Questions

• What is spam?
• Why is spam bad?
• I have an anti-virus program. Why am I still getting spam?
• How do I minimize/prevent spam?
• Where can I report spam?
• What does Arusha Node Marie do about spam?
• Should I hit remove on a spam email?
• Should I follow the links on spam?
• What not to do about spam?
• Is all of the junk really spam?
• Where can I advertise?
• Where can I find out more about spam?
• What about hoax messages?

How To Files

• How To minimize/prevent spam?
• How To copy the header of an e-mail message?
• How To use my e-mail program to control spam?

Questions and Answers

What is spam?  

Spam is unwanted e-mail sent to many people at once. It floods the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for doubtful products or get-rich-quick schemes. Spam generally comes from a source you're unfamiliar with and could contain words or images you may find offensive.

Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by stealing Internet mailing lists or searching internet websites for addresses. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender. Anyone with measured phone service read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

Why is spam bad?  

There are several reasons:

• The receiver pays so much more for it than the sender does.
• A lot of it is garbage. Spam messages advertise stuff that is usually worthless, deceptive, and partly or entirely fraudulent.
• Many spammers send most of their mail via innocent intermediate systems to avoid blocks that many systems have placed against mail coming directly from the spammers' systems. This fills the intermediate systems' networks and disks with unwanted spam messages, takes up their managers' time dealing with all the undeliverable spam messages, and subjects them to complaints from recipients who conclude that since the intermediate system delivered the mail, they must be in league with the spammers.
  Some spammers use ``hit and run'' spamming in which they get a trial dial-up account at an Internet provider for a few days, send tens of thousands of messages, then abandon the account (unless the provider notices what they're doing and cancels it first), leaving the unsuspecting provider to clean up the mess. Many spammers have done this tens or dozens of times, forcing the providers to waste staff time both on the cleanup and on monitoring their trial accounts for abuse.
• Spam is illegal in some countries, especially with pornography; mere possession of such material can be enough to put the recipient in jail.

I have an anti-virus program. Why am I still getting spam?  

An anti-virus program does just what its name implies: it protects you from viruses which come attached to e-mail. And it does that very well.

An anti-virus program doesn't have any way of protecting against spam, however. Spam is not a virus.

Where can I report spam?  

The sites listed below offer free services that make reporting spam quick and easy:

• http://spamcop.net/
• http://www.spamhaus.org
• http://www.cbl.abuseat.org

What does Arusha Node Marie do about SPAM?  

Arusha Node Marie does the following to black spam:

• Check every email to see if they are on certain block lists
• Check the legitimacy of the sending mail server
• Use spamassasin
  Spamassasin is a spam filter program that looks at the content and headers of the email. It passes every email through a rating system, which is used to figure out whether an email should be flagged and passed, or dropped. However, it is extremely difficult for us to filter all spam because some people send emails that have a lot of similarities to spam, so we error far on the side of caution.
  If you would like to filter more go to How To filter spam. (link)
  

Should I hit "remove" on a spam email?  

No, you should not. A lot of the spam that we get and that people write to us about comes with instructions on how to "remove yourself from our list". Yet, more often than not, the remove instructions don't work. Why is this?

This is because Spammers lie. Remove lists Don't Work. Clicking on a link to unsubscribe will simply verify that you have a valid e-mail address, so that you can then get lots of spam instead of a little.

Should I follow the links on spam?  

At times you may be tempted to follow the links on spam, but avoid doing this because the link could be code that is a worm.

What not to do about spam?  

When dealing with a spammer, don't:

• Email them or contact them;
• Threaten violence or vandalism;
• Mailbomb the site;
• Mailbomb the alleged spammer, who may be an innocent third party such as myself;
• Ping-storm or SYN-flood the site;
• Hack into the site;
• Try in any way to bring the site down illegally.
• And above all else, don't use spam to fight spam. don't follow up to spam postings.

Is all of that junk really spam?  

No, a large part of what you call spam is not spam, but comes from a computer infected by a worm. After infecting a person's pc, it takes all of the email addresses found on that computer, then randomly selects one email address and sends it to everyone else. It also tries permutations of those addresses.

Other junk that you may think is spam can actually turn out to be a virus. Clicking on what looks like a harmless e-mail message, could be a virus, and lead to hours of recovery effort.

Where can I advertise?  

You can advertise on anything you own - your own Web site, any mailing lists you run (as long as people sign up voluntarily - note that much spam amounts to mailing lists people are signed up to without being asked), any newsgroups that belong to you. You can't advertise on other people's mailing lists without their permission, on public newsgroups (by and large), or using other people's e-mail boxes.

Where can I find out more about spam?  

Here are a few good sites:

• CAUCE -- http://www.cauce.org -- (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email) is a grass-roots, all-volunteer organization that lobbies for legislative solutions to spam.
• The Spam Recycling Center - http://www.chooseyourmail.com/spamindex.cfm -- lets you recycle your spam.
• CNET's Stop Spam -- http://www.cnet.com/content/features/Howto/Spam -- site offers many useful tips and resources.
• http://www.pmail.com/spamwp.htm -- this is a white paper on the spam epidemic by David Harris

What about hoax messages?  

A common form of spam consists of hoax messages and warnings about non-existent "viruses." Unlike other types of spam, a hoax usually is forwarded by someone you know who thinks the message is legitimate. Generally, you have to scroll down through lists of earlier recipients before you get to the heart of the message, which originated with someone you don't know. Common themes in these hoax notices are:

• warnings about dire e-mail viruses;
• pleas from sick children seeking a record-setting number of get well cards;
• advisories about $250 department store cookie recipes;
• tips on getting money, goods or services from well-known companies simply by forwarding e-mail messages.