Sudden SPAM driving me NUTS!

[p_rod]

I have an old email addy....probably close to 30 years.....(AT&T)...and within the past two weeks I have been receiving all sorts of spam. None of the porn stuff or Viagra stuff.... Time Share eradication sites, home insurance sites, Medicare insurance stuff.... crap like that.

In two weeks, I have received more spam than I have in the past 20 years. As many online don't like AT&T, I must admit they have kept me basically spam free for decades.

Not anymore.

My question to y'all is this. Is there anyway in Mac Mail that I can toggle to only accept email from users in my address book? Some way to curtail all this crap?

As I've aged, the number of emails from friends/businesses that I have a history with have dropped off.... but the crap I'm getting now is really getting to me.

When I hit the unsubscribe button, it always seems to go through two different sites that pop up very quickly, and it always says some crap like "Sorry to see you go....this will take at least 10 days..blah, blah, blah......

I'd hate to lose this email addy..... I've had it forever. But I am willing to ditch it.... ****, at this point, I am about ready to ditch all of this... and I cannot remember visiting any type of "questionable" website in the past month...nor have I purchased something online from any other site than Amazon or a week established, 'trustworthy" website.

Please let me know what I can do.....right now, it's only about 5-10 a day..... but this has not happened to me in decades and I am tiring of it.


ONE more question..... can you recommend a browser or an add-on proggie (I use Safari....it just works for me) that totally allows you to "surf the web" totally anonymously? I hate it when I visit a site and they start up ads that either want to "We can SCAN your MAC" or "People in *****, GA are tired of this (my hometown). I do use Ad Blocker.... but after it's last update....I am about ready to ditch it..... more pop-ups and it always tell she I am exceeding my blocking and want some to reduce my "filters"...whatever the **** those are.

Sorry.... I ranted..... but I am tired of this. I do not know where or why it has started......but it is wearing me out.....and I am about this close to just unplugging.....

Cheers.... (and a liter of good whisky to anyone who can help me out of this).

Pat

 

[pm-r]

Sudden SPAM driving me NUTS!
I have an old email addy....probably close to 30 years.....(AT&T)…and within the past two weeks I have been receiving all sorts of spam.
… … …
Please let me know what I can do.....right now, it's only about 5-10 a day.....

LOL… excuse my laughter, but many would not consider that number of SPAM email to be exactly excessive.

Have you checked with your email server (ISP) what their spam/junk email settings are set to.

Are you using Mail.app and checked its Preferences -> Junk and set things accordingly??

If you've done all that but need more, you might want to consider some third party software like spamsieve.app.
https://c-command.com/spamsieve/
or read some comments here:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/9116/spamsieve


EDIT
check this:
How to block unwanted email
https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/email-support/KM1010547?gsi=iomyyBE







- Patrick
======

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Just like spam phone calls, where answering it basically tell them it's a live account to send more spam to, responding to any spam email (even to unsubscribe) just means that 95% of them will send you more spam. Most of the spammers don't even use a real subscription model since they got your email address from a list and are just bombarding everyone to get a live one.

AT&T uses SpamGaurd to scan and detect spam email and these services get updates on spammer email addresses/IP addresses and text to know what is spam and what is not. When an email gets through this filter, your BEST bet is to report it as Spam to allow SpamGaurd to learn. You will likely have to do this on their Web interface (NOT Mac Mail).

I've been using GMail as my primary email service since their inception and get 0 spam emails through to my inbox. My spam folder gets about 50-100 messages a day and it gets cleaned out every 30 days. Once in a while, a errant email makes it to my inbox and I report it as spam and the next time I check my spam folder there are a ton of those emails now automatically blocked.

Since you are paying for your AT&T service, contact their customer support to get this all sorted and configured to your liking.

 

[MacInWin]

My spam blocker (pobox.com) sent me an email today with the daily stats. They blocked 120 spam messages today. That's not a new high, but it was more than the usual 70-80.

 

[harryb2448]

I do 60-100 each day. Tinnitus, diabetes, hearing, health care, home loans and gyn holsters with the occasional Russian wife to be offers!

Tried SpamSieve and after training is a great program, but not free.

 

[MacInWin]

What I did is to start using Pobox.com as both a filter and mail provider. I give out aliases to others, keep the real email hidden and pobox filters it all out for me. Doesn't cost much (I think it's about $20US/year if you just want the aliases but have your own email to which they forward the mail) and the process is easy to set up and manage. I had started getting spam directly to my real email, so i just shifted to their webmail service (That's $50/year, with spam filter included) and the spam is gone. Maybe one a week gets through, but they do a great job.

