SPECIAL
REPORT: HOW TO STOP JUNK E-MAIL
- In
the first of a regular series of columns, Eric Spellmann gives the
lowdown on beating the spammers ...
Every
day I receive around 80 pieces of e-mail. Do you think I read every
one of those? Of course not. I delete over half of them without even
opening them. Am I being rude? No, because the messages I am deleting
are “junk e-mail”.
The purest definition of junk e-mail is “any unsolicited sales
message sent to your address”. Most of these messages fall into
three categories:
• Make Money Fast!
• Invitations to Visit Adult Sites
• Offers to Get YOU into the Junk E-mail Business
Most people on the internet don’t use the phrase “junk e-mail”
to describe this garbage. We call it “spam.” This maligned
word can be used as a noun and a verb. For instance: A piece of junk
e-mail is called “a spam”. The person who sent it is called
a “spammer”. If you received it, you have been “spammed”.
I know that sounds funny, but trust me, you’ll hear it described
that way.
Spamming is definitely a NO-NO on the Net. In fact, most internet
Service Providers specifically outline this offence in their “terms
and conditions”. Spam is a VERY serious issue with ISPs, but
not for the reasons you assume.
Let’s say I run a small ISP, EricNet, and I have 500 customers.
If one of those customers decides to spam a million or so addresses
on the Net, what will happen? Well, think about it. Depending on the
quality of the e-mail address list used, about 20% (200,000) of the
messages will “bounce” back to the sender as being bad addresses.
Around 50% percent of the recipients will be so livid, they will write
angry replies demanding to be removed from the spammer’s
list. In fact, only about 500 or so people will respond “with
interest” in the offer. You may think “500” is not
a very good return on one million messages. But remember: How much
does it cost a spammer to send a thousand e-mail messages? A million
e-mail messages? That’s right - nothing.
My point is this: over 700,000 e-mail replies (most of them “angry”)
will be dropped on EricNet within the course of a few hours. What
do you think will happen to internet Access at EricNet during that
time? Can you say: “NO Access?” That’s right. One bad
spammer could make EricNet the enemy of every hacker on the Net. Going
out of business is a very real possibility.
When an ISP discovers that one of its customers is a spammer, they
immediately cancel the user’s account. In fact, the perpetrator
is “blacklisted” from ever using EricNet again.
Like I said, ISPs take spamming VERY seriously.
Where did they get my address?
Perhaps the most-asked spam question I receive is: “How did I
get on Satan’s list in the first place?” The answer is more
complex than most people realize. Let me start at the beginning:
Pretend you just discovered your uncle is on the internet. However,
you don’t know his e-mail address. Is there a way for you to
find it? You bet. Get a pencil and paper. You’ll want to write
this down. Are you ready? ... Pick up the phone and ask him!
You will not find a comprehensive list of EVERYONE’s e-mail address
on the internet. Nor would you want there to be one. If such a list
existed, every idiot would harvest it and you would be buried in junk.
So, once again: “how does your address get on those lists?”
Remember that joke Aunt Edna e-mailed to you last week? Get ready
for this. She sold you out, albeit unintentionally!
Most people send jokes to more than one person at a time. They put
everyone’s e-mail address in the “TO:” field. Usually,
when someone receives the joke, they simply forward it to their friends,
and so forth, and so on. After a while, these jokes have so many addresses
on them, you have to scroll quite a bit just to see the funny story.
Many spammers have software that can extract e-mail addresses out
of messages. Even if you don’t forward jokes to others, if anyone
has sent a joke TO YOU, your address becomes public knowledge. My
advice: When forwarding jokes, put all of your friends’ addresses
in the BCC (blind carbon copy) field. They will all still receive
the joke, but their addresses will not show up on the messages. Not
only are you protecting their privacy, you are preventing spammers
from using their addresses.
Another technique used by spammers is called the “Dictionary
Harvest.” A spammer will program his computer to send e-mail
to every-word-in-the-dictionary@ somedomain.com. In other words, if
your user name is a dictionary word, you could get spam automatically.
Common user names are also thrown into the mix.
Trust me, everyone’s address that begins with cooldude or superman
will receive more than their share of junk e-mail.
At this point, I need to make a very important clarification. Attention,
jealous spouses: If your husband or wife receives a piece of “adult”
junk e-mail, it DOESN’T mean they have been frequenting those
types of web sites. EVERYONE will receive adult e-mail at some time
or another. It just goes with the territory.
Reduce the Spam
Notice I said “reduce.” Does that mean you can’t completely
stop all junk e-mail? Well, you could take draconian measures and
refuse to use e-mail, but then that’s throwing the baby out with
the bath water. So what’s a spam victim to do?
First, let me tell you what not to do. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER
(wow, uppercase and repetition: he must really mean it …) reply
to spam. Oh, I know, your first thought when receiving a piece of
junk e-mail is to angrily reply back asking, nay, demanding,
to be removed from their list!
However, suppress the urge. Spammers know that 80-90 percent of their
list will be angered by what they get. They know that a substantial
flood of replies will ensue within a day or two. Most spammers are
hoping you will reply (angrily or not).
Many of the addresses used by spammers are untested. If you reply
to a spam, the spammer knows two things about you:
• Your e-mail address is a VALID address AND
• You open junk e-mail
Guess what? Your address now gets added to the “golden list,”
and, you guessed it, you receive more spam than ever! If you look
at some of the junk you receive, you’ll notice most of them “end”
the same. At the bottom of most junk e-mail messages, you’ll
usually see a disclaimer that says something like:
“You are receiving this e-mail because you have requested information
or have opted-in to receive special offers from an online purchase
you have made in the last 6 months.” Don’t believe it. It’s
a lie. Even if they give “removal” instructions, do not
reply to them. You are simply asking for trouble.
