hypothetical question

[shelmart]

I'm a fairly new runbox user, having switched from yahoo for a variety of reasons, including an over-abundance of spam with little ability to block it.

I am being very, very careful with my runbox and only give it out to trusted family, friends, and co-workers. I hope that my runbox account will never start getting what I consider an unacceptable amount of spam (thus far I've had none) but -- in the event that it did (here comes the hypothetical question): is there any way for my saved mail, address book, and whitelists to be transferred to a new runbox account? Or any way for me to just change the account name?

[s a]

Originally posted by shelmart
is there any way for my saved mail, address book, and whitelists to be transferred to a new runbox account? Or any way for me to just change the account name?

I don't think you can do either.

However, runbox gives users an alias. An alias is another email address (for example youralias@runbox.com) which leads to the same inbox as your main account (you@runbox.com).

If you email support, Liz will set up an alias for you and if you start getting huge amounts of spam, you could simply delete that alias.

Use the alias as far as possible and avoid giving out your main account address. That will keep you spam free for much longer.

[shelmart]

Originally posted by s a

However, runbox gives users an alias. An alias is another email address (for example youralias@runbox.com) which leads to the same inbox as your main account (you@runbox.com).

Oh, drat -- I did NOT know that I could have an alias address. Too bad I didn't know this before I gave my main (currently only!) runbox address to a couple of dozen people. Ah, well, at least I know it now, and I shall send Liz a note and ask her to set one up for me.

Thanks for the info -- greatly aprpeciated.

Shelley

[jbs]

Another option is just continue to use your address carefully, trying to avoid spam. If and when your address is ever compromised, then you could switch to an alias, while simultaneously establishing a filter rule which says:

When header contains "Original_User_Name@runbox.com" then move to "Probably Spam" or perhaps then delete.

Others more knowledgeable than me could perhaps reply whether the destination address (in this case your original runbox address) will always be in the headers, or if spammers can spam you without even having that in there. It seems all of the spam I've looked at does have my original destination address in there, even if I was BCC'ed.

The thing to consider is, you'd probably be unlikely to delete an alias entirely, since it's hard to know whether everyone you gave it to has diligently updated their address books. More likely you'd like to keep it open, but check it very rarely. In that case, this approach would probably work very well -- use the main address for now, and switch to an alias only if spam forces you to.

--Jason

[carverrn]

Originally posted by jbs
Another option is just continue to use your address carefully, trying to avoid spam. If and when your address is ever compromised, then you could switch to an alias, while simultaneously establishing a filter rule which says:

When header contains "Original_User_Name@runbox.com" then move to "Probably Spam" or perhaps then delete.

Others more knowledgeable than me could perhaps reply whether the destination address (in this case your original runbox address) will always be in the headers, or if spammers can spam you without even having that in there. It seems all of the spam I've looked at does have my original destination address in there, even if I was BCC'ed.

Unfortunately this won't work because your "true" address will always appear in the header even when sent to your alias.

Here's an example header that was sent to an alias address:

Received: from mail by snoopy-bak.runbox.com with spamassassin (Exim 4.24)
id 1Aia0Z-00058V-2C
for USERNAME@runbox.com; Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:04:04 +0100
Received: from [66.218.78.131] (helo=web40514.mail.yahoo.com)
by snoopy-bak.runbox.com with smtp (Exim 4.24)
id 1Aia0M-0004zn-Ip
for ALIASNAME@Runbox.no; Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:03:50 +0100

In the above example you can also see that you can use one of the diffirent Runbox domains ".US" or ".NO".

username.com
username.no
username.us

aliasname.com
aliasname.no
aliasname.us

Regards,
Rich

[jbs]

Drawing off of Rich's (I think it was Rich's) suggestions in a prior thread of mine about how to work around the limitations of filtering, though, I wonder . . . could Shelley, if and when she ever does have to switch to an alias, have her first filter be:

If headers DO NOT CONTAIN aliasname@runbox.com SAVE TO FOLDER "probably spam". And then any of the old ones which just came to the main address without passing through the alias will be shunted away, still accessible for checking, just in case.

Would that work?

I feel like I'm taking this strong stand against setting up an alias, which is not my intent at all. I'm more figuring that your mail address is probably the one you prefer (since you picked it) and with good management of it I feel that one can keep one's email free of spam.

I use disposable forwarding emails and other tools to protect my email address and thus far it seems to be working well.

--Jason

[carverrn]

Jason's right, you could use a "does not contain" filter on the alias name.

Personally, I like using my own domain names. Many domains can be had for under $10US these days. And many of the domain registrars provide free email forwarding too.

Regards,
Rich

[stylophyle]

I'll just have to not use that runbox email address until you email me an alias, ma'am. Guess who I am

I'm sick of my home ISPs lousy spam filtering. In my opinion (because I do run my own server - although I want to retire from this responsibility), server filtering with SpamAssassin combined with individual Bayesian filters at the mailbox level (like the one provided by SpamBayes) are very strong with a low rate of false positives AND (more importantly) a low rate of false negatives.

I'm testing out runbox and oddpost.com to pick one as a new email provider. Runbox seems to be more flexible with respect to filtering into boxes, mailbox size, supported platforms. Despite allowing throw-away addresses, I don't like the Yahoo interface - nor the advertisements. I guess I can pay for throwaway addresses and forward them here, once I can get POP3 mail working here.

cheers