Anti-Spam Questions? (Was: A Special Announcement From Dish Network and the Armor SecurityCorporation)

Jerome Fine replies: I also find that spam is annoying and I was wondering if there is anything an individual can do except to change to a different e-mail address? In that respect, can anyone suggest how long an e-mail address needs to be unavailable before the spam will stop for that address? I realize that changing my e-mail address constantly will be very inconvenient. Is there any other way to completely stop spam other than by not giving out my e-mail address? Has anyone tried changing their e-mail address to stop spam and about how long does this seem to work? I am almost certain to be changing to a different ISP in the next few months, so my e-mail address will need to change in any case. I was thinking of adding Jan, Feb, etc. for each month in turn. Can anyone suggest if once a month is more frequent than needed? JFM, AMJ, JAS, OND would do if every three months is sufficient. I could instead use an extra 3 characters at random and just change them when the spam volume becomes too high, but that might prevent someone from sending me an e-mail more than a few weeks later. Or might three letters for the month be OK as a public e-mail address that only needs to be used when someone attempts to contact me after a random three character "addendum" to the address has been cancelled, but would never be used in normal correspondence? If that is so, any spam to that e-mail address would obviously be unsolicited at the least and difficult to "mine" at best. Perhaps if all of us made some suggestions, the above might be completely unsatisfactory, but some sort of anti-spam mechanism could be developed that was both simple and effective? I think this might be a very useful thread. In addition, one thing that also might help that I have found - before I run through my e-mails, I try to remember to turn OFF my internet connection. Since I am on a dial-up modem, this is normal for me in any case. When I do so, I notice that more than half the spam I receive attempt to connect to a "home" site to download additional bytes. Can anyone tell me if that could provide the site with my e-mail address (not to mention other stuff) for my system? By blocking the internet connection, I presume that presents any feedback. That has not stopped the spam, however. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine