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Information about spam
Mail Box Dispatcher 2.20
Spam Combat
You should configure them on your end to get the best results
Click here if you need to set up Spam filter rules for your email client
If you have a specific complaint about unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam), you can forward spam directly to the Commission at UCE@FTC.GOV
*When sending emails to people (multiple recipients) use the .BCC for the addresses (send to).
By doing that you can prevent people from seeing all of the addresses you are sending to which can help fight SPAM.
EXAMPLE:
.CC: DO NOT PUT ANY ADDRESSES ON THIS LINE WHEN SENDING/FORWARDING EMAILS!
.BCC: ALL EMAIL ADDRESSES SHOULD GO ON THIS LINE - MORE PRIVATE
You're friends and family will appreciate it!
* Don't sign up for email lists and freebie things and use your email adress.
We have an ongoing battle with SPAMMERS and some of the problem is caused by our members signing up for junk mail using their GCT email address.
While we understand that it is your choice to do that, our members need to understand that by doing that it is an invitation to have your email added to "lists".
Once they have your email address they can sell it or give it away to other SPAMMERS that can send you mail as well.
This causes problems for our other customers (and yourself) by having the SPAMMERS attack our servers and forces our filtering to work overtime.
The result of that is very slow email on the server or sometimes worse, the email server will go down.
We suggest that you try to educate yourself on how SPAMMERS trick people and the dirty low down things they do.
Via website submissions, through public records, through purchased lists (generally tied to website submissions), and through viruses.
Many times when you go to websites, you are asked for your email address.
It could be signing up for a contest, registering a product online for warranty or service purposes, or just filling out a survey questionnaire.
Do not give out your email address for things unless you have to! Many sites say in their privacy policy that they have the right to share your information with other companies. Check out the sites privacy policy BEFORE giving them any information.
Many viruses email themselves out to everybody in your address book and/or recipients who have sent you mail that is sitting in your Inbox.
Some email programs automatically place people you reply to in your address book.
You'll notice that a lot of spam contains something like "to unsubscribe reply to this message with REMOVE in the subject line", which you do NOT want to do. In most cases, this address has been set up to collect information to see which spam recipients are actually valid email addresses.
If this spam-collection address is in your address book, and you become infected with a virus, you may send out a message to all users in your address book--including the spammer.
Now this spammer has a list of all the addresses in your address book.
I'm sure your friends would thank you for it if it could ever be traced back to you.
Because of this, it's a good idea to disable this feature in your mail software (consult your documentation or the in-program Help documentation for instructions on how to do this).
Spam - Unsolicited "junk" e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products
or services. Sexually explicit unsolicited e-mail is called "porn spam."
Also refers to inappropriate promotional or commercial postings to discussion groups
or bulletin boards.
A list of "bad" email addresses (spam) or inappropriate Web sites.
Some filtering and blocking tools can be set up to prevent access to Web sites on the
blacklist or to prevent email from addresses on the blacklist from entering your inbox.
We have SPAM filtering which does block some IP addresses from sending mail to our server.
*Some of you have had friends or clients send you emails only to have them returned to the original sender.
They usually recieve a "bounce" message explaining what happened, sometimes in the form of some strange error codes or worse, nothing you can read.
Some of the messages that are returned have a message "your server spammed me" and a link to click on to find out why.
If the people get a message like that they should click on the link to remove thier IP address from the SPAM filter.
This does not mean that the person who is sending you mail is really a spammer, what it means that the company THEY use to send mail through (thier ISP) allows so much SPAM to be sent from thier servers that the IP addresses of those servers are on the BLACKLIST.
How to resolve this?
People need to contact the companies responsible for this SPAM being sent.
You can find lists of the largest abusers on many websites.
You can go to: CAUCE to find out more about this.
**Ok, I get SPAM but I do not give out my email to anyone but friends and family.
How are the SPAMMERS getting my email address?
Check out this website: http://www.private.org.il/harvest.html
The site lists many ways your email address is being "found".
Some ways they list are:
From posts to UseNet with your email address, From mailing lists, From a web browser, From IRC and chat rooms, By guessing & cleaning.
More on this at this site Center for Democracy & Technology
And from that same site listed above, this study they did may help to explain some of the email issues and slow downs that OUR network experiences from time to time.
