spam halting suggestions

[wow123]

Hi,

I keep getting spam from various subdomains of operah.com,

and there doesnt seem any way to stop them.

I forwarded them as spam to talktalk, but the emails keep coming through.

I think there should be a contact email address to report unstoppable spam,

with the webmail mailbox there doesnt seem to be a way to halt a particular domain 

[Gondola]

Start a topic in the Email and Webmail forum and I'll help you to set up a Filter rule for TalkTalk Mail mailboxes. Gondola

[AngryMc]

I'm the same ,tried several ways to block them and also sent emails to TT requesting they block this sender but so far they have done didlly squat so still getting them. no interest in bitcoin scams or sending my payment details for the various supermarket prizes I've supposedly won so will no doubt have to change mt email address and get some peace before they catch up with me again

[brokenboiler]

I too have been inundated with spam from various operah.com domains. I report these to report@phishing.gov.uk but each day a new variation turns up. Surely there is a way to block any email containing operah.com in the domain name?

[Gondola]

See my suggestion here.

[brokenboiler]

Thanks Gondola,  early days but that seems to have worked, I haven't had anything from operah.com today - yippee!.

[Gondola]

Nice one. Let the spam die hard. Yippee ki yay! 

[Canthespam]

Hi to all those who receive spam, the Talktalk advise is to use spam filters to block the domain name e.g. Operah.com, then the spammer moves on to another name and you receive more email from a different domain.

Now the spam enters the world wide web via a IP Address which is usually the last IP Address on the email if you can log into the webmail version to see the source code. 

The way the spammer is working is to post his spam images on various hosting sites these sites are usually free if the image data is small, he sends out emails that link to these sites so if you open a spam email it loads the image on your computer, this way he does not have to pay for the data.

Now I am fed up with receiving spam, four or five a day so decided to tackle it at the beginning of the year,  my mate signed up to Talktalk ten years before I did and he gets the same spam email as me. I traced the landing pages to hosting sites and reported them and reported IP Addresses where the spam came from, I can report that the hosting sites closed him down, he had three accounts on each site and operated from 35 sites.

Since the beginning of the year my spam count has gone from 3-5 a day to 1 or 2 a fortnight and as soon as these land in my inbox I fire off abuse reports to the relevant domains.

Now here is the point, blocking a domain does NOT stop spam, if you track where it comes from and report it to the domains it comes from then you disrupt the source, the spammer has to source new accounts to spam from and as soon as he starts he is shut down again so more input little output.

How do these hosting sites know if they have a spammer operating using their services, how do domains know they have a spam problem and how do these domains know if there are loopholes in their systems if we don't report it.

All these domains have terms and conditions that prevent illegal activities eg spamming.

Now if I report abuse from a single email the receiver puts it on the pile to be actioned, meanwhile the spammer is still spamming and I am still reporting abuse, eventually they act and the spam from that site stops. Talktalk can gather these spam emails up and report we have received 10,000 spam emails from this site, I bet if you received this report from from a ISP it would jump to the top of the pile and be acted on straight away.

Last year I received over 900 spam emails, this year less than 100 so if this was multiplied by  10,000 customers 8 million spam emails have been stopped from entering the Talktalk servers, because Talktalk have accepted spam as a normal way of life the spammer sets up 105 accounts on hosting sites just to spam.

Talktalk could set up to track and report these accounts and domains, they would have more clout than a single customer, that's CUSTOMER Talktalk these are people who pay for the service.

A word of warning, these spam emails have a unsubscribe page, as you and I have NEVER subscribed then its main purpose is to check that you have received the email and that your account is active, don't use it.

The second point is that there may be a tracking pixel in the image this is a code that simply reports back to the spammer when the image is opened, again its to see if you received the email and the account is active, don't open spam, send it to your spam folder.

Talktalk simply advise that you waste time and effort in blocking a domain that the spammer will change after a few usage and then it comes from a different, the effort would be better to track and disrupt him to reduce the spamming load.

