A Kick-Ass scheme on fighting Spam.

Here are some rules which solely are less effective but in total sum up all of my experiences which I made in the last couple of years. And all of this rules apply to every Internet user, from occasional to power user.

Rule 1
Never print your real address online. Never ever. Put your address in Myspace, Facebook or your own website and you'll be flooded with spam within minutes.
Whenever possible, try to hide or obfuscate your address with java script oder generate a picture out of your address. Encrypting it like namedomaincom is not enough.

Rule 2
Forget about all filters and tools. Don't trust your ISP's junk e-mail filters.
From complicated regular expression filters and black listing of known bad mail server, to semi intelligent Bayes filtering, none of them keeps its promises. They are always behind the current fashion in spamming.
The problems with filtering are not the spam mails that are not detected but the good mails which are accidentally hold back or worse erased.

Rule 3
Use disposable addresses that can be deleted if they begin to pull junk e-mail messages. Try finding services which let's you create those addresses by a finger tip. Every of this fake addresses is redirected to your main address and you can even reply to them, while your real address is always obfuscated.
This is by far the best way to communicate with machines, newsletters, shopping sites, etc.
And when you get spammed? No problem, just erase the targeted address and that's it.

Rule 4
Never reply to junk e-mail UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER, just erase it. Never confirm that you read and even answer such dirt.

Rule 5
Never even open spam mails. They might infect you with a computer virus or confirm your address automatically in the background. Try to delete the suspicious message right on the mail server.

Rule 6
Never click on the links in junk e-mail messages, including unsubscribe links. This will only lead to more spam. Also it is best to not open mails from unknown senders in HTML modus.

Rule 7
Never buy anything from a company that spams. Don't pay those guys for molesting you. Don't visit their sites or ask for more information.

Rule 8
Use multiple addresses for different intentions. This helps you to discover different sources and senders, and grants you separate out more effectively.

Rule 9
Use services where unknown or anonymous human senders have to identify themselves before their mails go from quarantine to your inbox.

Rule 10
Use automatically generated disposable addresses for writing to machines (e.g. web2.0, shops, newsletters)

Rule 11
Check to see if your address is visible to spammers by typing it into a web search engine.

Rule 12
Use a more complicated address, that is less probably to receive spam than one that could be easily dictionary-attacked. Chose a entirely randomly created addresses.

Rule 13
Stop using betrayed addresses. You will never be cleaned from a spammer's list.

Rule 14
Never reveal your login details to anyone. Not to your friend or your wife, not to your co worker.

Rule 15
Always defent yourself the best way possible. New windows patches, an up to date virus scanner and a working firewall are essentiell.

Rule 16
Don't use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, MS Outlook or Outlook Express. They are flawy and always an attacker's first potential target.

Juergen Schulze is the software engineer and inventor of MIGUmail (http://www.migumail.de) - the final arm in fighting spam.