h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: How to Fight Spam - A921098
Author: dave - U195408

Hi. I think this topic could be useful in the edited guide. But I'm not sure. Also, I'd like help improving this too.

Hi dave

This could indeed be very useful, and you've made an excellent start.

It's worth mentioning somewhere, I think, that while you can ask an ISP to block a spammer there is of course no guarantee that they will, and even if they do it may take some time, and of course the spammer can always pop back up as someone else.

So this is only one tool in the anti-spam toolbox. There's a lot more.

Below you'll find a lot of links on various aspects - I suggest you research these. (deadspam isn't up at the moment)

Best of luck with this entry.

Bels



MAILSHELL. Create an unlimited number of unique email addresses and
Mailshell at http://www.mailshell.com will forward your mail to you,
protecting your true identity from spammers

Spambar: free spam filter http://www.spambar.com

Anti-Spam: excellent site at http://combat.uxn.com/

Mail Washer. Available from http://www.mailwasher.net . Written by a young
man in New Zealand

SPAM COMBAT. A very useful site, if you're hunting down and
dealing with spammers, is at http://combat.uxn.com . You'll find a
couple of Whois applications, an NS lookup, trace route, PING, and a
dozen or so other utilities all on one page for easy access.

SPAMEATER: SpamEater Standard 2.2. High Mountain Software's SpamEater Pro
(free; http://www.hms.com, click Downloads) is a good spam-blocking
program. The program takes a few minutes to download using a 56Kbps
(kilobits per second) modem and installs quickly. SpamEater's rules wizard
is easy to use, letting you set up as many rules as you want to delete or
divert e-mail based on specific characteristics. You can configure
SpamEater, for example, to reject e-mail messages where your actual e-mail
address doesn't appear in the message header (a spammer trick for sending
out a blitzkrieg of spam to an entire domain) or to reject messages that
exceed a specified size.

SPAMMOTEL: http://www.spammotel.com is this even better than MailShell?

A FREE SPAM nuker. It is fully configurable, you can write your own scripts:
http://www.mailgate.com/products/spamweas/sw_feat.asp

Spamex Disposable Email Address to protect your
identity and stop unsolicited email. The service costs $9.95 per year and
does not require any download or installation. It''s at
http://www.spamex.com .

Free: http://www.spamgourmet.com for disposable email addresses whenever you
need them without even visiting the site. Addresses are deleted with a
count-down procedure and can be "refilled" and trusted senders designated.
The service, even with advanced features, is free.

Posting to newsgroups? You can use the free service at http://deadspam.com -
you will get an e-mail address, and mails to this address will be bounced to
the sender with a configurable message.


URL DISCOMBOBULATOR can be downloaded at
http://www.winmag.com/columns/powertools/ptlookup.htm. This application
will reveal the IP address of any computer on the Internet by entering the
domain name such as Microsoft.com. It can also show several ways each URL
might be represented, a useful tool if you're attempting to track spam.

Anti-spam: Report all such mails to the company's service providers via the
handy SpamCop service at .

thanks! that's a lot of good stuff there. I can definitely look into those, but you seem to already know a lot - would you like to co-author?

* watches with *

And I always thought there was no other defense than shutting down the in-box of my primary AOL-name (where, by some trick or other, all spam appears even if I use another login account) or restricting it to accept only mail from pre-defined sources.

Well, Dave, I thought you might like to go off and research those links and write it all up under Sir Bossel's watchful eye.

either way is fine with me. Thanks again for all the references!

Go for it!

See, Bossel, this is what the old WW is all about.

pah! Nothing that PR couldn't do quite as well, or even better

Ha! I thought the Bosselfish would rise to that bait.

This thread is not in PR. The author had options. You wouldn't be against choice, would you?

He had a choice, and he freely chose not to use PR just yet. Why? I don't know, but maybe it's to do with the fact that PR is supposed to be for entries that are considered finished, not for entries that have made a good start but need developing further.

Do you really want to see more unfinished entries in PR? How would that help Bossel's Scouting Enterprises?

exactly. I chose this entry because I knew that was I was writing was from my limited experience, and I knew there'd be lots to add. And there is. A daunting amount almost. Also, my entry seems to be almost dated at this point, since it appears that there are automatic programs that will do the work that I've described automatically. What do you think? Maybe this one doesn't make it into the edited guide after all.

dave, don't be discouraged. We're just having our little private disputes, and this thread happens to be the stage for today's 'quarrel' and Bels is kindly hinting at my proposal to nuke the Writing Workshop (F47999?thread=180625)

As to the entry... perhaps this story will help you which my boss told us about one of his university professors: when he came across something new in his field of science, he would say something like 'Ummm, I don't know much about that. I think I'm going to hold lectures about it, so I'll understand the subject.'

I'd say he's got a point there!


Bossel

I think there's an important entry to be written on reducing spam. There are two prongs to the attack: making life as difficult as possible for spammers, which is what the entry deals with so far - and minimising the amount of spam an individual receives or is bothered by.

You might also like to find something out about the actual cost of spam, particularly to businesses. Surveys have been carried out, amd there must be some reports on this.

Then there is the aspect of spam being used, not just for ethical or unethical advertising, but for scams.

Then there's the effect of spam on children and other vulnerable people.

These are just some ideas to consider. I can't get directly involved at the moment since I am engaged in subbing one large university project while writing one of my own. But I'll be happy to review the entry as it progresses in case there's anything I can usefully suggest.

You could try posting to <./>Askh2g2</.> to see if anyone would like to help with this. Or you could search the guide, see who's written anything intelligent on this or related topics, and ask them if they'd be interested, or if they'd at least review this entry.

Or of course you could just give up and go do something else! Which would be a pity.

What's your own experience with spam?

Hello there Dave!
I have to say I really like the entry as it stands. Very well done
You might want to put in a little bit about some of the bigger e-mail providers/ISPs adding "Junk" boxes for their users, to sort out the huge amount of spam they recieve (I get around 50 pieces a day!) and also that Yahoo Mail has a very good reporting system for spam, where you can either block the address or send a message to Yahoo, and they will investigate the user (this is covered in the entry really, but you might want to mention a single provider).
Bels asked how much spam costs companies a year. I can't find specifics for that, but around 1 in every 6 e-mails sent in the UK is spam.
Oberon2001

Do you mean sent in the UK or received in the UK? There's quite a difference! My experience is that most of the spam I get does not look as though it was sent in the UK.

typed that up wrong. It's 1 in 6 that come into inbox's in the UK...
Oberon2001

okay, sounds good. I'll keep plugging away...Thanks for all the great suggestions.

Dave

I've read somewhere that spammers go to great lengths at injecting their stuff: should you ever operate a WLAN (Wireless LAN) in your garden, make sure that the mail host thingy (there was a full name for it, but don't ask me) is *disabled*. There are spammers driving through living areas in the hope of logging in to such a mail host, and once they found one, they send their junk and a mailing list so that it is *your* WLAN account that appears as the origin

I've updated the entry to include the websites mentioned above. I tried to organize/group them according to main function. Let me know if you think this accurate. Do you think it's ready for PR?

Dave

I have nothing more to add or to criticise (and this should tell you something ), plus I'm preparing some huge emails to abuse@so-and-so-dot-something. Off to PeerReview!



Bossel