Fighting Spam
By James Williams
How prevalent is
Spam?
According to Scott
McAdams, OMA Public
Affairs and
Communications
Department (www.oma.org):
“Studies show
unsolicited or
“junk” e-mail, known
as spam, accounts
for roughly half of
all e-mail messages
received. Although
once regarded as
little more than a
nuisance, the
prevalence of spam
has increased to the
point where many
users have begun to
express a general
lack of confidence
in the effectiveness
of e-mail
transmissions, and
increased concern
over the spread of
computer viruses via
unsolicited
messages.”
In 2003, President
Bush signed the
“Can Spam” bill, in
December of 2003
which is the first
national standards
around bulk
unsolicited
commercial e-mail.
The bill, approved
by the Senate by a
vote of 97 to 0,
prohibits senders of
unsolicited
commercial e-mail
from using false
return addresses to
disguise their
identity (spoofing)
and the use of
dictionaries to
generate such
mailers. In
addition, it
prohibits the use of
misleading subject
lines and requires
that emails include
and opt-out
mechanism. The
legislation also
prohibits senders
from harvesting
addresses off Web
sites. Violations
constitute a
misdemeanor crime
subject to up to one
year in jail.
One major point that
needs to be
discussed about
this: spam is
now coming from
other countries in
ever-greater
numbers. These
emails are harder to
fight, because they
come from outside
our country’s laws
and regulations.
Because the Internet
opens borders and
thinks globally,
these laws are fine
and good, but do not
stop the problem.
So what do you do
about this?
Her are the top 5
Rules to do to
protect from spam.
Number 1:
Do what you can to
avoid having your
email address out on
the net.
There are products
called “spam
spiders” that search
the Internet for
email addresses to
send email to.
If you are
interested, do a
search on “spam
spider” and you will
be amazed at what
you get back.
Interestingly, there
is a site,
WebPoison.org, which
is an open source
project geared to
fight Internet "spambots"
and "spam spiders",
by giving them bogus
HTML web pages,
which contain bogus
email addresses
A
couple suggestions
for you: a)
use form emails,
which can hide
addresses or also b)
use addresses like
sales@company.com
instead of your full
address to help
battle the problem.
c)
There are also
programs that encode
your email, like
jsGuard,
which encodes your
email address on web
pages so that while
spam spiders find it
difficult or
impossible to read
your email address.
Number 2:
Get spam blocking
software.
There are many
programs out there
for this. (go
to
www.cloudmark.com
or
www.mailwasher.net
for example).
You may also buy a
professional
version.
Whatever you do, get
the software. It
will save you time.
The software is not
foolproof, but they
really do help.
You usually have to
do some manual set
up to block certain
types of email.
Number 3: Use
the multiple email
address approach.
There are a lot of
free email addresses
to be had. If
you must subscribe
to newsletters, then
have a “back-up”
email address. It
would be like giving
your sell phone
number to your best
friends and the
business number to
everyone else.
Number 4:
Attachments from
people you don’t
know are BAD, BAD,
BAD.
A
common problem with
spam is that they
have attachments and
attachments can have
viruses.
Corporations often
have filters that
don’t let such
things pass to you.
Personal email is
far more “open
country” for spamers.
General rule of
thumb: if you
do not know who is
sending you
something, DO NOT
OPEN THE ATTACHMENT.
Secondly, look for
services that offer
filtering. Firewall
vendors offer this
type of service as
well.
Number 5:
Email services now
have “bulk-mail”
baskets. If
what you use
currently does not
support this, think
about moving to a
new vender.
The concept is
simple. If you
know someone, they
can send you emails.
If you don’t know
them, put them in
the bulk email pile
and then “choose” to
allow them into your
circle. Spam
Blocking software
has this concept as
well, but having
extra layers seems
critical these days,
so it is worth
looking into.
