novell, Microsoft, Mac OSX. Linux and VMWare. I started in computers in the Mid 1970's when I dumped veterinary work. So for anyone prepared to take notice, let me offer some advice.

 

Do you suffer from Spam? 

 

For some reason (and I have ZERO idea why, people have been taught to use junk mail filters, blacklists, greylists , whitelists, spam assassin and all manner of ways to stop spam, BUT NONE OF THEM WORK.

 

Spammers hijack IP Addresses. Every computer on earth has a unique IP Address, ISP's are allocated a block or blocks of IP Addresses known as subnets and these can be further sub-netted.

 

Once a spammer has a hacked IP Address he can then forge as many sender names to it as he can possibly imagine, so ONE IP Address can send out 100,000 spam emails using a different forged name every time.

 

All that your blacklist, greylists, whitelist, spam and junk mail filters do is to block a sender NAME. This is USELESS because 10 minutes later another mail comes from the same IP address with a different sender name. I you want to stop spam, the ONLY way is to block the IP Address that is being used.

 

Now a lot of "experts" will tell you that these hijacked IP Addresses are just temporary and after a few days, the spammer will be blocked.  He'll get put onto a Blacklist and you won't get any more spam from that address. It's just not true, because almost NO ISP ever puts Blacklist filters on their mail servers. and after studying spam for the past 5 years, once an IP address gets onto a Blacklist, they rarely, if ever come off it. BECAUSE NO ONE CARES.

 

The ONLY way to stop spam is to block IP Addresses, but Outlook and every mail client affords no way to block an IP Address, only the forged name. There's a reason for this - MONEY. I know in Europe that one sets up an account and there is a limit to the amount of bandwidth you get allocated every month. Once you exceed the limit, your computer internet connection slows to a crawl and to get the speed back before the end of the month you need to PAY. Follow the money.

 

There is a simple way (usually costs NOTHING or very little), to block IP Addresses and / or subnets.

 

If any folks out there want to know how to do this, just say so and I'll give you all the details.

 

 

[Grumpy Owl]

I'd be interested in learning more about this, I'm being plagued with spam at the moment.