So what are the solutions?
One easy answer is to get multiple e-mail accounts. I have about eight
different e-mail accounts. Why, you ask? Some of them allow me to
track where e-mail is coming from and flag them according to
priority. For instance, one e-mail address is public (anyone), one
is semi-private (friends and family), and yet another is top-secret
(my wife only).
I also have addresses that are used strictly for spam collection.
Here’s how I do it. I go to one of the free web-based e-mail
account sites, like:
• http://hotmail.com
• http://mail.yahoo.com
and sign up for a free account. I never intend to use the account,
though. Have you ever been to a website where they ask for your e-mail
address in order to give you the information you wanted? You KNOW
that by giving your address, you will receive a lot of junk e-mail,
but if you really need access, then you have no choice. In those cases,
I give one of my “spam” addresses. I get access, and the
junk e-mail goes to one of those accounts.
Every month or so, I log onto those accounts and delete all the garbage.
In other words, these accounts keep the junk out of my legitimate
e-mail accounts.
You may have noticed that your e-mail program has a “block sender”
option. This neat feature will NOT protect you against spam. No spammer
uses the same address twice when sending his garbage. Blocking that
address will not reduce the junk you get.
To learn more about spam and creative ways to “stem the junk
tide,” check out three of my favourite websites on the topic:
• http://spamcop.net/
• http://www.junkbusters.com/
• http://www.junkemail.org/
For a more proactive approach, though, many free and shareware programs
exist to help filter junk e-mail out of your Inbox before you even
see it. But before I jump right into that review, let me spell out
some very important terms you will hear when choosing the right solution:
black-lists, white-lists, and heuristic scanning.
Black-Lists
In the beginning, it was easy to stop most junk e-mail (and annoying
friends, for that matter) by simply adding their e-mail addresses
to a “banned” list in your e-mail program. If any messages
come from a banned address, the message is immediately erased or moved
to another folder without you having to lift a finger. In most cases,
you never even knew they sent you a message. Back in the old days
of the internet, we called such processes “bozo filters”.
Spammers (junk e-mailers) are much smarter these days, though. Most
times, the “from” address attached to a piece of junk e-mail
is bogus. It doesn’t exist. Spammers do that on purpose to avoid
being buried in an avalanche of hate-filled replies from angry recipients.
Sometimes, they use legitimate addresses of other people when
sending their messages. I know the horror of that experience personally
...
White-Lists
As you can probably guess, white-lists are the opposite of black-lists.
They include the addresses of people you want to receive e-mail
from. However, that’s just it. You will only receive e-mail
from those people. Anyone else will be filtered out. While this method
guarantees a spam-free inbox, its draconian approach will most likely
result in the deletion of legitimate messages.
Most programs using white-lists automatically import your address
book to speed up the process. And, of course, you can hand-enter as
many addresses as you like. Some programs even allow automated “challenge
questions”.
In other words, if the system receives a message from an unlisted
individual, instead of blindly deleting it, a message is automatically
sent back asking for a “verification of existence”. The
original sender need only respond to that reply for you to get a notice
asking if you want to include them in your white-list. Since most
spam addresses are bogus or never checked by humans, you are virtually
assured that any replies you receive are from non-spammers.
Heuristic Scanning
Many spam programs ignore the e-mail address altogether and concentrate,
instead, on the content of the message. Searching for specific keywords,
these filters can “recognize” spam and delete it more accurately
without having to create white- or black-lists.
The only downside (you knew that was coming, right?) lies in the intelligence
of the software. For instance, if I set up a heuristic scanner to
delete any e-mail message containing the word, “breast,”
I would probably stop a lot of spam. However, if a family member wrote
me an important message about her mammogram results, I might never
get it. See what I mean?
So, what’s the solution?
I recommend software that combines white-lists with heuristic scanning.
By creating a white-list with all of your friends entered, they can
send you messages containing ANY words that might fail the heuristic
test. And, the heuristic scan will catch most of the other culprits.
Make sure you choose a product that does NOT automatically delete
suspected spam. The risk of a “false positive” is just too
high.
Software to check out
The one piece of spam-stopping software that has received the most
accolades is Cloudmark’s Spamnet (http://www.cloudmark.com).
Using a peer-to-peer setup (similar to Kazaa), this software is constantly
updating its “database” of spam terms based on votes from
its customer base. (ie. If enough of us receive the same junk e-mail
and report it as such to the Cloudmark system, we have protected all
of the other customers).
By the way, Cloudmark calls its customers SpamFighters. Instead of
a one-time fee, Cloudmark charges $4.99 a month, well worth it if
you find yourself spending hours chugging through the garbage in your
inbox.
Some other products to check out include: Qurb (http://www.qurb.com),
Goodbye Spam (http://www.goodbyespam.com)
and SpamCatcher (http://www.mailshell.com).
Remember, though, that the cheapest and most low-tech solution is
to change your e-mail address once every two years or so ...
- This special report was compiled from a number of newspaper columns written by Eric Spellmann. If you would like to receive the full transcripts of his columns as well as the television segments he produces for CBS, sign up for his FREE e-mail newsletter by sending a blank message to NL@ERICSPELLMANN.COM with SUBSCRIBE in the subject. Or, you can sign up at his website: http://www.EricSpellmann.com.
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