Review - Spam Arrest

[ArticleBot]

This is an article discussion thread for discussing the SitePoint article, "Review - Spam Arrest"

[warmly]

I have my email IDs on different sites including hotmail and yahoo, since I was unknown to any spam free email service. Fortunately, once in a chat room I got to know about www.postmaster.co.uk and learnt that perhaps it is the spam free, email provider.
Though it sounds unbelievable, but I gave it a try and surprisingly, even after one and a half year of use I am still to see a junk mail in my mail box.

Apart from that I found it fast and easy to log in. A good website for everybody.

I used to use Spam Arrest because their challenge repsonse worked for me. I used to get about 100 spam a day and would also lose email. Spam arrest the stopped the spam and I stopped losing emails. It was great!

However when I found out that the company was involved with spamming I cancelled my account. (http://www.doingfreedom.com/nas/spamarrest.htm)

Instead I found this company called boxsentry (www.boxsentry.com) who also use challenge response and switched. They're worth a try. I've been using them for the last 6 months - no problems whatsoever!

I block all mail from spamarrest because they are opt-out spammers. If you are a spamarrest customer, you will not be able to send email to me.

I find it hilarious that people are so concerned about getting an ad from spamarrest. Is it that they prefer everyone else to get spam? HA! Well, it sure ain't no skin off my nose that these people ban spamarrest. Why don't they stick it to "us" by just disconnecting for the internet altogether. Boy, that would really show us... What bozo's... No, I don't use spamarrest, but this "I'm so important that **I** won't read your email" is so primadonna stupid -- very funny!!

Spam Arrest sent out an email once back in Feb 2003 four years ago and never did again. Additionally they have been fighting Hormel and protecting everyones right to use the word Spam ( See: <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2919344&page=1">Spam Arrest</a>'s Trademark Battle )

Spam Arrest are spammers.

I keep getting requests to authenticate mails that I never sent. They are just passing on the problem to other victims.

Bad net citizenship.

Spammers always forge the "from" address in their spams. When SpamArrest receives such a spam, it sends its "challenge" to a forged address. Unfortunately, sometimes the forged address in the spams is a real person.

SpamArrest doesn't make sense to the internet as a whole, because it's "challenging" mostly people who didn't send the spams. The challenges go to legitimate users (when it's not a spam) or to innocent users (who had their emails forged in the spam).

This is why SpamArrest is considered a spammer by some. Those poor schmucks who get the challenges don't deserve them. Spam is getting a mail you didn't deserve to get, or ask to get, or want to get. SpamArrest is spamming if you use this definition.

For more information, google the terms email Backscatter, misdirected bounces, etc. This is not a new problem, and SpamArrest are being irresponsible.

Now, what I do, when I get a SpamArrest challenge for an email I didn't send, I answer the confirmation. That means the spam (that I didn't send) will go into the inbox of the person who paid for a (faulty) service, which also spammed me.

Spam filtering can be done a whole lot easier. Gmail is proving it's done very well, and right now at $0 cost. Zero dollars. Wise up, drop your SpamArrest subscription (stop funding misdirected bounces to innocent people), and sign up for Gmail.