Friday, January 01, 2010

Goodbye vmusic@tiscali.co.za

My first private email address was vmusic@global.co.za, which I signed up for as a 28.8kbps dial-up account around 1997. I foolishly published this address on my www.worship.co.za web site, and in forums before spam was an issue.
At some point, I think around 2000, the old Global Internet Access company was bought out by World Online, which was so slow we called it "World Offline", and they in turn sold to Tiscali, at which point I got a vmusic@tiscali.co.za alias, and cancelled vmusic@global.co.za. I also signed up with spamcop.net, because I was tired of getting spam and I decided that I would not give out my tiscali.co.za email address.
Unfortunately it isn't easy to get call centre operators to spell "spamcop.net" so from time to time I relented and gave out my vmusic@tiscali.co.za address. I also made the mistake of giving this address to a hosting company who promptly put it on a domain registration record. Bad idea. But the cat was now out of the bag.
I'm not sure which source it was, but eventually a smug slimeball called Mark Tribelhorn and another devious character called "Mike" or "Brent" decided to put my vmusic@tiscali.co.za address on their mailing list, which they sold repeatedly to equally naive or dumb people who wanted to sell me stuff.
So I have now cancelled the email alias completely. Which is why I am happy to publish it on my blog, where the spambots can find it and waste their time. If you want to contact me, use the information in the graphic below.

Don't even think of putting this address on a marketing list, because I react very badly to spam. It's illegal, and I will publish your email address on my web site, where I know the spambots will find it and send you adverts for watches and medication and stuff.
Spamcop.net filters out around 200 spam messages per day, and the few that get through get dealt with by my ESET antivirus package. It keeps my blood pressure down and my focus on work.

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