Fighting Spam…
Here are things you
should know to combat the huge force of spam.
The biggest mistakes people make:
NEVER reply to a spam email message! This
is even more important when the message you receive includes links such as
‘click here to unsubscribe’ or ‘remove my name from this mailing list.’ If you
respond, that spammer knows that your address has a live person on the other
end. Once they know they have a ‘live one’, they sell or distribute your name
to other spammers – and the value of your email address just went up so you
will be sold to other spammers. Bottom
line: If you reply to
spam, expect to see your inbox flooded with even more spam.
NEVER purchase an item from a spam
email. For a spammer, one sale among thousands of mailings
justifies the practice of spamming. Remember, this is a numbers game. It costs
the spammer nothing to send the message to you, so if a few people purchase
something from their email, it justifies the time it took to spam everyone. If
you want a product that is advertised in a spam email, go to Google. Then,
search for another web site where you can purchase that item. Bottom line: Do not condone the practice of spam by buying from
spammers.
NEVER give your email address to
sites promising to take your name off spam lists. While the
site author may genuinely want to help you, more likely they are spam address
collectors. In any case, spammers exploit security holes in sites that collect
email addresses. Once your address is recorded and validated
(because you posted it there), it will be added to spam lists. Bottom line: There are better ways to combat spam than to sign
up for exclusion lists.
NEVER send email to your friends via
a mass mailing. In other words, most email programs allow you
to ‘BCC:’ (stands for ‘blind carbon copy’) recipients, meaning that once sent,
the email addresses of your recipients is hidden from
one another. Here is why this is so important:
Jane Novice receives an interesting
article and she emails it to all her friends -- but she does it by including
all the addresses in the TO: field. The problem? Each
recipient gets a copy of all addresses. Then, one of Jane’s friends forwards
that message (which includes the list of email addresses) to all of her
friends. Over time, the address list becomes very large. Ultimately, it falls
into the hands of someone in the spam trade.
Instead, Jane should mail a separate copy to each of her friends.
Alternatively, she can also ‘BCC’ recipients. Bottom line: The easier you make it for spammers to collect
multiple email addresses (especially in one place), the more likely you are to
get blasted with spam.
NEVER attempt to battle spammers by
engaging in hacking or mail-bomb activity. This will only
increase the amount of extraneous Internet traffic and just creates sympathy
for spammers. Please do not make the Internet even less reliable than it
already is!
Smart spam
avoidance:
Take meaningful
action to stop spammers. Filter your inbox messages, write to spammer host sites
(without revealing your real email address, of course!) to let them know that
you do not support their activity, and write your congressional
representatives. Effective legislation would likely impose meaningful fines to
those who spam and make it more risky to engage in spamming.
Disguise all email addresses posted
online. One surefire way to get on a spam list is to post your
email address on a web page! Spammers harvest addresses using computer programs
that are designed to collect addresses. If you must post your email address on
a web page, it is useful to disguise the address. For example, instead of
posting your email address as ‘yourname@domain.com,’ replace the @ sign with
@ Most
harvesting programs will skip right over your email address, since they are
designed to look for an email address with the @ sign in it.
Opt out of member directories that
may place your email address online. If your employer places
your email address online, ask the Webmaster to make sure it is disguised in
some way.
Read carefully when filling out
online forms requesting your email address. If you don't want
to receive email from a company requesting your email address, don't give it to
them. If you are asked for your email address in an online setting such as a
form (thus you have to enter something into that field - see the next
paragraph), make sure you pay attention to any options discussing how the
address will be used. Pay close attention to their privacy policy. If you
suspect that a site has violated its privacy policy, you can report it to your
Attorney General or the Federal Trade Commission.
Use multiple email addresses. When
visiting an unfamiliar web site or posting to a newsgroup, establish an email
address for that specific purpose. You can use 'alias' email addresses, which
consolidate email in a single location but allow you to immediately shut off
any address that is attracting spam. By recording which email address was used
at each web site, you can track which sites are causing your inbox to overfloweth with spam. You can
search in Google for 'disposable email addresses' to find companies that
provide disposable (or one-time use) email addresses. Also, you can sign up for
a few free email accounts with hotmail or yahoo. Use those addresses instead of
your permanent email address.
Newsgroups users beware!
Newsgroups are a great email address gathering ground for spammers. If you post
to a group, you are going to get spam -- it is just a matter of time. So how
are you supposed to participate? Use a different email address than the one you
use for talking to friends and relatives. In other words, have a 'public'
address and a 'private' address. You’ll just have to deal with the spam in your
public account.
