I have had something like 6 419 mails today.
Most of you may be thinking, “WTF is 419”
419 is the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that handles email scams involving alleged money laundering through legal inheritance.
If you get these I’d strongly suggest two web sites:
Nigeria – The 419 Coalition Website
Spamcop
The latter I use religiously. As soon as you get any suspect SPAM, go to spam cop. Paste the RAW TEXT of the spam in and send it. The quicker the better. This includes offers, phishers (your ebay acct has expired, give us your social security number to renew), and anything else of true annoyance.
Important: When you have Spam/Scam… make sure your email app is set to: “Do not load pictures”, this will send a note to the spammer (more often than not) that they at least got you to look at it. It puts you on a “Spam this person even more” list.
Above all, clicking on the “remove me from this spam” links (on the really annoying spam) do the same as the previous paragraph. It’s best just to pull the raw data and report them. Behind every spam is inevitably a human. Stopping them, slows the spam.
Finally, (and most of the people who read my LJ do not need this advise:
Educate yourself. Yes, I’m a diehard Mac Weenie and make fun of M$ Windoze all the time, but the honest truth is: most of the Windows crap you read about with worms, trojan horses, viruses, and the like can be prevented with just a little bit of intelligence and imprudence. Install the tools and think… I know it’s asking alot, but if more people actually put in a hair of effort, a portion of the moron-community would go away. The rest would get more creative… but that keeps the rest of us in business trying to shut their collective as%es down.
Just my 2.1¥ (as of 10:18 am PT)