MySpamSponge:
> Blocks 100% of spam but never any legitimate messages—unlike annoying spam filters!
> Gives you a powerful new way to communicate that unleashes the full power of the Net
> Makes Internet dating free & creates new ways to meet offline, too!
> Enables you to leave your contact info anywhere without worrying about spammers or moderators
> Eliminates the hassle of keeping contacts informed of your current e-mail address
> Saves time and safeguards your privacy
> Helps you become more healthy, happy, intelligent, creative, and successful—yes, really! Here's how
 
 

“I could probably give you a list of 10 major things that are wrong with email.”
— Google CEO Larry Page in Google's Larry Page on Why Moon Shots Matter

 
  Frequently Asked Questions  
     
 

Sick of spam? Tired of stupid spam filters?

Spam can drive you nuts. So can spam filters. They can't reliably differentiate spam from legitimate messages, so they force you to manually sort through the blocked messages to ensure that no good e-mail is deleted.

Fortunately, there's a better solution: MySpamSponge.

 
     
 

Why did you develop this site? (this link opens in a new window or tab)

In a nutshell, how does MySpamSponge work?

How does MySpamSponge block all spam?

Is sending a message with MySpamSponge as easy as using e-mail?

What can I use as my handle?

Why is it better to add a handle onto an existing account rather than creating a new one?

What is my personal hyperlink, and what is it useful for?

How can I make my personal hyperlink shorter?

I frequently use MySpamSponge. What is the best way to quickly access your site to send messages?

How can I get the contact list to appear?

My contact list disappeared. Why?

Who will receive the message: the handle I type in for the recipient, or the handle showing in the contact list?

Where else can I store the personal hyperlinks of my contacts so that I can easily access them?

Do I have to register before I can send a message to someone?

I tried to register, but I never received my password by e-mail. What should I do?

On the page to send a message, there is a "Remember me" checkbox. Must I check it every time I send a message if I want your system to remember me and prefill my name, e-mail address, and handle?

What should I do if I want your system to prefill my handle, but not my e-mail address, when I send messages?

How can I eliminate the need to enter the CAPTCHA word verification every time I send a message?

How can MySpamSponge help make Internet dating free?

Can MySpamSponge help me meet people offline, too?

Are there more applications in which MySpamSponge messaging is especially useful?

Can you help me think of a clever phrase to use as my handle?

Why aren't spam filters a good solution to the spam problem?

What are the benefits of eliminating spam filters?

Are "challenge-response" spam blockers a good solution to the spam problem?

Are disposable e-mail addresses a good solution to the spam problem?

Why is it better to have multiple MySpamSponge handles rather than several disposable e-mail addresses?

Can't I eliminate spam by putting a contact form on my site?

Can't I eliminate spam by cloaking my e-mail address on my site?

Is spam just a nuisance?

How does MySpamSponge help protect my privacy?

What is your two-step plan to eliminate all spam?

What browser should I use with MySpamSponge?

Can I use MySpamSponge for my business or organization e-mail?

I am writing a technical article about your site. What is the best way to summarize MySpamSponge functionality?

If a pop-up "more info" box spills off the page so part of it isn't visible, what can I do to see the rest of it?

The beautiful woman in the red dress pointing to "Please click here to set your contact info" on the send-a-message page disappeared after I clicked the "Remember me and prefill my contact info in the future" checkbox. How can I get her to reappear?

 
     
 

Q: In a nutshell, how does MySpamSponge work?

A: With MySpamSponge, you communicate using handles instead of e-mail addresses. A handle is essentially a contact code that gives people a way to contact you via e-mail without you having to reveal your e-mail address. Similarly, you can send a message by using the recipient’s handle as the address. There are many advantages to using handles instead of e-mail addresses. Here are a few of them:

  • Legitimate users can easily contact you via MySpamSponge, but spammers cannot. Therefore, you can include your handle in your web site or newsgroup postings, for example, without worrying about spam.

    If you include your e-mail address in such areas, you can bet that it will be harvested by spammers around the globe. In an attempt to prevent the automated harvesting of e-mail addresses by spam bots, some people try to disguise their email address by using various computer tricks, but those methods are increasingly ineffective as the spam bots become smarter (for a good discussion of this, see www.bestprac.org/articles/spam_bots.htm). Those methods can also be difficult to implement unless you are technologically knowledgeable, and their effectiveness is primarily limited to your own web site. In fact, they are worthless if you want to disguise your e-mail address on a message board, guest book, discussion list, chat room, blog comment, etc. The most popular way to disguise your e-mail address on your web site relies on JavaScript, so if legitimate users have JavaScript turned off in their browsers, they can't contact you.

