(combining post replies because I'm just lazy that
way ;))

Drac wrote:
A near-empty bank account for Paypal or other
online payment services is a very good idea. . .
Me, I just *refuse* to hook up any bank account to
my Paypal

Absolutely agreed.  I signed up with Paypal a year
or two back, but also refused to hook up my bank
account to them.  Every time I read through the
directions I got this queasy feeling in my stomach
and couldn't go through with it.  I never used the
account for much of anything, but eventually it
accrued some money in it (long story, I was not
exactly pleased), and the only way I was able to
get it out involved giving them my credit card
information so that they would send me a check
through snailmail ¬_¬;;.  IMHO, that is just plain
*wrong*.  My CC info has nothing to do with
mailing me a check.  I closed out the account
after I received it.

Misha wrote:
Although, the toughest part is trying to keep
off of internet mailing lists...I've never been
stingy with my e-mail, but I certainly haven't
given it out...the only explanation I can think of
for the amount of spam and such is that I used to
be on quite a few Yahoo mailing lists...that would
probably do it. Right now I'm trying to figure out
how to get rid of all of that stuff -.-;;

These days it's almost impossible to keep yourself
email-spam-free T_T.  I mean, there are probably
bots trolling this message board right now,
pulling our valid email addresses from our posts
(unless Yann has something protecting the pages
^_^;;).  I think that newsgroups are notorious
that way for the same reason.

Junk mail is even sent randomly, trying variation
after variation until the spammers hit on an email
address that doesn't bounce back.  I changed
providers about two months ago, and I had a huge
amount of spam when I first logged into my new
email account.  Which had supposedly been set up
that afternoon >_<.

One hint I can offer is to set up a free account
that you just use to sign up for stupid things
online *G*.  I have a yahoo account that's
basically just a spamtrap.  Every time I have to
fill out a form, I do the fake info thing (like
Drac suggested ^_^), and put in that email address
so that I can receive any password that's needed
to activate the whatever.  

Then again, sometimes you do all the right stuff,
and it still doesn't completely protect you.

This ramble was brought to you by the letter T.