Short email addresses are easy to
guess, and often receive more spam. Email addresses composed of
short names and/or initials like joe@domain.com, or basic combinations like
adams@domain.com receive more spam. Email addresses do not need to be
incomprehensible, but modify or add to it in some way so that it is not so easy
to target.
Some spam is generated through 'attacks' on mail servers, where spammers use
software programs to send spam to every possible combination of letters at a
domain. While these attacks are often caught by your ISP, you can imagine how
hard it is for your ISP to immediately distinguish between all of the millions
of email messages passing through their mail servers and those of a spammer.
Some spam is likely to get through. In many cases, spam generated by these
attacks will get through to shorter email address (like joe@domain.com) before
it is directed to longer addresses. If your last name starts with a 'Z,' you
will recall how often you were last when you were a kid in school. Sometimes,
last is good.
Most spam is simply annoying, but
some of it is illegal. When you receive an email that asks you
to send $1 to several addresses in the letter, and promises a windfall if you
follow the letter's instructions, this represents a 'pyramid scheme' and it is
illegal.
There are many other kinds of illegal email. For example, you have likely
received the email that comes from a foreign (typically Nigerian) person who
says they have a large sum of money on deposit at an exotic bank, and that they
simply need your account number to send that money to you. For facilitating the
transaction, it goes on to claim, they will let you keep a couple million
dollars. Come on! Do you really believe this? This is called
If you believe an email
is fraudulent, you should report it. Here are some addresses that accept fraud
reports:
To report spam violators (by email). Use the
link to send an email to: uce at ftc.gov.
The Federal Trade Commission Home
Page (http://www.ftc.gov)
The Internet Fraud
Watch/National Fraud Information Center (http://www.fraud.org)
What does the
garbled text mean?
If you receive
spam email with strange or unintelligible writing in it, or strange text in the
subject line, it is probably spam - written in a foreign language. When your
computer does not know how to translate the text, it comes through as a string
of meaningless letters and/or numbers.
Much of the total output
of spam comes from overseas servers, where spam regulations are lax. As a
result, many US-based ISPs have blocked many servers located in specific
countries. If you have difficulty receiving mail from a legitimate contact in
another country, you will likely find that your mail server has been set up to
block incoming email from that person(s). You will then need to contact your
ISP to report the difficulty and see if they are comfortable unblocking their
mail servers so that you can receive mail from him/her.
How do filters work?
Quality ISPs put spam
filters on their mail servers, but you can further guard against spam by using
a spam filtering program on your computer. These spam programs vary greatly,
but their basic function is to allow you to enter non-allowable keywords and
'quarantine' all messages containing those spam keywords into a separate inbox.
Examples of recommended spam programs are listed in this site.
Spammers like to sell
things that sound as if they might be hard to get, illegal, or sexy. Words and
phrases that are common in spam email include: Viagra, credit repair, college
degree, free trial, enter, sexy, hot, enlargement, etc., Although
you will feel stupid typing nasty words into the spam filter program, unless
you regularly use these words in your communications with friends and colleagues,
you will stop a lot of unsavory and pornographic spam email. This is especially
important if you have children using the same computer.
The things your spam filters need to look for will be determined by the nature
of the spam you receive. You also want to consider the likely content of the
legitimate email you receive, and make sure your spam filters do not mistake
any of it for spam.
Most spam filters can be
set up to perform a variety of actions when it identifies an incoming message
that has the qualities of spam. Among the choices are to send a reply to the
spammer with a canned message that informs them that their message was deleted
automatically. However, few spammers use a genuine return address, so in most
cases your message will be returned a few hours later, necessitating that you
delete it manually. It is more hassle than satisfaction.
Spam filters can also deposit spam directly to your Trash box, where it will be
deleted automatically. However, this risks sending legitimate email into the
trash without being read.
Ideally, you will have a spam filtering program that allows you to create a
'quarantine' folder and have your spam sent to it. This way, you can scan
through your quarantined mail from time to time to see if it contains anything
important.
Bottom line: Creating and maintaining a spam mail filter
requires a fair amount of effort, although over time you will likely spend a
heck of a lot more time filtering through spam manually.
What is a
blackhole list?
A blackhole list, often referred to as a blacklist, is a list of ISP addresses
known to be sources of spam. The primary goal of a blackhole list is to provide
a list of IP addresses that a network can use to filter out undesirable
traffic. After filtering, traffic coming or going to an IP address on the list
simply disappears, as if it were swallowed by a black hole. The Mail Abuse
Prevention System (MAPS) Real-time Blackhole List (RBL),
is one of the most popular blackhole lists. Other popular blackhole lists
include the Relay Spam Stopper and the Dialup User List.
Foothill.Net provides Spam Guardian Free to subscribers!