    Then there is the low-tech approach termed "munging,” in which an e-mail address is altered to make it easy for a human to decipher and restore, but more difficult for a spam bot to harvest. You've probably seen munged e-mail addresses, such as example@NOSPAMexample.com or example [at] example [dot] com. There are two problems with such addresses. First, they can’t form valid, clickable hyperlinks. Second, and most importantly, their effectiveness is very limited. Even a novice computer programmer could easily write a script to regenerate valid e-mail addresses from munged ones. Once that easy step is done, those addresses can be harvested just as readily as those that are not munged.
  • If you rely upon e-mail to communicate with your friends, family, and associates, switching your e-mail address can be troublesome. You must notify all of your contacts about the new address, and hope that all of them update their address books. In contrast, if you use MySpamSponge to communicate, you need to change your e-mail address only once, and you don’t have to worry if your contacts will heed the new address. With MySpamSponge, it’s all automatic.
  • Using MySpamSponge to contact old flamesHere is another way in which communication can be blocked if you use traditional e-mail. Imagine that you sent a message to an old flame, and she did not immediately respond—perhaps because she was then in a relationship. If she is available a year later and tries to contact you, your e-mail address may have changed in the meantime. You might not get the chance to rekindle your romance, unless you use MySpamSponge. If you'd given her your MySpamSponge contact code or personal hyperlink™, she could easily contact you. Just keep your e-mail address current with MySpamSponge, and we do the rest.
  • Most people assume that communicating with their friends and family via e-mail is safe, but that assumption is wrong. Spammers have various tricks to obtain your e-mail address from your friends and other contacts, such as using Trojan horses, viruses, and worms to extract e-mail addresses from their address books. If even one of your contacts doesn't have a secure computer, spammers will get your e-mail address. It's not a question of if they will get it, but when they will get it. No computer is reasonably secure unless it has first-rate antivirus and antispyware protection that is frequently updated, a good firewall, and a user who never makes any mistakes (even seemingly trivial ones) that can jeopardize the security of that computer and the data on it. When just one of your contacts clicks on a malicious link (which could look perfectly normal), or visits a rogue web site, or opens an infected e-mail message — boom, that's all it takes for his computer to be compromised and your e-mail address to be acquired by spammers.

    What do you think the chance is that all of your contacts have secure computers and habits? Zero! Here's a mistake that is made millions of times every year: put multiple e-mail addresses in the “To:” or “Cc:” fields instead of the “Bcc:” field. Result? Your e-mail address can circulate unprotected on the Internet, and be harvested by spammers even if you did nothing wrong. For the spammers to get your e-mail address, all it takes is one of your friends (or other e-mail contacts) making this mistake, or some other mistake, just once. Or the mistake they make can be as simple as turning on a computer that isn't completely protected. With MySpamSponge, you never have to give your e-mail address to your friends, family, and associates, yet they can contact you just as easily as if you had divulged your e-mail address. You can include your e-mail address if you wish in the messages you send via our site, but you can also choose to reveal only your handle. Even if you do include your e-mail address in a message sent via MySpamSponge, that address is far more secure and resistant to harvesting.

Top up

Q: How does MySpamSponge block all spam?

A: With standard e-mail, it is just as easy to send messages to a million recipients as it is just one. Spammers can’t afford to send messages to one person at a time, because most people are smart enough to not respond to spam solicitations. So what do spammers do? They flood the Internet with billions of spam messages per year, knowing that a small percentage of the recipients will be dumb enough to do business with criminals selling fake Rolex watches, or questionable Viagra, or pure malarkey such as the spammer who boasted, “We cure any desease.” (If a spammer can’t spell disease, what’s the probability of him curing it?)

In contrast, sending a message to one recipient is just as easy with MySpamSponge as it is with an e-mail program (or even easier; see below). However, MySpamSponge doesn't permit anyone to send out mass messages. Therefore, if you get a message sent to you via MySpamSponge, you know that it could not be part of some spam campaign. Someone wrote it and sent it to YOU, not you and a million others.

Top up

Q: Is sending a message with MySpamSponge as easy as using e-mail?

A: Yes. You can click on a link to enter the recipient’s address, or type it in, just as you would with e-mail. Or select the recipient from your contact list. You don't need to do anything if the intended recipient is the first person in your contact list. The first contact is the default one to which the message will be sent if no other contact is selected from the list and if no valid handle is typed into the adjacent box.

MySpamSponge can prefill your “From:” information, just as e-mail programs do. However, in some ways MySpamSponge is even easier to use than e-mail programs. For example, e-mail programs force you to choose to save a copy of all sent messages, or none. Most people accumulate hundreds or thousands of messages in their “Sent items” folder, but only some of those are worth saving. The user must periodically sift through those messages to decide what should be kept, and what should be discarded. Wouldn't it be much easier to have the option to choose whether a copy should be saved at the time the message is sent? Yes, so we offer that capability. If you want a copy of the message you are sending, simply click the box to send a copy to you. If you don’t want a copy, don’t click the box. If you wish, you can set up your e-mail program to automatically deposit those messages in a specified folder.

Here is another way in which MySpamSponge messaging can save you time compared with using e-mail: Deleting the hundreds to thousands of spam e-mails that a typical person receives every week wastes your time. One user totaled up all the minutes he was spending here and there dealing with spam, and was surprised to discover that it amounted to more than a week every year! When you hear your computer chime to let you know that you have new e-mail, it should be a legitimate message intended for you, not an interruption from a spammer. Research has shown that interruptions negatively affect productivity more than you probably think; they waste surprising amounts of your time. If you're in business, they're wasting your money, too.

MySpamSponge can save you even more time and protect your computer (and all of the data on it) because our system of messaging is also inherently resistant to viruses and other malicious code that could destroy your computer, your financial life, and your sanity. There's no limit to the dangers that can tag along with standard e-mail, but messages sent via MySpamSponge can contain only harmless plain text.

Finally, the MySpamSponge user interface is much simpler and easier to use than e-mail programs. For example, even a basic program such as Outlook Express contains hundreds of menu options, settings, and buttons. In contrast, MySpamSponge is designed to be uncomplicated, uncluttered, and intuitively obvious to use. Our interface becomes even simpler once you set your contact info (example
), and once you're approved to bypass the CAPTCHA word verification step.

