Also, I've just checked a former employee's account who hasn't worked here for a year or soa lot of the mail sitting in their mailbox isn't SPAM.
<examples snipped>
So reusing an old mailbox and assuming it must all be spam I would say^^^^^^^^^^^^
is a very bad idea.
Absolutely. This is only useful if you're willing to go through the mailbox yourself from time to time and *manually classify the messages*.
Some ways to mitigate this: - Disable the mailbox entirely for some period of time. Some lists (but not all) will drop a bouncing address. This of course will not help with low-traffic lists that send out one message every 6 months. - Unsubscribe the address from any obviously legit lists you find. This will at least reduce the chaff you have to sort through later. - For that matter, unsubscribe from the unfamiliar ones too. You probably don't know what the user signed up for, and if it's legit you won't have to worry about it again, and if it turns out to be spam, you're only publicizing a spamtrap, not someone's real account. - If you still get lots of legit mail coming in, *drop the address* and use another one. Chances are you have plenty of other sources for spam.
-- Kelson Vibber SpeedGate Communications <www.speed.net>
