Don't you wish there were a national "do not spam" registry? There isn't - so here are some tips for staying off spammers' lists.

Ways in which spammers find you:

* E-MAIL HARVESTING: Robots scour the web collecting addresses posted online. Instead of posting your e-mail address directly, you might want to do it in this format: sree at sree.net.

* RANDOMIZING YOUR ADDRESS: They guess at your address. Computers send mail to millions of addresses, guessing addresses at random - john@aol.com, john2@aol.com, john3@aol.com, etc.

* CHAT ROOMS, MESSAGE BOARDS, MAILING LISTS: They collect your ID from such places.

* SIGNING CHAIN LETTERS: One word: don't.

* PAPER FORMS: Yep, next time you fill in a form for a sweepstakes, they can get your e-mail address that way.

* REPLYING TO JUNK-MAIL, UNSUBSCRIBING: Don't reply to any junk mail you get - it just alerts them to the fact that you're address is real. Otherwise, they presume your address is dead.

See my segment on dealing with junk e-mail.

Write to techguru@sree.net and let me know your thoughts.