Talk:Lecture 7

SPAM

TedZ: I am struck by the irony of the fact that the Pew Organization admits to using "telephone spam" to conduct their research into email spam. I wonder how many people used the defense mechanism that I use (don't answer the phone unless the person starts talking to the answering machine and I recognize the voice) for deflecting unwanted telephone calls?

I'm a long-time internet user (10 years or so I think), and I must have pretty strong defense mechanisms, because I average less than 1 spam email per month. I use a white list to filter most of my email, guard my email address, NEVER even click on anything that might be a spam, do not click random advertisements on web pages, never click on a link in an email (even if it looks legit, such as a note from my bank), use throw-away email addresses when necessary, etc. Given the fact that the people taking this class are probably fairly technologically savvy, I wonder what your experiences with spam are? Anyone overwhelmed by spam? What are your defense mechanisms?