If you’re like me you receive a lot of SPAM each day which is hopefully caught by your SPAM or Junk email applications/filters. I’ve been of the opinion that any response to junk mail, even opting out using what they profess to be the opt-out links, only validates your email address as a valid address, with a real person, and results in even more junk email.
The problem is so unsolvable that I usually keep a disposable email address that I use to register at all online locations where I can’t confirm the validity of the site. When this email starts receiving excessive junk email I simple delete it and get a new disposable address.
A couple of days ago I saw an announcement of a new email utility for Mac OS X call “SidewinderX” from Hendrickson Software Components (hsc). This product was was billed as “the ultimate automated, AppleScript-able, spam tracing and reporting software” tool. Some of the features of this application include:
Tracing and reporting of spammers to their Internet Service Providers;
Tracing and reporting embedded “spamvertized” web sites;
Tracing and reporting “phishing” web sites;
Custom abuse reports based on spam category; and
Integrated with Apple Mail (more email clients coming in the future);
Reports all or one of the emails in your Junk box with the click of a button; and
Supports multiple e-mail accounts.
I downloaded SidewinderX and have been giving it a try now for several days on my junk email account.¬ While I can’t say if reporting the spammers will actually help reduce the amount of traffic in any way, SidewinderX does do what they say it will do.
There’s basically two methods of reporting the junk email using SidewinderX:
1. First you can designate a spam folder on you hard disk and then save any emails you want to report to this folder from the Apple Mail client in RAW format to be imported and processed by SidewinderX. During the set-up of SidewinderX you define this folder in SidewinderX’s configuration; or
2. You can use one of the two AppleScripts that come with SidewinderX.¬ One script automatically reports all emails in your Junk Folder and the other reports only the message that’s selected.
SidewinderX seems to do a good job of digging out the proper sites and domains to report the abuse to and includes a complete copy of the offending message with it’s report.¬ SidewinderX sales for $19.95.
I’ve not had any problems with the software and I’m going to keep reporting junk email for several weeks and see it I can discern any reduction or difference in the volume I receive.
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