With the onslaught of yet another mydoom variant worm virus in the pc world and hackers apparently waging a worm war with each other, even some mac users with run for cover from the ensuing increase in junk email traffic and slower networks.
Unlike earlier onslaughts, Spam Sieve allowed me to be oblivious to all this. With Panther eliminating the time lag of the Apple Script on my relatively slower machine, I never noticed it again running in the background.
After a couple of false negatives appeared recently, I searched some IT pages and discovered there was an outbreak of sorts. Spam Sieve has easily paid for itself. Its safer to have more false negatives than false positives, and its only been some two weeks.
I no longer worry about web-placed email addresses attracting spam and put off creating a form for submitting email. But I still maintain some habits - in Entourage's mail preferences, I turn off complex html rendering and server access in such emails.
I also disable email addresses after a project is over (or at least intend to) and I do not open suspect mail - the good thing about the virus is people will learn to be more precise with subject headings!
Interestingly, virus outbreaks made me learn more and Spam Sieve will make me less savvy. But figuring this out is the kind fun many of us can't afford right now.
Posted at 11:52AM UTC by N. Sivasothi | permalink | , .