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SPAM

Spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail. It can be annoying because unlike other most forms of communication, the recipient has to pay for it.

SPAM is regarded by many to be some kind of ultimate latterday evil, but like most things it's got it's good and bad aspects.

There are reasonable ways of dealing with this sort of thing. Here are some pages about it here:

Incoming spam policy

Outgoing spam policy

Also, Why is Spam so Annoying?

Anyway, why is it called "spam"? Spam was originally a type of canned luncheon meat which dates back to the Second World War. The name "SPAM" is derived from "Spiced Ham". Then Monty Python's Flying Circus did a sketch in which someone was trying to order a meal and the cafe menu had SPAM with everything. "But I don't like spam!" protested the customer. But still they were excepted to have it. Meanwhile in the background a chorus of Vikings sang a merry song extolling Spam, with lyrics that go something like "Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! , Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! , Wonderful Spam!".

The manufacturers of the canned luncheon meat are quite happy about this, as far as we can tell, as the amount of publicity is remarkable! See www.spam.com

On the bulk junk e-mail problem, though, you can defeat it by various methods. For example the REPLY policy as seen at spam2 and also an advanced Java technique available at www.email-cloak.com anti-spam services. ... News! You can now do something like this yourself using the e-mail mailto address hiding method which works on the Mac and Linux too!

Also there are specialist anti-spam sites, for example... Spam Cop http://spamcop.netSpam Cop , www.abuse.net , CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email), and www.anti-spam.outblaze.com

There's a type of Australian travel email which claims to be spam-free! See SwagMail. Also Avecho, which is reputed to censor out spam and viruses.

Another thing you can do about spam is to phone up World Reach Corporation on 800-441-9523 (USA Free Phone) and ask them to stop sending it! (You can't reply to their e-mails and you can't unsubscribe, so you might as well phone them up). Of course they're not the only spam company, so if you find others, put the word about! Here is a link to a page at Toasted Spam which contains a LIST OF SPAMMERS' PHONE NUMBERS!: www.toastedspam.com/phonelist (gone?) Hey, World Reach Corporation, if you're reading this message, you can talk to me and I'll put a nicer paragraph about you up here if you stop sending me SPAM!

The same also applies to john@advertiger.com who accused me of sending spam. More about this: see message

Other good spam-related links: www. The Club Built on Spam.com (was http://www.theclubbuiltonspam.com) , www.spamhaus.org , www.spamsucks.us , and Where to complain about spam that uses free email accounts (especially for Nigeria 419 scams and Lottery scams). Also, do eBay send spam? Or is it more like these spams apparently from banks? Decide for yourself at the Page of eBay Spam

On spam e-mails some people put "This can not be legally considered spam because of section 105 of the Federal Law" etc. That is of course rubbish, and I'll explain why here... Definition of Spam

Other bad practices in advertising: POP-UPs. These are dealt with at the HOW TO STOP POP-UPs PAGE!

Plus, sometimes on the end of spam e-mail messages you see "this is not spam". If you see that, then there's a 95% chance it IS spam. If I was sending some spam I'd not put that as it would be a LIE! If I'm sending out a message in a genuine opt-in system I sometimes put "This is not spam - we've got a separate list for that!". It is much better to send out unsolicited bulk spam messages which are honest than to state in blatantly spam messages "This is never sent unsolicited". It is the lying that is much more annoying than the unsolicited sending. Statements such as "You are receiving this because you have opted-in to receive it" are often LIES! There's some more here about Supposedly OPT-IN lists. Further note: Not only is the false use of the statement "this is never sent unsolicited" a lie right in the face of the recipient, but is a means to fraud against businesses who are paying for the sending out of the messages on the basis that it's going to "N million opt-in addresses". More about this.

Incidentally, a great many of the spam senders live in the USA. This may sound strange considering the draconian laws there prohibiting the sending of anything that even vaguely looks a bit like spam. However, you can see some the spam senders are in the United States because they take a break on American vacation days; 4th July Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and many others.

