Tip #4579 - Cutting Down on IM Spam
Printer Friendly Version | E-Mail This Tip
Cutting
Down on IM Spam
As you have probably
figured out, living in an electronic age has its downsides, with one
of them being swamped by unwanted e-mail in our Inboxes. Those who
indulge in such an act are called spammers and they are growing by
the minute, making our lives much more difficult. There are several
different kinds of spam going around the Internet these days, but
one of the most recent is instant messenger (IM) spam. What that means
is that even if you prefer to be invisible to everyone in an IM program,
spammers can get you anyway. Now, even if you can’t completely
eradicate such a menace, there are ways of bringing down their frequency.
Here are a few simple steps you can follow to secure yourself from
this new type of spam brigade!
Yahoo!
Messenger
First of all,
you need to set your profile to "Adult" and remove yourself
from being listed on Yahoo!'s public directory. This is how you do
it:
1.) Log in to
your profile by visiting this link.
2.) Once you're
there, click Sign In and log in using the same username
and password you use for Yahoo! Messenger.
3.) Click View
My Profiles and then click Edit, located
next to your Yahoo! ID.
4.) Next, click
Edit Profile Information on the next page. At the
bottom of that page, put a checkmark next to the option of "Designate
this profile as an adult profile" and uncheck the option
that says "Add this profile to the Yahoo! Member Directory."
5.) Click the
Save Changes button when you're finished.
How This
Strategy Works
When you set your
profile to "Adult," spammers will have to physically log
in to Yahoo! before they can harm you, so it acts as a good deterrent
for spammers. Similarly, taking your profile off the Yahoo! Member
Directory will make your profile almost invisible to spammers. And
that's exactly what you want to do!
Windows
Live/Hotmail/MSN
Based on the same
anti-spam principle of Yahoo!, here your job is to change your profile
from "Social" to "Just Me." Follow these easy
steps to do just that:
1.) Go here
and sign in with your Hotmail/MSN/Windows Live e-mail address and
password (which is the same as your messenger log in).
2.) Next, click
Profiles on the sidebar to your left. Go to the next
page and click "Edit your shared profile."
Then on the next page, click Social and next to Permissions,
click "Anyone on the Internet."
3.) Checkmark
the option of "Just Me" and then click
the Save button to finish.
All Other
Instant Messengers
Pidgin
is a cross-platform multi-protocol instant messaging client that allows
you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin is able to connect
to every other chat service that exists in cyberspace. Some of them
include AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MySpaceIM,
Sametime and Zephyr, among many others.
Now, what you
can do to protect yourself from being spammed over these instant messaging
networks is to download Bot Sentry, which you can
do right here.
Bot Sentry is a Pidgin plug-in that allows you to ignore instant messages
(IMs), unless the sender is in your Buddy List, in your Allow List
or the sender correctly answers a question you have pre-defined, such
as "How do you spell the number five?" If the answer is
wrong, such users cannot contact you ever again. This works with all
chat services that are connected to Pidgin.
There you have
it. I hope this one helps eliminate some of your IM spam problems.
Be safe!
~ Zahid H. Javali
Want To Comment On This Tip? Click Here! We'd love to hear from you :-)
Like These Tips? Get 'Em Free In Your E-mail
