vision2020
Re: Junk mail: printed and otherwise
Kenton,
I have not received these spams, so I don't think it's through the
2020 list.
I have cited below the 6th Annual SPAM tutorial from tourbus.com.
It's very very useful. Above all, don't reply to SPAM directly; that
just confirms your address for them. (I found out the hard way.)
Good luck--
Laura
Here's what tourbus.com has to say:
********************************************************************
The Internet Tourbus - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238
Copyright 1995-2000, Crispen & Rankin - All rights reserved
And now, on with one of TOURBUS' yearly traditions: the completely
revised sixth "First Annual TOURBUS Thanksgiving Spam" post. :)
-----------------------
SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM ...
-----------------------
<snip>
Anyway, since today is "turkey day," I think it would be appropriate
to take a few moments to talk about the _REAL_ turkeys of the
Internet: the "spammers." On the Internet, the word "spam" has two
meanings:
1. A canned luncheon meat with the shelf life of gravel; and
2. Inappropriate email letters, oftentimes advertisements, that
are sent to hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet.
Sadly, there is no way for you to prevent the former. But there are a
few tips that will help you at least slow the flow of the latter.
---------------
Spam "Wounding"
---------------
How on earth do spammers get your email address in the first place?
Well, according to the Email Abuse FAQ, they get your address by
1. Running programs that collect email addresses out of Usenet
[network news] posting headers
2. Culling them from subscriber lists (such as AOL's Member
Profile list)
3. Using web-crawling programs that look for mailto: codes in
HTML documents
4. Ripping them out of online "white pages" directories
5. Buying a list [of email addresses] from someone who already
has one
6. Taking them from you without your knowledge when you visit
their web site.
7. Using finger on a host computer to find online users
addresses
8. Collecting member names from online "chat rooms."
Obviously, anything you can do to hide your email address from
spammers will greatly diminish the amount of new spam you will receive
in the future. One of the easiest ways for you to do this is to
"mung" your email address. While it sounds like a character from
Flash Gordon, "Mung" is actually an acronym that means "mash until no
good." You can find step-by-step instructions on how to mung your
email address at
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.html">
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.html </A>.
Last year, the folks at CNET wrote a wonderful guide on how to hide
your email address from spammers. I'll give you the address for
CNET's complete guide in a moment, but there are three sections of
CNET's guide I'd like to mention first.
"Hide your address: newsgroups" is a page that tells you how to hide
your email address in your Usenet postings. CNET recommends munging
your address, using a free email account from Hotmail or Rocketmail,
or even using a fake email address in your posts.
If truth be told, I don't do any of these. BUT, when I visit a Web
site that asks me to key in my email address, I almost always key in a
fake address. I used to key in something like foo@bar.com, but a few
alert TOURBUS riders recently informed me that there are three better
addresses I could use:
anyword@example.com
anyword@example.org
anyword@example.net
You can replace the word "anyword" with any word at all. The folks
at the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) recently reserved
these second level domain names for experimentation and testing.
There are two benefits to this:
1. Web programmers and technical writers can use example domain
addresses in their work without the fear of pointing their
audience to a real, working address; and
2. People like you and me can use the example domain addresses
when nosy Web sites ask us to key in our email addresses or
Web page addresses.
Ain't technology grand? :)
To read CNET's "Hide your address: newsgroups" page, point your Web
browser to
<A HREF="http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01b.html">
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01b.html </A>.
Another way spammers farm email addresses is from the subscription
lists of popular email distributions lists. You don't have to worry
about that happening on TOURBUS -- Bob and I set up TOURBUS in such
a way that NO ONE can access our subscription list (I don't even think
that *WE* can access it), and we both hate spam so much we would never
think of violating your trust by sharing your email address with
anyone else -- but not all email lists are as honorable. To find out
how to hide your email address on L-Soft LISTSERV, Listproc, and
Majordomo lists, visit CNET's "Hide your address: mailing lists" page
at
<A HREF="http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01d.html">
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01d.html </A>.
Finally, to find out how to hide your email address from online white
pages sites like Bigfoot and Four11, visit CNET's "Hide your address:
directories" page at
<A HREF="http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01c.html">
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01c.html </A>.
That should slow the flow of new spam into your email inbox. Now,
let's try to get your current flow of spam under control.
--------------
Filtering Spam
--------------
The BEST way to deal with spam is to have your email program detect it
and send it to your trash can before you even see it. This is called
"filtering," and most good email programs will automatically do this
for you. CNET has a list of four wonderful filters you can add to
your email program at
<A HREF="http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01.html">
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/ss01.html </A>
Unfortunately, CNET doesn't really tell you HOW to add these filters
to your 1email program. That's where junk-mail.com comes in. If you
point your Web browser to
<A HREF="http://junk-mail.com/">
http://junk-mail.com/ </A>
you'll find instructions on how to add filters to Eudora, Netscape
Mail, Outlook Express, Pegasus Mail, and ProcMail.
Can you add these filters to AOL mail? Unfortunately, probably not.
Until very recently (AOL 6), AOL's mail program has been rather weak,
and it only allowed you to filter out specific email addresses. I
think AOL 6's email program solves this problem, but I'm not sure.
--------------
What NOT to Do
--------------
The worst thing you can do with a spam is respond to it. If you
respond, one of two things will happen:
1. The message will bounce because the spammer used a fake
return address; or
2. The spammer will know that not only do you read your email,
you also take the time to respond. This information is GOLD
to a spammer. Spammers will actually use your "remove me"
message as a way to harvest your email address and then they
will sell your address to other spammers.
I can't emphasize this enough: DON'T REPLY TO A SPAM! You open
yourself to a world of hurt if you do. The same is true with those
"removal sites" that promise to remove your email address from the
spammers' lists. Think about it -- in order for you to be removed
from the lists, the removal site has to SEND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO A
BUNCH OF SPAMMERS! Do you REALLY want to do this?
--------------
The Spam Bible
--------------
There is a point where you will stop wanting to just delete spam and
start wanting to combat the spammers themselves. If ever get to that
point, I strongly recommend that you read the alt.spam FAQ at
<A HREF="http://digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html">
http://digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html </A>.
The alt.spam FAQ is a highly technical, spam-killing bible, telling
you how to decipher where a spam came from and how to find and
complain to the appropriate network administrators.
[By the way, I think you can find a monospace version of the FAQ at
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.answers/net-abuse-faq/spam-faq ]
---------------------
Finally, the CNET URL
---------------------
Oh, and before I forget, you can find CNET's "Can Anyone Stop Spam?"
guide on the Web at
<A HREF="http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/index.html">
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Stop/index.html </A>.
Words cannot describe how highly I recommend this guide. It should be
a must-read for anyone even thinking about venturing into the world of
email.
Another good, albeit technical, resource is the Email Abuse FAQ at
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/emailfaq.html">
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/emailfaq.html </A>.
That list of the 8 ways spammers collect email addresses I used a
little while ago came from the Email Abuse FAQ.
That's it for today! Have a safe and happy Turkey Day, and we'll talk
again next week. :)
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KB> 2. Today, I have received four unsolicited "get rich quick" spam
KB> messages -- including one from Pakistan and one from Yugoslavia? Has
KB> some address-retrieving software scanned the 2020 subscriber list on the
KB> web and condemned me to receive endless notices of chain letters?
KB> Help! I've replied to the message demanding to be removed from the
KB> mailing list, but two replies came back as undeliverable. What other
KB> recourse do we have to fend off this electronic onslaught?
KB> thanks,
KB> Kenton
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