🚀 go-pugleaf

I have begun to use a "friendword" filter on my inbox.  I'm posting 
this in case other people might like to borrow the idea.

We're all sick of spam.  And the latest virus assaults (you know the 
ones:  Re: Movie, My details, Your details, Your application, Your 
account, etc.) are exasperating.


What's a "friendword?"

It's like a password, but it's not a secret.  All my "friends" know 
what it is.  I'm using "{ASSTR}" as my "friendword."  To send me an 
email, you must put my "friendword" anywhere on the Subject line of 
your email to me or your email will be deleted before it gets to my 
inbox.  


What if you don't know my "friendword?"

If you send me an email without my "friendword" on the Subject line, 
you will get an auto-reply telling you what my "friendword" is!


How will this stop spam and virus attacks if you give out your 
"friendword" in an auto-reply?

Viruses just harvest emails and send the same thing to everyone on 
the list.  Virus writers will need to become much more clever to 
figure out the "friendword" associated with each address in your 
address book.  Also, to get a spam through, some live person at "spam 
central" will have to read each victim's auto-reply and create a x-
ref database of all their victims' emails and corresponding 
"friendwords."  Furthermore, we all know that spammers use fraudulent 
return addresses, so the auto-replies will never be received by the 
spammers in the first place.  Therefore, I can't possibly see how 
spammers can thwart "friendwords" without (a) using valid reply 
addresses and (2) keeping a humungous staff of people manually 
reading those auto-replies and keeping track of each "friendword" 
associated with each address.


Ergo, virus attacks and spam stopped 100%!!!


Keep in mind, however, that email programs can NOT start to record 
"friendwords" in their address books as a convenience to people.  
This will defeat the purpose of the "friendword" because it will 
enable viruses and spammers to collect emails and corresponding 
"friendwords."  "Friendwords" are something that must be done through 
filtering, and each person must hand-write his/her own auto-reply so 
that spammers and viruses can't read a "standard" auto-reply and 
extract the "friendword."

Furthermore, a person can change their "friendword" periodically 
without getting a whole new email address, if and when spammers start 
to collect "friendwords." 

Just my idea.  I hope others find it useful...

-- 
Hungry Guy
http://www.asstr.org/~HungryGuy
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| Because of the recent swarm of virus-generated spam,   |
| in order to send email to me, you MUST include the     |
| string "{ASS" somewhere in the subject line of your    |
| message or your email will never be seen by me.        |
| Therefore, {ASS} will work, as will {ASSD} or {ASSM}   |
| or {ASSTR} or even {ASSWXYZ} for that matter <g>.      |
+--------------------------------------------------------+