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I use Spamex to create DEAs (Disposable Email Address).

I have been surprised when these get compromised. The biggest surprise was one for the New York Times.

I let folks know, then just turn off the snagged address.

This is a very different world from when I first started using email in the early 1980s (not Internet Email, host-based and proprietary). It comes with the territory, and I have to accept it.

Spamex.com solves that problem nicely. I don't understand why it hasn't caught on yet, but it is severely languishing because of lack of users and is consequently much slower than it used to be.

> "What can I do to get these unrepentant spammers off my back? Does anyone have any ideas?"

Sure, just use a Spamex.com email address instead of your "real" email address. The beauty of Spamex is that you get a virtually unlimited number of email addresses that you can create as needed, and that you can also disable or delete with the click of your mouse; which is what I usually do whenever any Spam is sent to one of my Spamex email address. This won't do any good for the Spammers who already have your "real" email address, but it will halt the problem in it's tracks in the future if you use a disposable Spamex email address for everything. I believe there are other similar services as Spamex, but I haven't tried them because I'm perfectly happy with Spamex but maybe others could recommend alternatives to Spamex.

One other interesting thing I've found is that Spamex email addresses very rarely get Spammed. I think that's probably because Spamex email addresses are deleted from Spammers databases because they know that the Spamex email address will probably be disabled after the first Spam email is received, so they simply don't bother.

SBC offered their Internet customers the option of switching from their own Prodigy provider to Yahoo email. I declined for obvious reasons (privacy primarily), but switching ISP's is trivial for me because most of my email is sent to Spamex.com email addresses of my choosing such as Whatever_I_Want@spamex.com and all I have to do to switch ISP's is just change the redirection of my Spamex email forwarding account.

I also even purchased some cheap webhosting space so that I could run my own mail server and have as many email accounts that were independent of my ISP as I want. By the way, in my opinion StartLogic.com sucks really badly, but BlueHost.com has everything I want and more and works great. BlueHost is the only cheap webhost I know of that offers free SSH shell access.

While I'm off the topic ;-), all I really want is a webhost with shell access, lots of cheap webspace, enough bandwidth for my needs (a few TB's per month plus decent download speeds), and none of the GUI interface nonsense and all the fancy web applications that most web hosts provide these days. All I want is the type of account a university student or professor might have at their institution for example. Anyone know of any *Nix/BSD based webhosts offering this type of bare-bones service? Thanks.

Spamex has done this quite well for years.

Fine, then everyone can use disposable e-mail addresses.

Not if you use MBNA'a "ShopSafe" credit card service. Please note that I have no vested interest in MBNA whatsoever, except as a happy customer. If you have a regular MBNA credit card, what MBNA does is provide software you can install on your computer that automatically connects up to their credit card "NetAccess" service (you have to log in with name and password each time) and lets you generate "disposable" credit card numbers as needed (much like Spamex.com does with their disposable email address service that I also use :-).

I generate a new credit card number for each and every Internet transaction, and the MBNA ShopSafe software lets me set the maximum amount that can be debited to each disposable credit card number as well as the expiration date (up to one year in the future). The way I handle PayPal is to generate a disposable credit card number with an expiration date of one year and a reasonable credit limit (say $500 for example, or whatever you want). If I were to ever want to rescind my credit card information from PayPal, I do not even have to contact PayPal at all - I just start up the ShopSafe software and tell it to delete the particular disposable credit card number that I provided to PayPal so that no further charges can be charged to that account number. I'm very surprised that as far as I know, MBNA is the only one who provides this type of service, so they have no competition in this area.

Ummm, have you tried Disposable Email Addresses? They can do most of what you're talking about, including many-many addresses and changing your replies back into the original address. I use and prefer Emailias, but there are several around:

Emailias Sneakemail Spamex

Of course, the average windows user does not have his or her own domain, but I think services like Emailias, Sneakemail, SpamEx or SpamMotel are in principle suited for the masses. It's true that they are not very known, and most people seem to take it for granted that one has a limited and relatively small number of e-mail addresses, the idea to create a new address for every new contact (with a few mouse clicks) seems strange to them. I think that can change when mainstream e-mail providers (Hotmail, AOL, GMX etc) offer disposable e-mail addresses.
So, if they are serious about preventing spamming, these large mainstream mail providers should acquire a few hundred domains and let people create additional addresses for their existing accounts in an easy way on the web interface. That would be relatively easy to do.

• Spam Gourmet
• Spamex
• Sneakemail
• Mailsehll
• Emailias

Briefly, I'll explain how they work in theory. After signing up with a disposable email service, they give you a disposable email address that you can, for example, enter into forms. Mail sent to that disposable email address gets automatically forwarded to your email account of choice. But here's where they supposedly come in handy. You can sign up for a different disposable email address everytime you fill in a web form. If you start getting spam, you can look at the disposable email address the spam was sent to and you can do 2 things: (1) cancel the disposable email address so you no longer get spam sent to that address; and (2) you know who gave out your disposable address and you can take whatever action you deem appropriate.

This seems like a cool product, in theory, but I haven't seen anyone with real world experience with these services. If anyone here can describe their experiences, it would be greatly appreciated.

In my view, disposable e-mail addresses with systems like mailshell are definitely the best solution, I find the little additional work of getting a new address is really worth it. There are quite a number of such services, a few more links:
Sneakemail, the oldest one of these system - there is still a free version (with limited mail size)
emailias.com, I find it very convenient, a lot of options (19.95$/year)
Spamex, a similar service ($9.95/year)
Spamgourmet, a slightly unusual, but interesting system, free
These services are quite sophisticated, with most of them you can reply to mails in any mail client without giving away the real address because the reply-to address is replaced and the answer will first go to the DEA, where it recieves the appropriate from-address; with emailias and others you can forward different alias addresses to different real addresses, ...
More information: PC Magazine article about DEA system with reviews

If it is just a ploy to get addresses, avoid the trap by using a DEA (disposable email address); emailias.com, sneakemail, spamex, etc.