Bug Me Not

Tonight we were discussing web site registrations, and how they are becoming more invasive, and open you up to a world of spam.

There is the old idea of getting your own domain then giving each site a unique email address to contact you with, for example if I sign up with www.Tesco.com they get an e-mail address from me of tesco@{mydomain name}. There are two advantages to this, one is any e-mail you want from them gets through, and two, if you get spam to that e-mail address one of two things has happened, either they have sold on your address to a spammer, or their security has been hacked, and your address has been stolen. Either way, it gives you a LOT of leverage with their tech support and publicity machines when you complain!

I pay 15 quid a year to have an account to manage this with an ISP, plys something like 7 quid every two years for a UK domain name, I also get web space and other cool toys built in to this price. Whanadoo or le-free-swerve, britains biggest french ISP , are also good according to Jonny.

there is also Bug Me Not which has a database of logins submitted by people who either don't care, or have already submitted false details to, these sites. I find it gets me through probably 8 out of 10 web sites.

Of course bugmenot.com is careful, and you don't find user names and passwords for pay sites or secure sites on there, or at least, I haven't yet.