I have no financial interest in them, just a happy customer.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I don't know of a simple feature in Mail that you can set to only receive e-mail from those in your contacts list (but SpamSieve will do that for you...see below). That would be a nice feature. Some folks use a rather extreme setup, called a "challenge-response" setup where only people who have been granted permission can get through to your mailbox. When someone sends you an e-mail and you have a "challenge-response" setup, if they haven't been given access permission previously, they are automatically sent a form letter which instructs them how to apply for permission from you. The problem is that such a setup is known to turn off a certain number of friends and/or business contacts that you actually would prefer to hear from.

Challenge-response anti-spam companies:

SpamArrest
Spam Arrest - Try Spam Arrest

iPermit Mail
iPermitMail-Email Firewall to the World

There are two very simple ways to avoid just about all ads and spam on your Mac. One way is free, the other isn't, but it is easily worth the nominal price.

For e-mail:

SpamSieve ($30)
SpamSieve: Easy-to-use Mac spam filter for Apple Mail, Outlook, Airmail, MailMate, and more
Review:
https://www.macworld.com/article/30...ve-spam-filter-for-your-mac-email-client.html

SpamSieve is worth every penny. Right now I'm averaging 54 spam messages a day, and SpamSieve is catching them with 99.8% accuracy (based on SpamSieves's own statistics). SpamSieve has blocked just under 175,000 spam e-mails for me!

The program works almost like magic. You train it to know what is spam to you and what isn't, and it handles things accordingly.

Set up is extremely easy. To start off, you choose a bunch of spam e-mails in your e-mail program and mark them as spam. Then you choose a bunch of your typical non-spam e-mails and mark them as non-spam. SpamSieve automatically analyzes both samples and looks for things common to the spam that you receive, and things common to the non-spam that you receive, and it creates a series of filters to form a blacklist and a whitelist. From then on when you get a spam message that manages to find its way into your in-box you mark it as spam, and SpamSieve adjusts it's filters. You do the same for non-spam that shows up in your Spam folder. In just a few weeks SpamSieve becomes amazingly accurate.

For surfing the Web, things are even easier. You can download a number of add-ons for your browser to block ads and to thwart trackers, etc., but this browser already has everything built-in, so there is nothing to configure, nothing to cause conflicts. It's just plug and play and no ads:

Brave browser (free)
https://brave.com/

Brave is fairly new, and it's not perfect yet, but it's already become my favorite browser. It's FAST, ad-free, has excellent compatibility, and it's customizable if you're into that.

 

[p_rod]

I cannot thank you all enough for your answers to my spam problem!

It's a rainy day here in GA today, so no outside chores to be done so I guess I'll head upstairs and start working on the multiple solutions y'all provided me with.

I learned a lot reading your answers to me (like I always do)!

I've been pretty much spam free for years now until about two weeks ago. I don't know if it was a site I just visited or what...but all of a sudden they started to arrive.

I will follow this post up (so maybe someone else can learn something about spam later down the road) with the settings I've checked, the browser change I may make and how the Spam Sieve program works for me. (I never wince about buying quality software when it just does what it is supposed to do).

Thanks again, everyone! I truly appreciate your assistance!!!

Cheers!

Pat

 

[IWT]

Pat

If you think that maybe your Spams are linked to a site or sites you may have visited, you could try to identify which by doing the following:

Open Safari (I'm assuming that this is your Browser).
Use the Command plus comma (Cmd + ,) to enter Safari Preferences
Click on Privacy, then choose Manage Website Data

Let it populate the box. This will show all the cookies and caches that are stored on your Mac from sites visited - intentionally or otherwise.

There may be a very long list; but you could scroll down and see if any seem strange or unfamiliar. Click on these and choose Remove. Have no fears about removing a cookie which is legitimate; the next time you visit that site, a new one will be created.

Ian

 

[pm-r]

@p_rod

I've checked, the browser change I may make and how the Spam Sieve program works for me. (I never wince about buying quality software when it just does what it is supposed to do).

FWIT: back in the days off Eudora.app as an email client, and even having to use modem dial-up (20 years ago here), the later paid version included some forms of SpamSieve, and once enabled, it pretty well stopped all spam even back in those days. And I gather it's still an excellent product, if not the best.

I'm sure it will solve your SPAM/JUNK email problem.


PS Pat: is your avatar and indication that you were also in the flying forces along with a lot of other members here???