Using MySpamSponge will save you time. Here's proof:

stopwatch
Time to start program or access site, login (if necessary), and begin composing a message after entering the recipient's address*:
By clicking
By typing it in
MySpamSponge
4 seconds
5 seconds
Outlook Express
5-8 seconds**
8-11 seconds**
Yahoo! Mail
24 seconds
27 seconds
 

* Address (handle) for MySpamSponge: test
Address for Outlook Express and Yahoo! Mail: test@example.com

** The exact time varies depending on how many messages are stored in the inbox, sent items, etc. Outlook Express and similar e-mail programs become progressively slower as more messages accumulate.

Test conducted with Hewlett-Packard a475c computer (3.2 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 384 K DSL modem)

Top up

Q: What can I use as my handle?

A: Handles can be more descriptive than e-mail addresses. Your handle can be a single word, combined words (5ft2WithEyesOfBlue), or even a phrase with individual words (The doc who thinks outside the box). Your handle can be your life motto, self-description, or point of view on anything imaginable. If your handle includes any spaces, they are automatically replaced with underscores. When you enter a handle anywhere on our site, you can replace the spaces with underscores if you wish; if you don't, our server will do that for you.

Why are spaces replaced with underscores? Your handle forms part of your personal hyperlink™ (see below). As you may know, valid hyperlinks cannot include spaces. There is a method to overcome this limitation by using the URLencode function, but that creates another problem. To avoid this mess, we replace spaces with underscores.

You may include any of these characters in your handle:

  • Any standard letter (upper or lower case)
  • Any number
  • A hyphen (-) or underscore ( _ )

Prohibited characters:

  • Accented characters (e.g., é, â, š)
  • Symbols other than hyphens (-) or underscores ( _ )

With standard e-mail, having a short e-mail prefix (the part before the @ symbol) increases the likelihood that you will receive plenty of spam, because spam bots send messages to predictably present e-mail address prefixes at every domain in their databases. With MySpamSponge, in contrast, you are still safeguarded from spam even if your handle is very short.

Top up

Q: Why is it better to add a handle onto an existing account rather than creating a new one?

A: The sign up process is faster, plus it's easier to manage multiple handles under one account rather than multiple handles under multiple accounts.

Top up

Q: What is my personal hyperlink™, and what is it useful for?

A: Here is an example. If the user’s handle is test, this is the personal hyperlink™:

http://www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=test

Go ahead and click it to try it out.

A single word (test, in this case) can also form your personal hyperlink: test

To use a single word as a personal hyperlink, simply insert this into the source code of your page:

<a href="http://www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=test" target="_blank">test</a>

Of course, you must substitute your handle for the two instances of test in the line above.

Your personal hyperlink™ gives people a very convenient way to contact you. After clicking on the link, they are taken to the page where they can immediately begin typing a message to you. Your personal hyperlink™ automatically enters your handle, so using a personal hyperlink™ is just as easy as clicking an e-mail hyperlink.

By the way, if you wish you can capitalize your handle in your personal hyperlink™ to make it easier to read if it is composed of multiple words without spaces, or if you just want to make something stand out. For example, if your personal hyperlink™ is this:

http://www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=lookingforlove

To make the words more recognizable, you can change the capitalization to:

http://www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=LookingForLOVE

Just be sure not to change the spelling! If you do, the hyperlink will no longer work.

If you wish, you can omit the http:// part of your personal hyperlink™. That obviously makes it shorter, but here's the downside: Most (but not all) browsers and e-mail programs are smart enough to make all links clickable hyperlinks. For example, you could use either:

http://www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=test

or

www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=test

Both appear here as clickable hyperlinks. However, some sites will not automatically generate a clickable hyperlink unless the link includes the http:// prefix. For example:

www.example.com (not clickable)

http://www.example.com (clickable)

If you post your hyperlink somewhere that you know it will be clickable even if the http:// prefix is omitted (for example, on your web page or on some site that makes all links clickable), then it's probably better to use the shorter version. However, you probably won't know the ultimate destination of your hyperlink if it is sent via e-mail, since you likely won't know what e-mail programs are used by your recipients. The safe bet is to then include the http:// prefix. Another solution is to use the TinyURL version (see below) of your personal hyperlink™, which always includes the http:// prefix.

Top up

Q: How can I make my personal hyperlink™ shorter?

A: TinyURL.com is a nifty free service that permanently substitutes a short hyperlink for a long one. It's useful for MySpamSponge personal hyperlinks and countless other ones, too. Type or paste any link you want shortened into the box below:

Enter a long URL to make tiny:

If you use a long phrase as your personal hyperlink™, you'll definitely want to shorten it. If you don't, the link may break if it wraps onto another line in an e-mail message. Your recipient could restore the link by pasting the ending of it that had been lopped off, but that's inconvenient.

Here's an example to show how effective TinyURL is in shortening hyperlinks. If your handle is this phrase:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived

Then your personal hyperlink™ is this:

www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=four_score_and_seven_years_ago_our_fathers_brought_forth_on_this_continent_a_new_nation_conceived

Note: Personal hyperlinks usually do not wrap to another line (which may occur in your browser for the link above), but this link is too long to reliably fit on one line.

TinyURL converted that into:

http://tinyurl.com/lzk36

Please note that both your original hyperlink, and the TinyURL version of it, will always work. You can use either one.

Top up

Q: I frequently use MySpamSponge. What is the best way to quickly access your site to send messages?

A: Add a shortcut to your desktop, which will look like this (except the background color or image will be whatever is on your desktop in that spot):

MySpamSponge favicon as desktop shortcut

For more information on this topic, and for more locations in which you can put quick links, see www.make-a-favicon.com.

Once you have that desktop shortcut or other quick link, when you want to send a message, just click that instead of opening up your e-mail program or web-based e-mail site.

