SPAM Concern

[rgray58]

Anyone else seeing an uptake in spam to their hughesnet email address?  It has been absolutely crazy the past few days.  Over 50 spam emails just yesterday.  It isn't even noon today and over 30.  I understand I made a mistake years ago getting started with a hughesnet email address and plan to start the long process of switching to something else because real high-speed fiber is coming to my area next year.  But it seems that Hughesnet is doing nothing to stop spam.  I even get spam from hughesnet email addresses!!!!

[maratsade]

Spam happens, especially if you use your email around the web for stuff such as subscriptions and other things. 

I don't know what makes you say that HN is not doing anything about it. How do you know? The increase in spam has more to do with you than with them, for one, and for two, spam is a thing that evolves and breaks through barriers. It's a constantly escalating war. The ISP blocks them, they come up with new ways. Users post their email address everywhere and get spammed; the ISP can't do much to correct your habits -- you have to do that yourself. 

One thing that they have said in the past is to mark every spam email as spam, which makes HN aware of it happening. 

They can close one spam door, but others open, and it's not their fault. It's the nature of the internet.  

Make sure you don't use your personal email for things that may and will attract spam to you. You're a lot more in control than you think, and there are many things you can do to reduce spam. 

(Edited to add URL)

[hooterville]

Hello,

     I have also had an increase in spam.  I get marking it as spam, but yet, it still goes into my inbox.  I have also blocked them, but they still come through to my inbox.  If we are going to mark them as spam, then shouldn't they go into our spam or junk folder?  And if we block them, shouldn't HughesNet stop them?

[maratsade]

• It takes time to deal with spam, and it's an ongoing battle, as spammers find new ways to spam. 
• ISPs can't stop spam. No one can truly stop spam. At most they can reduce it a bit, and temporarily. 
• Continue to mark stuff as spam, then delete it. 
• If you would like the mods here to get involved, post under Tech Support, but remember that spam is like weeds; it continues to exist even when you think you've eradicated it. 
• Make sure to check your behaviour -- a lot of spam happens because of what people do, where they post, etc. 
• Have more than one email account. 

[timderry]

There has been an uptick in spam and there has been no change of use of my address. And, there are Spam filters ISPs can put in place.

[maratsade]

They're constantly fighting spam (including updating filters and I'm sure using other measures), but spam is very hard to fight.  Users need to also fight.   Spam changes and morphs, spammers become better at it, etc. Many variables, and you may not have changed the way you use your address, but spammers may have found ways to track you anyway. 

[MarkJFine]

Just want to point out that an uptick in spam to your email address has a lot more to do with the amount of active spam bots and hijacked email servers (which always sees an uptick this time of year) than it does with your email use. If your address is already on a list that is propagating to the spam bots then it's already out there. Right now, about 95% of it is coming from China.

Also want to point out that these guys are now changing their tactics faster than Spam Assassin (what most email servers use to detect and block spam) can update their spam-detection algorithms. The only fully effective way to block it all is to literally block everything that's not on a whitelist of desired senders, and let everything else go to Junk. Or, like I do in most cases, to /dev/nul, so I don't even have to clear it.