There is another way to defeat spam in the long term. A matter of principle... alternative method of how to defeat spam

Also, another helpful hint about defeating can be seen at the write-up about the Preview Pane

Plus, it's worth knowing about Devious Methods used by the senders of spam!

Further developments in the evolution of the spam business: Spam senders make it easy

What kinds of products are advertised by spam? See SpamWare

Anyway, WHY NOT send spam? Surely it would be good for business to advertise to millions of people by sending them commercial messages?! Here's a cautionary tale in which an honest businessman explains why not: Spam Nightmare / Cautionary Tale

What if you receive spam that's coming in via your online form?! That's form spam, and there are some easy ways of defeating it.

Telephone spam: A downside to the improvements in ease of use of the phone system and international call charges is PHONE SPAM. Although fax spam was quickly banned in most countries which had a good supply of toilet paper, telephonic spam still persisted.

Now some helpful info supplied mainly by spam abuse reporting places:

Knujon ("no junk" written backwards) - a community-based approach to junk email tagging, based on its payload/target.

Thanks to www.earthlink.net for sending this set of useful links in a reply to a spam abuse report...

"It is unfortunately easy to forge a domain name in a return
address.  If you are reporting a junk e-mail based solely on
the return address, please take a moment to review the
following links:

To learn how to report spam so action is taken:
http://spam.abuse.net/userhelp/howtocomplain.shtml

To learn how to locate e-mail headers in your e-mail client:
http://help.mindspring.com/features/emailheaders/extended.htm

To learn how to interpret e-mail headers: 
http://help.mindspring.com/features/emailheaders/

To investigate the owners of a numeric IP address:
www.arin.net

To investigate the owners of a domain name:
www.internic.net

Other useful lookup tools:
Sam Spade.org
- was http://samspade.org/

[ Arin.net, internic.net, samspade.org and abuse.net are not
directly affiliated with Earthlink, they are external
resources with which we believe provide useful information
to people reporting spam and abuse. ]"

And thanks to www.juno.com for sending this helpful stuff...

"Please note that we have forwarded your complaint to the abuse authorities of the domain from which this mail originated or was relayed.  We recommend you contact the concerned domain for any further information about the action taken against the offender.

If you would like to learn how to report spam to the correct domain, please see "How to Complain to the Spammer's Provider" at
http://spam.abuse.net/userhelp/howtocomplain.shtml"

And, thanks to AT&T for telling us...

"You can identify the originator of the spam by reading the headers.  If you need
help in reading the headers, visit the following URLs,

For specific instructions on how to view headers in different E-mail clients:
http://www.wurd.com/eng/ABCs/spamfight.htm
(gone)

For general information on reading E-mail headers:
http://members.tripod.com/~cyberstalked/header.htm
http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers/headers.html"
- later it was http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers.html

Plus, thanks to Yahoo Canada for this:

"The originating IP address should be located in the very last "Received" line of the full Internet headers and corresponds to the sender's Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Please see the following URL for more assistance:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/spam/spam-05.html

Once you have identified the IP address, you can conduct an IP lookup to determine which ISP provides this person with Internet access. One such lookup tool you may want to try is:

http://www.arin.net/whois/

You can then attempt to contact that ISP to report any abuse activities occurring within their service.

Thanks to Outblaze for writing an excellent witty response to the reporting of a Nigeria Scam! See this HERE

And also, thanks to NetZero for this:

"For detailed information on headers and spam-fighting tools we recommend the Spam-L FAQ (www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/?from=old-faq)". (now http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/)

And thanks to www2.Verizon.net for this:

"To better understand the problems with Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ("spam"), we have provided information about filtering Spam with your e-mail software, answers to several frequently asked questions and links to some useful online information about Spam:

http://www2.verizon.net/announcements/spam.asp

http://www2.verizon.net/contact/spam.asp

...The following web site may be helpful in determining the owner of the originating IP space:

http://www.arin.net/whois"

For WHOIS, also see www.whois.sc

And also thanks to www.arabia.com (gone) who said this:

In most instances, Arabia can detect and deactivate spammer accounts within 24 hours. There are technical methods, however, that violators use to circumvent those controls.