Top up

Q: How can I get the contact list to appear?

A: The list will automatically appear once it contains one or more contacts. To add a contact (recipient) to the list, simply click the "Add recipient to my contact list" checkbox below the box labeled "Enter the recipient's handle (contact code)" on the Send a Message page. The contact list will appear the next time you access that page.

Top up

Q: My contact list disappeared. Why?

A: Your contact list will disappear one year after you haven't added any contacts to it, or otherwise modified it. It may also disappear if you delete your cookies (depending on which cookies you delete, of course).

The contact list (and only the contact list) is browser-specific. For example, when using Internet Explorer to use this site, your contact list will include only those contacts you set using Internet Explorer. If your wife uses Firefox and your daughter uses Opera, each of you can maintain a separate MySpamSponge contact list. Therefore, a contact list may appear to be blank if a user accesses this site with a browser type other than the one used to set the contacts. Upgrading a browser should not affect the contact list.

Top up

Q: Who will receive the message: the handle I type in for the recipient, or the handle showing in the contact list?

A: The message will be sent to the handle that you type in for the recipient, OR the handle that is prefilled in that box for you if you click a personal hyperlink™. Our system is smart enough to know that if you type in a handle or click a personal hyperlink™, THAT is the person you want to contact.

Here's a timesaving tip: If the intended recipient is the first person in your contact list and the handle input box is empty (that is, you didn't type anything in or have it prefilled for you by clicking a personal hyperlink™), you don't need to do anything to select the recipient. The first handle in the contact list is the default one to which the message will be sent if no other contact is selected from the list and if no valid handle is present in the adjacent box. Therefore, if you frequently communicate with someone, you can save time by having their handle appear first in your list.

Top up

Q: Where else can I store the personal hyperlinks of my contacts so that I can easily access them?

A: Once you click a personal hyperlink™, you can bookmark that page (add it to your favorites list). We recommend that you store your contacts in a folder named MySpamSponge contacts. To send a message to one of your contacts in the future, just click their bookmark the same as you would for a bookmarked web page. The image below shows a sample contact list including four people (Amy, Bill, Jenny, and Mom).

Example showing MySpamSponge contacts stored in favorites list for quick access

For an even faster way to access your contact list, store them in your links bar:

Example showing MySpamSponge contacts stored in links list for quick access

This eliminates the need to start your browser beforehand. To send a message to one of your contacts in the list, click the small button that the orange arrow is pointing to. Your contact list will pop up. Now click the desired contact.

If your links bar is not visible, right-click the taskbar (the horizontal bottom bar that contains the Start button on its left side), then select Toolbars, then Links. You need to do this only once.

You can place any shortcut in the links bar (not just those for your MySpamSponge contacts). Here's info on how to add, remove, rearrange, and customize your links bar shortcuts:

To add a shortcut to the links bar:
Drag the favicon (* see below) from the address bar to the links bar. Or drag any link from a web page, your favorites list, or your desktop onto the links bar.

To remove a shortcut from the links bar:
Right-click the shortcut, and then click Delete.

To rearrange shortcuts on the links bar:
Drag a shortcut to the desired place on the links bar.

To customize shortcuts on the links bar:

Right-click the shortcut, and then click Properties. Now click the Change Icon button to select a different icon.

(*The favicon for this site may appear like this generic favicon or this: MySpamSponge favicon example )

You can also have custom desktop shortcut icons that show pictures of your friends, as shown below:

Example showing pictures of your friends as desktop shortcut icons

Clicking the Amy shortcut opens the MySpamSponge send-a-message page, and prefills Amy's handle. Clicking Bill's handle does the same, but prefills his handle. Since you can rearrange desktop shortcuts, you can easily create different groups of them, if you wish.

For more information on this topic, and for more locations in which you can put quick links, see www.make-a-favicon.com.

Top up

Q: Do I have to register before I can send a message to someone?

A: No, but if you register, you give your recipient (and others) a way to contact you without the need to reveal your e-mail address.

Top up

Q: I tried to register, but I never received my password by e-mail. What should I do?

A: If you do not receive it within a few minutes, please look in your bulk mail or spam folder, because that message may have been mistakenly placed there. Please add MySpamSponge's outgoing e-mail address to your address book or safe list so our messages get to your inbox and are not filtered as bulk mail. E-mail is occasionally lost or delayed for other reasons, so if you don’t receive your first password, just start the registration process over again. Registering is easy and takes less than a minute to complete.

Top up

Q: On the page to send a message, there is a "Remember me" checkbox. Must I check it every time I send a message if I want your system to remember me and prefill my name, e-mail address, and handle?

A: No. You need to check that box only the first time you fill out that information, or whenever you change it in the future.

Top up

Q: What should I do if I want your system to prefill my handle, but not my e-mail address, when I send messages?

A: It's simple — just don't enter your e-mail address when you first fill out that section and click the "Remember me" checkbox. If you ever want to change anything you previously entered, just revise it and click the "Remember me" checkbox once again. Please note that you must login to change your handle, password, or e-mail address that we deliver your messages to.

Top up

Q: How can I eliminate the need to enter the CAPTCHA word verification every time I send a message?

A: See this page to learn how you can obtain a token to permanently* skip the CAPTCHA step. After that, you won't be asked to enter "the third word of the title of the book pictured above . . . blah, blah, blah".

*It's permanent UNLESS:

  1. You send spam. In that case, your account is permanently deactivated.
  2. Your delete your cookies. However, you can easily reactivate your token.
  3. You switch to a new browser. However, you can easily reactivate your token for that browser, too.

