Bad email can happen to good people. Even a careful, tech-savvy person like yourself could unwittingly click on a malicious link or have their one-fits-all password compromised to hackers. So try this one-time 30-second strategy to stay on top of email account spammers (no matter which service you use).
Have you ever gotten a muddled email from a friend or family member linking you to pills or porn or somehing else you know they'd never send? It's easy for you to see that their account was compromised. But they won't know until some kind soul in their address book replies.
Luckily, there's an easy trick to make sure you're immediately informed if a spam bot starts to send emails from your account. From Reddit user overzealous_dentist:
Always have a fake email address in your contact list; if a bot starts sending out spam as you, you'll get an Undeliverable Email notice.
The easiest way to create a fake, undeliverable email is to make the contact address' email domain a string of nonsensical numbers. Something like fakey@4cbj&x9.com. The bot will try to send an email to this address, but you'll nearly immediately get an email alert back in your inbox saying it wasn't able to send a message to Mr. Fakey.
Read More: Reddit.com
MORE APARTMENT THERAPY TIPS ON AVOIDING SPAMMERS:
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• How to Kiss Junk Mail and Telemarketers Goodbye
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That's a good tip. Here's another: if someone hacks your email account, go into your settings and look at forwarding. My hacker was having emails forwarded to his account, so anytime I changed my password (for email or for any other account) he knew and was able to get access. Removing him from forwards took care of that.
Please do not speak for me, I have my own opinions thanks.
"Note to AT editor, this does not broaden your reader spectrum, it annoys your current readers who stop, blink and sometimes twitch. I'm not sure you grasp how much these out of context posts irk a reader.
I guess it's time to find another design blog. One that's focused on quality posts.
POSTED BY JC123456 ON 06.18.12 AT 10:53AM"
Any comment that contains any iteration of the phrase "I solely registered to express my dislike for..." very likely comes from someone not invested in the site on which he/she is commenting. You're certainly free to take your window-shopping approach to blog reading elsewhere, thanks.
I second @riffraffa's concise statement.
AT editors, keep up the good work.
I'm sorry but I have to agree with @JC123456 on this one... Over the past year the amount of original content on this site has dropped considerably. You guys post some great stuff but all the readit crap is all over the web to already, it is not really new for a "tech" blog.
@DETEX: It's easy to forget that the vast majority of people in reality do not know nor follow Reddit (though I personally think they should!), and what may be common knowledge to you may be an enlightening tidbit of news to another. The same often applies to common decor/design tips for long-time Apartment Therapy readers, or recipes tricks from The Kitchn...and occasionally tech tips via our tech channel. We all come to the table with different amounts of knowledge about any of the variety of topics we cover in regards to "the home".
I think the easiest explanation would be we're not trying out-report quick news cycle tech sites [hats off to them], but share info we think the Apartment Therapy reader may find most helpful, today and tomorrow, whether new or old (and lots of the best tips, whether for decor, tech or recipes are often rehashed over the years). Knowing everyone doesn't browse the same sites, we share knowing many readers come to daily with a wide spectrum of questions/problems, so sometimes we're going to share things you may have already seen, already know.
I know I prob should follow Reddit, but I don't – so thanks! This was great. Put it to use, and created a fake email address for Fakey McFakerson.
I actually thought that the suggestion would be to have an alternate email for yourself in your contact list - then you would get the spam email too. Because I also use a local email program to retrieve email and manage my contacts, I actually periodically go into my online gmail accounts and remove all of the contacts. There's no one to spam if there are no contacts. Though there are all my emails, some of which have important information, of course!
Please remember that AT used to have a number of sites like Unplugged, which have now been folded into the main AT site. The only separate AT site that remains is TheKitchn. This is why people are seeing family and tech oriented posts. I personally liked having the separate sites, but they did not get nearly as much attention as the main AT site.
I do the same as HOME BODY.
Having another of my email address' in each others contact list is an easy way to prevent the issue.