CanTheSpam

[Gondola]

TalkTalk and the UK Government both work to stop spam and scam at source. TalkTalk give you tools to mark spam to report spam and phishing and to filter spam.

I use multiple email addresses. None are spammed. I give email addresses to trusted contacts only.

Use the website haveibeenpwned to see if your email address is part of a known data breach. If your email address is known to spammers then don't waste your time or expect an ISP to relentlessly fight your spam. Do what I did when Adobe revealed an email address and spam started. I deleted the email address and created a new one.

It's far more satisfying notifying contacts that you're taking an email address out of the hands of spammers.That's how you can the spam!

[Canthespam]

It seems like Talktalk can be hacked,1,200,000 customers email addresses stolen and circulated and take no responsibility for it  just set up a new account and then tell all the people in your address book that you have set up a new address.

Wow this is never a easy task and somehow you feel that the Talktalk hack to which they got fined £100,000 never comes into it, its the customers fault and as I have said before my mate signed on to Talktalk ten years before me and he gets the same spam as me.

So according to your version at some point in our lives we both got stupid and signed up to spam, well I moved away ten years ago so we did not share emails etc and when we were talking he said I get this spam and low and behold its the same.

So if we analyse this where is the common point, I was never on Talktalk and he lived next door to me so I did not send him emails.

So someone can look at this and take a view where is the common point, let me see Talktalk hack fined for letting customers data out.

Out of all the emails I have and I use them for various reasons, business etc Talktalk is the only account that I have spam on.

Your views are like owning a boat with a hole in it, spam just gets bigger as hacked lists are sold on and generate more spam the boat starts to sink, o spam does not matter, we stop millions a day, is that just 2%. Its OK we will get bigger servers to handle it or we need a bigger boat.

HaveIbeenpawned only deals with databases that have been found out if its not been found it won't be on the site so that bit of advice is not worth the print.

Advising people to block email domains falls into the same category, you know that the spammer will change his domain name and it achieves nothing.

So basically as a Community Star you don't shine very bright, this issue is Spam and how it should be dealt with.

Raising a new email account is time consuming and you would have to keep both accounts alive as some emails may only come yearly e.g TV licence, or car Tax, have I covered all my contacts.

The first point is Spam illegal, yes we have laws that prohibit it so why are you saying its OK to spam let's just accept it as a fact if life.

Surely if there is a illegal activity is it not our responsibility to report it and do something about it, after all its Illegal. Is phishing illegal, are email scams illegal, why do you draw the line at Spam.

So I as a single layman having reduced my spam load by 90% and in the process of doing so reduced Talktalk spam load, I have abided by my terms and conditions however have you read them.

Section 6.1

(c) to download, possess or transmit in any way illegal material;

Is Spam legal well, I have no choice it comes into my mail box, I'm splitting hairs, Talktalk don't want people to spam but don't want to be proactive and do something about, that's what is called double standards.

If one person comes up with a way to reduce spam which is easy and can be dealt with and in the process reduce spam to thousands of its customers the last thing I would expect is some community star to say just change your email address.

CanTheSpam

[Gondola]

Just sharing the power I exercised to totally eliminate spam. I've also offered a Filter rule to help the originator of this idea and other contributors deal with the unwanted sender.

Of course I'm sorry you've wasted your time relentlessly fighting off the spammers that pester you and your friend. You use multiple accounts for various purposes - ideal for limiting exposure to spam. Which makes it easier to migrate contacts on a spammed account to a new one.

TalkTalk blocks millions of spam messages each day and helps to shut down spam at source. That's business as normal. TalkTalk also provides Filter rules. A powerful tool to help organise mail messages. Moving mail from your wanted contacts into folders, flagging, labelling and forwarding mail messages it can also maintain a filtered whitelist of wanted contacts. Yet another power way to totally eliminate spam.