Top up

Q: How can MySpamSponge help make Internet dating free?

A: If you include your handle in your personal ad, people reading it could contact you without having to pay that site or even to create an account with them. This could significantly increase the response rate from your ad. Why? About 90 to 95% of the profiles you see are from people who don't pay for a membership. Online dating sites play all sorts of games trying to make more money. For example, they may allow you to send messages if you pay for a membership, but they may not let the recipient read them or respond to them unless that person is also a paid member. Of course, they don’t tell you that. In fact, they want you to believe that paying for a membership erases all of the communication barriers. If online daters routinely included their handles in their ads, no one would ever have to pay for online dating again.

Top up

Q: Can MySpamSponge help me meet people offline, too?

A: Yes. We have a solution for a problem that affects almost everyone who is looking for a partner: You're out in public someplace, and see a person that you want to meet. What do you do? Well, if you're like most people, you say nothing, walk away, and later regret being so timid. The person you passed up might have otherwise become your spouse, or just a great friend.

Here's our solution: hand that person your MySpamSponge intro card (see below):

Intro Card
Click it to see a larger image

Your intro card allows you to communicate with that person without the need for either of you to reveal your e-mail address or other personal information. That makes the person more likely to respond, if he or she is interested.

Learn more about intro cards >

Want more ways to meet offline?

Top up

Q: Are there more applications in which MySpamSponge messaging is especially useful?

A: Yes. Let's first consider another dating application. If you meet someone at a party or through a personals site, you may want to give him a way to contact you without revealing your phone number or e-mail address. So what can you do instead? Give him one of your MySpamSponge handles. If things don't work out and he turns out to be one of those guys who won't take no for an answer, just cancel that MySpamSponge account and you'll never hear from him again. Creating and, if need be, discarding a MySpamSponge account is much easier than switching phone numbers or e-mail addresses.

Because MySpamSponge messaging is inherently resistant to spam and other abuse, you can freely leave your MySpamSponge handle or personal hyperlink™ in places where it would be foolish to leave your e-mail address, such as in chat rooms, blogs, forums, guest books, discussion lists, letters to the editor, etc.

Here is another use: Talk show hosts often need multiple e-mail addresses: one for general contact, one for media contacts, one for business contacts, one for friends, one for family, one for callers providing requested follow-up information, etc. Maintaining all of those separate e-mail accounts wastes time, as does checking each account for incoming messages. With MySpamSponge, it is quick and easy to add handles (contact codes) to an existing account, or to create separate accounts, and checking for new messages is faster and easier, too.

Top up

Q: Can you help me think of a clever phrase to use as my handle?

A: Yes. You can use the free www.MyProfileWriter.com service. The headline generator on that site helps people come up with a catchy headline for use in personal ads, but many of those headlines would also be great handles that might describe you or your viewpoints or outlook on life. Incidentally, MyProfileWriter has another interesting feature that allows you to compose the essay portion of your online dating profile without typing at all, just by clicking.

Top up

Q: Why aren't spam filters a good solution to the spam problem?

A: In theory, spam filters are a great idea. In practice, they are too unreliable. They let lots of spam through, but block many legitimate messages. Unless you want to risk not seeing some of your legitimate messages, you must still scan your bulk-mail folder into which the spam filter deposits what it thinks is spam.

Another problem with server-side spam filters (even the best ones) is that they are worthless if your e-mail provider doesn't use one, or chooses one of the lackluster ones. A good anti-spam solution should be something that can be implemented by individual users, who should not be at the mercy of the decisions made by the administrators of their e-mail systems. A great anti-spam solution should also be easy to sign up for, easy to use, free, and not a burden to the people who are legitimately trying to communicate with you. It should block all spam, but never block any legitimate message. An ideal anti-spam solution should also work with any e-mail client (Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, web-based e-mail, etc.), platform (Windows, Mac, Unix, Linux), and server. MySpamSponge does all that.

Furthermore, spam filters have an unintended perverse effect that exacerbates the spam problem. Spammers know that spam filters block some of their messages, so what do they do? They send more messages! This flood of messages clogs the Internet and slows legitimate traffic. With standard e-mail, it is easy to send more messages to compensate for those that are blocked. However, the MySpamSponge filtering mechanism cannot be overcome in this way, so spammers have no incentive to even try.

Spam 2.0 . . . are you prepared for it?
Are you ready
for spam 2.0?

Finally, even the best spam filters won't protect you from the next generation of spam, which will be devilishly effective in fooling even savvy computer users. Currently, it is easy for a human to differentiate legitimate messages from spam. That's going to change in the near future when spammers use innovative techniques to personalize spam so that:

  • It is sent from e-mail addresses of your friends and colleagues.
  • It is written to mimic their writing style, including their misspellings, abbreviations, capitalization, and personal signatures.

If you use MySpamSponge, you're automatically protected from this next generation of spam.

Top up

Q: What are the benefits of eliminating spam filters?

A: Consider the following message:

Dear Ingrid,

Meeting you was a once in a lifetime opportunity. You are an amazing woman and I can't live without you! I know you dumped me because I didn't have a job, but I am now working as an insurance agent and making additional income through my stock investments. I guarantee that I can give you everything you always wanted. With my last cash bonus, I bought a limousine—I know how much you hated to be seen in my old junker!

What are you waiting for? Please call now, and I'll have my chauffeur pick you up for dinner tonight.

Brad

That message is obviously not spam, but it is loaded with words and phrases that spam filters typically deem "spam-like" (here is the same message with them highlighted
). However, spam filters often trash even more innocent messages that any human would deem fine, yet let flagrant spam through. Of course, spam filters are more likely to axe messages containing words like sex or Viagra, yet they can be found in legitimate messages, too.