Have a look:
6. Mail Server Attacks
Finally, at one point in the project our mail system began receiving spam messages to addresses
that had never been used for any purpose, had been submitted to no one and, in
many cases, did not even exist. By reviewing the server logs, we determined that our system
had been the victim of a "brute force attack" in which a spammer had attempted to send e-mails to every possible combination of letters that could form an e-mail address.
Figure 9 - Example addresses used in a brute-force attack
a@egovtoolkit.org
b@egovtoolkit.org
c@egovtoolkit.org
d@egovtoolkit.org
...
z@egovtoolkit.org
aa@egovtoolkit.org
ab@egovtoolkit.org
ac@egovtoolkit.org
ad@egovtoolkit.org
...
zz@egovtoolkit.org
aaa@egovtoolkit.org
aab@egovtoolkit.org
aac@egovtoolkit.org
aad@egovtoolkit.org
...
zzz@egovtoolkit.org
aaaa@egovtoolkit.org
aaab@egovtoolkit.org
aaac@egovtoolkit.org
etc....
The strain of so many e-mails severely impaired our mail server, and our team decided to install
a block that would prevent any more messages from the responsible network (in this case, h8h.com)
from entering our server.
Our system received 8,506 "brute force" e-mails before the block was installed.
Few, if any, of these e-mails actually made their way to existing e-mail addresses.
In order to maintain the integrity of our conclusions, we did not
include these 8,506 messages in the data above.
The above info is from: Center for Democracy & Technology
This article is from LangaList.com
(We have replaced a potentially offensive word and replaced it with the word "stuff")
The *Only* Sure Way To Stop Spam
With the holiday season here, the level of spam is going through the roof.
This reader has correctly identified the one and only way to stop spam for good--- and it's not a filter, not legislation, and not anything exotic at all:
Hi Fred! I hear more and more news about stopping spam; Filters, programs, and legislation.
I read about Yahoo's idea to use message authentication to stop unwanted email.
I am concerned that the laws are completely un-enforceable, either due to loopholes or simply
the capabilities of the technology.
I am worried that additional security / authentication will increase cost and decrease performance.
Too much security and authentication will stifle the medium.
IMHO, there is one way guaranteed to stop spam.
We need to get the public to STOP BUYING THE STUFF IT ADVERTISES!
Spam is so cheap to send, one paying customer covers the advertiser's cost for millions of
emails. If we could just get everyone to ignore it, and not buy anything from the spammers,
it really would go away. As soon as it is not profitable, it will cease to exist.
We need a public service campaign that starts out "Let's face it, 100% of the stuff offered by
spam-mail is utter STUFF.
There is no miracle weight loss formula. No herbal remedy is going to make this part longer or
that part fuller..." Advocate that people make a simple personal rule "If it was advertised
in an [unasked-for] email, don't buy it." Period. Ever.
If it really sounds like a product you can't live without or it's a great deal,
search for it on Yahoo [or Google].
If the maker is actually trying to sell the product,
they'll have a web presence [and you can buy it there, rather than in reply to the spam mail].
Just my 2 cents. Take care! ---Matt Lavigne
Matt is right. Spam exists because it works, simple as that. Some percentage of people *do*
respond to spam offers, and that's more than enough to keep the spammers in business.
When you get spammail, just delete it. Don't reply to be "removed" from their list.
(It doesn't work.)
Don't send back a fake "bounce" or "bad address" message.
(It only helps spammers make their mailings more cost efficient.)
In fact don't do anything: Just delete the email, preferably unread.
That--- and only that--- ensures that the spammer has just wasted a little money on you.
If enough people do this--- if enough people force spammers to waste a little money---
then the economics of spam will change, and it will no longer be lucrative.
When spammers no longer can make easy money by spamming, they'll stop and move on to the next scam.
Good spam filters can help you sort the spam for easy deletion. Good legislation can help apply
pressure to the spammers where they live. But the ultimate solution to spam is to make it unprofitable.
Do your part to help drive the spammers out of business. Take the pledge: Never, ever, buy *anything* you see spamvertised!
End of the LangaList article.
We will be adding to this often, more explanations and ways to fight SPAM will be added soon.