Just curious. ;D





- Patrick
======

 

[p_rod]

Ian!

I will attempt that as soon as I can. Unfortunately, my planned day in front of the iMac came to an abrupt halt when a neighbor got himself in a jam and needed my help most of the day. But I will try to do that..... I did order something online a few weeks ago and right after I did that these mysterious emails began. I suspect they put my email 'out there' for all these places to spam me. If I do find out it was them I will contact them and ask that they cease and desist. Yeah, THAT'LL work! ;-)

And Patrick.... no, I cannot claim military flight service but I wish I could. I was 4-F'd in 1968 at the ripe age of 18 (and Nam was still going on then) so I went and obtained my pilots' license just months after that happened and flew crop dusters for awhile. At the time, and being 19, I had convinced myself I could outfly any military pilot out there (remember when you were 19, cocky and had a license to do something few else could do?) ;-) I reapplied to every service, with license in hand, but since I had already been 4-F'd they wouldn't let me try again.

But my flying 'career' spanned 3 decades including gliders, helo's and hot air balloons....but never got to to fly for the military.

The SR71 is my favorite plane of all time and I did have a good friend that flew them for years. I wish I could share some of the stuff he shared with me, but I was told not to ever tell anyone so I have kept that promise to him.

Again..thanks for all the help re: this spam. It just popped up so fast, out of nowhere and just ticked me off. But I will keep y'all informed on what I do and how things go!

Cheers!

Pat

 

[pm-r]

@Pat

The SR71 is my favorite plane of all time and I did have a good friend that flew them for years. I wish I could share some of the stuff he shared with me, but I was told not to ever tell anyone so I have kept that promise to him.

No doubt like or similar to some of the stories that have leaked out, like the full power low pass over a graduating parade ceremony perhaps… ??? ;D

I won't tell… but I'm sure you know about this one:
The SR-71 Blackbird's Most Spectacular Flyover Was Also Its Slowest
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbirds-most-spectacular-flyover-was-also-1719654907








- Patrick
======

 

[MacInWin]

Pat, half of what he told you was a lie, the other half was probably untrue. But both are well worth hearing! That's how military aviators roll.

 

[pm-r]

Pat, half of what he told you was a lie, the other half was probably untrue. But both are well worth hearing! That's how military aviators roll.

Gheese!!! And I thought that was just politicians that did that!!!





- Patrick
======

 

[p_rod]

@Pat



No doubt like or similar to some of the stories that have leaked out, like the full power low pass over a graduating parade ceremony perhaps… ??? ;D

I won't tell… but I'm sure you know about this one:
The SR-71 Blackbird's Most Spectacular Flyover Was Also Its Slowest
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbirds-most-spectacular-flyover-was-also-1719654907








- Patrick
======

Great story there, Patrick! Thanks for the link!

Cheers!

Pat

 

[p_rod]

Pat, half of what he told you was a lie, the other half was probably untrue. But both are well worth hearing! That's how military aviators roll.

Hey Jake!

I needed a good laugh tonight.... thanks! And yeah, I am sure the truth was stretched a tad here and there....but I'd been around those types long enough that yeah, airmen, kinda like bass fishermen, usually stretch it 'a little here and a little there'.

Cheers!

Pat

 

[MacInWin]

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, Pat. That was my motto and the motto of my shipmates!

 

[pm-r]

Great story there, Patrick! Thanks for the link!
Cheers!
Pat

I hope you caught the link to the other "speed check" story on that page to:
The Ultimate Ground Speed Check - Tales from the Blackbird
https://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-1079127041





- Patrick
======

 

[p_rod]

Yes, Patrick, I did read that article too.

Now I need to look around for the book written by Sled Driver Schul.... it's out of print but rumors in the replysections of those articles indicate it is out there, somewhere, in PDF form. Time to start digging around a little...... ;-)

Cheers!

Pat

 

[p_rod]

THREAD UPDATE!

Just a quick update. I have not downloaded Spam Sieve yet....and maybe I don't have to. I located the "source" of the spam, a company I ordered something through. I contacted them (well, they contacted me via email first on another matter) and was able to find out that yes, they were the folks who shared my address to about a dozen different companies. Since I 'unsubbed' from all of those companies (most were reliable and did check out....not 'paper' companies, etc}....and so far, I've gone almost week without any 'weird' unsolicited emails. Just normal 'crappola' form the usual suspects

Crossing my fingers. If it starts up again, then I'll get Spam Sieve and let it work its' magic!

Thanks to everyone here for their help and suggestions!

Cheers!

Pat