Spam filters restrict user freedom by forcing people to carefully choose what they say or risk having their messages dumped into the spam/bulk mail folder, yet no matter how careful you are, spam filters can still drive you nuts. For years, I've looked at countless messages trying to determine why a spam filter blocked an "obviously A-OK" message yet let "obviously spam" messages through. From this analysis, it is clear that spam filters have the IQ of a turnip. Do you really want something that stupid making decisions for you?

Turning spam filters off abolishes the need for such self-censoring, and of course it eliminates the time you waste dealing with spam filters: going to your bulk mail folder, sorting the spam messages from the OK ones, deleting the spam, and moving the good ones to your inbox.

The above message is just an example to illustrate the faulty decisions made by spam filters, yet their errors can hurt real people in real ways. For example, one man e-mailed an old flame to possibly rekindle a relationship with someone who once was the love of his life. The good news was that she wasn't dating anyone at the time and welcomed his invitation, as she revealed in an enthusiastic reply. The bad news is that her message was diverted to his "suspected spam" folder. By the time he found it a month later, he was thrilled to see that she immediately replied. He responded, but she—peeved that he didn't reciprocate sooner—began dating someone else in the meantime. That relationship was going fine, so she didn't want to break it off.

Top up

Q: Are "challenge-response" spam blockers a good solution to the spam problem?

A: In our opinion, no. First, they are bound to annoy your correspondents. If you use one, when someone sends an e-mail to you, the message is bounced back to the sender, who then receives an e-mail instructing him to visit a web site that challenges him with a CAPTCHA (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart"), in which a user must visually decipher and then type the distorted (or otherwise obscured) sequence of letters or numbers that appears on the screen, such as in this example:

CAPTCHA example

If the sender correctly deciphers the CAPTCHA, his message is then forwarded to you. At best, this delays your receipt of his message and makes sending a message a multi-step process that could stretch out over a period of days. At worst, you may never see his message because he did not respond to the challenge request (which could easily be overlooked in an inbox cluttered with spam and countless other messages). Or he may have tried to respond, but he could not enter the key (the CAPTCHA solution) that would release his message to you. The inspiration for MySpamSponge came shortly after its creator received a question from someone who read one of his books. He tried to respond to the reader, but his response was bounced back by one of the major challenge-response spam blocking services. The author dutifully completed the CAPTCHA test, but it would not accept his entry, so he double-checked the CAPTCHA and carefully entered it again. Same thing: it was rejected. He tried a few more times over the next few days, always with the same result, so he gave up. Obviously, the programmer entered the wrong CAPTCHA key, and never tested it (which every service should do, especially paid ones, such as that site). Even more alarming is the fact that their system was programmed to always present the same CAPTCHA image for any given e-mail, thus making it impossible to circumvent their CAPTCHA key error.

Here's another major flaw in the concept of challenge-response spam blockers. Let's say that Jenny is using one, and someone (Bill) who also uses one sends a message to her. What happens? Bill's message to Jenny is bounced back from Jenny's challenge-response spam blocking service with the usual demand to "come to our web site and correctly decipher our CAPTCHA, or else we won't release your message to your intended recipient." However, since Bill is also using a challenge-response spam blocker, the "come decipher our CAPTCHA" demand from Jenny's challenge-response spam blocking service is intercepted by Bill's challenge-response spam blocking service, which then automatically sends a similar "come decipher our CAPTCHA" demand to Jenny. Just one problem: those demand messages don't reach either Bill or Jenny. Instead, they circulate from computer to computer, and the original message is never delivered.

Believe it or not, but this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the problems that plague challenge-response spam blockers. Another major drawback is that they send e-mail to the alleged sender's address. However, spammers routinely fake return addresses. Result? Instead of going to the true sender (the spammer who forged the return address), the demand e-mail from the challenge-response spam blocking service instead is reflected to an innocent third party who never sent the original message that triggered the challenge-response demand message.

Top up

Q: Are disposable e-mail addresses a good solution to the spam problem?

A: There are two major types of disposable (or throwaway) e-mail addresses:

  • Forwarding services, in which messages sent to your temporary e-mail address are forwarded to your true e-mail address. To use such services, you must register beforehand. Spam sent through these services could still reach you, but it can be controlled by deleting the temporary e-mail address or limiting its lifespan.
  • Web-based vanishing e-mail services: The common element in these services is that they accept most incoming messages and store them for a limited time (4 hours for a couple services, and 1 day to 6 months for another service). In general, anyone can read your messages if they can guess the e-mail address you used, so they should not be used if privacy is a concern. Obviously, the limited lifespan of the messages makes these services unsuitable for many applications.

Disposable e-mail addresses are useful for some things, such as if you are required to enter an e-mail address while registering for a site that you wish to use but not receive e-mail from in the future. Therefore, they are one of the useful tools for controlling spam, but their various shortcomings (some of which are discussed above) keeps them from being a comprehensive solution to spam.

Q: Why is it better to have multiple MySpamSponge handles rather than several disposable e-mail addresses?

A: People often sign up for a disposable e-mail address so they can discard it once it begins receiving too much spam, or once they wish to block messages from folks they no longer wish to communicate with (such as an ex-boyfriend or someone they matched with on an online dating site).

First, if spam is your concern, even one MySpamSponge handle can permanently block all of it. However, having multiple MySpamSponge handles offers additional benefits. You could obtain some of those benefits by having several disposable e-mail addresses, but it is better to instead have multiple MySpamSponge handles. Why?

