You might not be able to stop it coming into your inbox, but you can filter it once it's there. Just send any mail 'From %a' AND 'To %a' to the Junk Mail Folder or delete it straight away.

You might be able to trace it back to the originating IP in the Received From entries in the header. It should be the one closest to the Subject line. A quick scan of your server logs might yield a match. If so, review the page(s) served to that IP and eee if any of them give up a clue as to how your address was harvested.

If you haven't already, you may also wish to script all the private information on your site so it can only be opened in a browser, or at least make it that much harder to harvest. Well, from your site, anyway.

We wouldn't have spam if people would quit opening it. How badly must one need mail to be lured into the stuff floating around these days? How many people have their Send Receipt turned on, and worse, the reading pane?

These things invariably make one form of server call or another, usually by multiple avenues--Receipt, Dispostition, images. The best we can do is make sure we have the correct settings to disable these items. Sadly, on the grand scale few people do.

Your firewall can help you here. If stuff is getting through or being blocked, you can track down the IP traffic to and from your mail client. Anything you didn't click on, happened by itself. Now you know what to block, or restrict in some way.

With the proper safeguards in place, you can then set about creating a Trusted list that you can elevate to higher permission levels. Again, your firewall will be the key here, since that's where the real trust is established.

Then there is the last, and the best--the worst, actually--slyware on your machine. A good firewall, (like Outpost Firewall Pro, for instance) will put a complete stop to this, but if you have weak defenses private information may be leaving your machine without your knowledge.

Routine scanning for both malicious and innocuous software and tracking are a must in today's world. I can think of no better place to establish a first and last line of defense than the firewall. Track down those undesirable IPs and let the FW filter them, with no other program running in the background but an antivirus. The firewall's database is always going to be your best authority because it is right up to the second, and it is immediately user configurable.

Other measures may be the online filtering that comes with your mail account. You may be able to filter your mail before it arrives at your mail client. And as mentioned above, your mail provider may have an alternate SMTP port.

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