# why am i getting so much xxx-rated spam lately?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-getting-so-much-xxx-rated-spam-lately/189710>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [July 20, 2003, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-getting-so-much-xxx-rated-spam-lately/189710 "2003-07-20T06:37:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![merrily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@merrily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrily)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-getting-so-much-xxx-rated-spam-lately/189710/21 "2003-07-20T22:34:55Z")

</div>

There are often ways to block emails by the subject line. It just so happens that my private life doesn’t admit many emails that legitimately have “penis” in the subject, so I have any emails that come in like that go straight into the trash.

Look in your “tools” option. (Ironic, to use tools to block penises.)

Also, get AdAware, which I first heard about on the SDMB. It is free, and will clean off any cookies that are sending out either your address, or letting someone know when you are online (and sending you spam).

[http://www.majorgeek.com/index2.html](http://www.majorgeek.com/index2.html)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Monza305](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Monza305](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monza305)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-getting-so-much-xxx-rated-spam-lately/189710/22 "2003-07-21T01:16:37Z")

</div>

Don’t forget, some of these asswipes break into people’s accounts to send spam. Sometimes they will also spoof other E-mail addresses (Usually taken from their lists) into the from address. That happened to me recently. The really bad thing about that is there are a lot of bad addresses on those lists. Guess who got all of the returned mail in his mailbox… I was getting over 250 bounced messages a day! I finally had to put major filters on my E-mail. Still some of it still gets through. ☹

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Salem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Salem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salem)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-getting-so-much-xxx-rated-spam-lately/189710/23 "2003-07-21T05:41:13Z")

</div>

And another possibility is when people forward stuff to you and don’t blind copy the recipient list. There’s a helluva lot of email addresses on some of the forwards I’ve gotten. Alll of them just ready to be copied and pasted to a spam generator.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-getting-so-much-xxx-rated-spam-lately/189710.md?page=1)