  • It takes less time to add a handle onto an existing MySpamSponge account than to sign up for a new disposable e-mail address.
  • When you sign up for MySpamSponge, we ask for the absolute minimum amount of information (just 3 things) required to give you good, secure service. We're not nosy, as free e-mail providers often are (example
    ).
  • To send or receive e-mail with a disposable e-mail account, you must sign in every time. With MySpamSponge, you don't need to sign in to send a message unless your contact info isn't yet set, and you never sign in to receive messages. Therefore, using MySpamSponge saves you time, and eliminates the bother of remembering the multiple e-mail addresses and passwords you would otherwise need to access disposable e-mail accounts.
  • Your disposable e-mail account—and every message stored in it!—may be deleted if you don't sign in every "x" months. That never happens with MySpamSponge.

Top up

Q: Can't I eliminate spam by putting a contact form on my site?

A: If only it were that simple! Spammers love ordinary contact forms because they know how to hijack them, turning them into spam-spewing bots. That spam originates from your server or site, making it appear that YOU are the one sending out spam. Result? You may end up on an e-mail blacklist, or you may simply be embarrassed when your customers receive porn solicitations from www.your-company-with-egg-on-its-face.com.

Unfortunately, spammers are usually more savvy than most people who post contact forms. An average contact form is easy prey for spammers. Even computer gurus often don't know enough to thwart spammers. For example, the famous author of many books on Web programming was oblivious to the latest and greatest spam threats until we pointed them out to him and explained how to block them. We've also developed other proprietary ways to foil spammers. Our collective anti-spam technologies are not available to anyone else.

Of course, 99+% of people who suffer from spam cannot post a contact form because they generally don't have a website — and even if they do, they usually lack the technical wherewithal to post a simple form, let alone one that is resistant to spammers.

With MySpamSponge, you get all of the benefits of a personal contact form without any of its expense or maintenance worries. Spammers never sit still; they are constantly devising new ways to send spam. If you have your own contact form, you must keep up with those new spam methods and implement ways to stop them. Remember that old saying about, "Take the bus and leave the driving to us?" We recommend that you spend your time making money or relaxing with your family and friends. Leave the anti-spam measures to us.

Top up

Q: Can't I eliminate spam by cloaking my e-mail address on my site?

A: E-mail address cloaking attempts to reduce the harvesting of e-mail addresses posted on the Web by encoding the e-mail address. There are simple HTML cloaks that numerically encode e-mail addresses, and there are more advanced JavaScript cloaks. The latter are more effective, but a legitimate user cannot contact you if he has JavaScript turned off in his browser. This site uses some JavaScript programs to enhance it, but it remains perfectly functional even if a user's browser has JavaScript disabled. (If you don't know how to enable JavaScript, see this page.)

Furthermore, cloaking an e-mail address does not truly protect it! Spammers use Trojan horses, viruses, and worms to extract e-mail addresses from computers. Even if your e-mail address is cloaked on the Web, it won't be the second anyone uses it because computers automatically decode the encoding, storing the plain, unencoded e-mail address on the hard drive, thus making it easy prey for harvesting by a spammer. (This topic is discussed in more detail above.) This is the central flaw that makes ordinary e-mail so susceptible to spam: communication is impossible unless e-mail addresses are divulged. Once they are, spammers WILL get them, and you will receive spam. MySpamSponge overcomes this limitation and makes it easy to communicate by e-mail without either the sender or recipient needing to divulge their e-mail address to the other. MySpamSponge thus functions as a trusted intermediary between e-mail senders and recipients.

People may incorrectly assume, "My contacts aren't spammers, so my e-mail address is safe with them." Wrong! As mentioned above, spammers can get your e-mail address even if you do everything right 100% of the time if just ONE of your contacts does not. However, even that isn't always enough. They can keep their antivirus programs updated, scan for viruses every day, use antispyware programs and strong firewalls, visit only safe sites (or ones they think are safe—that's another issue!) AND EVEN THEN SPAMMERS CAN HARVEST YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS! MySpamSponge is so effective that it can block 100% of your spam even if every one of your contacts has computers infested with countless Trojan horses, viruses, and worms. MySpamSponge immunizes you from spam while increasing your freedom to post your contact info anywhere on the Web without worrying whether spammers will harvest it.

Another big limitation of cloaking is that it is useless on sites other than your own. Cloaking requires that you directly modify the page's source code. If it's not your site, or if it IS your site and you don't know how to modify its HTML source, you're out of luck. If you post a cloaked e-mail address as you would ordinary text, you will see gibberish that looks similar to this:

<a href="&#109;&#97;&#105;&#108;&#116;&#111;&#58;&#101;&#120;&#97;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101;&#64;
&#101;&#120;&#97;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101;&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;">&#101;&#120;&#97;&#109;&#112;
&#108;&#101;&#32;&#64;&#32;&#101;&#120;&#97;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101;&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;</a>

That is the cloaked version of example@example.com, which will look like Greek to anyone but ultra geeks.

Top up

Q: Is spam just a nuisance?

A: No, it’s more than that. Spam bogs down the Internet. Spam wastes your time as you sift through your messages to find the legitimate ones. Some people receive hundreds of spam e-mails per day. With so much garbage, it’s easy to overlook a message that you want to read. It is usually easy for a person to differentiate spam mail from legitimate mail by looking at the subject line, but so many valid users choose vague subject lines (or blank ones) that this approach to filtering your e-mail is bound to give you problems. You will either miss some legitimate messages, or risk opening spam mail to inspect it further. If you open the message, your computer may be infected with malicious code, or the spammers may use an e-mail trick (web bugs) that is invisible to you but allows them to confirm that you opened the message — which lets them know that your e-mail address is valid. That guarantees that you will get more spam in the future from that spammer, and he may sell your e-mail address to other spammers, too.