Consequently, a significant amount of spam reported to us is forged to appear that it originated or routed via our service. In cases like that, it's in your best interest to learn more about spam and how to take action against it.

The organizations and web sites listed in below contain information that can be very helpful in that endeavor:

- Spam.Abuse.net - "Fight Spam on the Internet!" information center
http://spam.abuse.net/
- CAUCE - Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
www.cauce.org
- About.com Spam Information - Learn the basics about spam
http://email.about.com/cs/spamgeneral
- Everything Email - Unsolicited E-mail (SPAM) Issues
http://everythingemail.net/email_unsolicited.html (hijacked)
- ZDNet Software Library Editors' Picks: Anti-Spam Tools
www.zdnet.com/downloads/roundups/spam/rnp0897.html
- gone
- SpamCop - Spam Reporting and Filtering Software
http://spamcop.net
- ScamBusters.org - Stop Spam!
www.scambusters.org/stopspam/index.html
- MacInTouch - MacInTouch Spam and Scam Resources
www.macintouch.com/spam.shtml
- Spambot Beware - Glossary of Spam Related Terms
www.turnstep.com/Spambot/glossary.html
- Rahul.net Spam Glossary
www.rahul.net/falk/glossary.html

And thanks to Road Runner www.rr.com who said this:

"Upon further examination of the email headers, you will see that the Road Runner canonical names have been forged, and is not a valid part of the email headers. If you wish to pursue the matter, you may want to contact the person responsible for the incident, or the Internet Service Provider through which the incident occurred.

Some good places to start:

SPAM COMPLAINTS -
http://spam.abuse.net/userhelp/howtocomplain.shtml

USENET COMPLAINTS - http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html

PROBE ATTEMPTS - http://samspade.org/t/refer.cgi?a=&f=8191#10

Please also be aware that commercially available software provides various options restricting access to the Internet from or to your computer and you may want to consider use of one of those programs".

And thanks to the University of Tennessee www.utk.edu who said this:

"The University of Tennessee Information Technology Policy is available at:

http://oit.utk.edu/itp/ (gone?)

Helpful links about spam:

http://spam.abuse.net/spam/
http://spam.abuse.net/spam/userhelp/

Some programs that might help stop spam for you:

http://spamcop.net -- an effective reporting agency
http://www.mailwasher.net -- a userside filter for Outlook
http://www.giantcompany.com -- a userside Postal Inspector"

Plus, thanks to T-Mobile who sent these helpful contacts:

For information about the spammer's tricks and fakes, how to interpret headers and how to send spam complaints we friendly recommend:

Tracing Spam - Who do I complain to? from the UXN spam combat site

http://combat.uxn.com/tracing.html

Interpreting Email Headers

www.valinet.com/~coreya/antispam/asheadi.html

StopSpam.org: Reading Email Headers

www.stopspam.org/email/headers.html

EmailAbuse.org: Identify the Sender

www.emailabuse.org/sender.asp

T-Online.de - T-Online International AG

Not so well done to Facebook, whose Facebook Spam was treated in a fobbing-off way when reported, under the pretence that it was sent by "Friends". A lie, and not the only lie. Since then Facebook has got worse, and so now we say Down with Facebook! It is like an evil disease upon the world.

Yahoo looked like having a problem as their abuse reporting ceased to be possible at abuse@yahoo.com . However, there is now a form-filling which can be used at http://help.yahoo.com/l/uk/yahoo/abuse/ (click on "Contact Us"). Also see report abuse at Yahoo

Sarah from GFI Software Ltd says..."Why Bayesian filtering is the most effective anti-spam technology: Achieving a 98%+ spam detection rate using a mathematical approach. This white paper describes how Bayesian filtering works and explains why it is the best way to combat spam". Visit www.gfi.com/whitepapers to find out more.

And as a footnote, a spam sender said: Thank you and save the trees.. Email is not as bad as postal junk mail and fax junk..

Special note: Anti-SPAM software is available from McAfee


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