I’ve long tried to solve the problem of spam in my email inbox. There have been numerous tricks I’ve employed to this end – using disposable email addresses, not publishing my email address on the web, etc. And yet despite all these attempts to thwart spammers, a few screw-ups (such as posting on a mail list and forgetting to change my return email address) have sunk the ship – I’m getting about 200 pieces of spam a day. Until now – because I, Brendon J. Wilson, have found the solution to spam.
Delete all my email.
Well, not all. It’s not like I’m going Donald Knuth on email (Dr. Knuth has given up email, stating “15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime”). I’m just being very picky about what email I bother to let into my inbox.
Send HTML email? You’re deleted. Send multipart/alternative MIME type content in an email? You’re deleted! Mention pharmaceuticals, refinancing, or mortgages? You’re DELETED! Send to one of my known disposable email addresses? Oh, you better believe you’re deleted.
Why go to these lengths? Well, for one thing, it avoids web bugs (images in HTML emails) signaling to spammers that your email address is alive and suitable for additional spamming. Plus, it eliminates the step of deleting email – why go through your inbox and delete a bunch of emails, when it makes more sense to undelete the few erroneously deleted emails that you care about?