Top up

Q: How does MySpamSponge help protect my privacy?

A: Spammers and other online criminals have numerous tricks to get your e-mail address. Once they have that, they are one step closer to using other tricks, such as phishing, to steal your social security number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, account usernames and passwords for Amazon.com and PayPal, etc. MySpamSponge functions as a trusted intermediary that allows you to communicate via e-mail without you having to reveal your e-mail address. This enhances your online security and privacy, which helps safeguard your personal and financial information.

Even intelligent people can be duped by phishing schemes. For example, the February 6, 2006 issue of Baseline included an article entitled "Keeping Up with the Phishers" that reported how some executives from a credit union were tricked by a malicious e-mail in spite of the fact that their security manager had specifically warned them about this type of threat after a recent incident in which some of the bank's directors were tricked into visiting the web site of a fictional credit union. Since even intelligent, sophisticated people on high alert can fall for phishing schemes, it is clear that this is a serious problem. MySpamSponge offers an innovative way to help protect your privacy and financial security.

Top up

Q: What is your two-step plan to eliminate all spam?

A: First, get a new e-mail address. If any spammer has your current address, your spam problem will never end.

Please choose a very unique e-mail address, such as zk9rpak5dwfy2jqp@example.com instead of something simple such as meganp@example.com or hotbabe@example.com. Spammers have programs that automatically generate e-mail addresses which are more likely to be valid, so they use various words and names alone and in combination. If you choose something that isn't a word or name and includes numbers (such as the one shown above), that spammer will likely be long gone before his computer could "guess" your e-mail address.

Second, sign up for our free MySpamSponge service. Give us your new e-mail address, but don't give it to anyone else — not even your friends, family, or associates. They can send messages to you via our service simply by clicking on your personal hyperlink™. You can respond to them via our service if they have a MySpamSponge account, or via our free www.AnonyMUST.com service if they don't. Every page in our site has a link to the AnonyMUST site in the footer (bottom of the page), and pages with the orange menu bar also have a link at the top (it's under the "More" menu).

If you sign up for an online newsletter or something else that requires a traditional e-mail address, use a different address for that purpose.

Most people mistakenly assume that communicating with their friends and family via e-mail is safe. Of course, your friends would never intentionally give your e-mail address to spammers, but if just one of your e-mail contacts doesn't have a truly secure computer or invariably practice secure online habits, the spammers will eventually get your e-mail address. (Please read our discussion of this in more detail above if you haven't already done so.) That's why you shouldn't give your e-mail address to your online contacts. However, by using MySpamSponge, you can still communicate with them via e-mail.

MySpamSponge makes managing your new e-mail account easier because you'll need to add just one contact to your whitelist or list of approved senders: MySpamSponge's outgoing e-mail address. MySpamSponge also eliminates the need for a spam filter to filter your incoming e-mail, so we recommend that you turn it off. As we discussed above, those spam filters are often more of a hassle than they are worth. They trap only some spam and, worse yet, they often block perfectly legitimate messages you want to read. Their filtering methods are too simplistic to reliably differentiate spam from good e-mail.

Top up

Q: What browser should I use with MySpamSponge?

A: MySpamSponge works with any browser, but some are faster and more responsive than others. For example, Firefox is a better choice than Internet Explorer for use with our site and millions of others. If you don't have Firefox, you can download it free. Opera is another great free browser.

Top up

Q: Can I use MySpamSponge for my business or organization e-mail?

A: No, but you can use our partner site (Contactiform.com — coming soon) for legitimate business or organization purposes as defined in its Terms of Service. MySpamSponge is reserved for use by individuals communicating one-on-one with other individuals for noncommercial purposes only.

Incidentally, in Contactiform we'll explain how this method of messaging can help businesses and their customers do some things that are not possible with standard e-mail.

Using Contactiform can also increase worker productivity by eliminating your spam problem. Dealing with spam costs billions of dollars every year, and that is even before you consider the risks of various threats such as viruses that can tag along with standard e-mails. MySpamSponge and Contactiform messaging is inherently resistant to viruses and other malicious code that can pose a threat to your computers and data network.

Top up

Q: I am writing a technical article about your site. What is the best way to summarize MySpamSponge functionality?

A: MySpamSponge functions as a trusted intermediary between e-mail senders and recipients, thus permitting them to communicate via e-mail without disclosing their e-mail addresses. This provides a number of benefits, as described above.

Top up

Q: If a pop-up "more info" box (such as this one
) spills off the page so part of it isn't visible, what can I do to see the rest of it?

A: Use your mouse scroll wheel to move up or down, or use the arrow keys on your keyboard (see picture below) to move the visible screen in any direction.

Keyboard arrow keys

The large yellow arrow points to the keyboard arrow keys, which can move the screen in each of the four directions, as shown by the red arrows.

Q: The beautiful woman in the red dress pointing to "Please click here to set your contact info" on the send-a-message page disappeared after I clicked the "Remember me and prefill my contact info in the future" checkbox. Why? I liked seeing her there! How can I get her to reappear?

A: Her function was to draw your attention to the fact that you need to set your contact info the first time you send a message. Once you set that, there is no need for her to point to it. If you're enamored with her appearance and want to continue seeing her, click the button below:

 

Top up

 
 

Related topics:

 
 
MySpamSponge