Spam

SPAM!
(Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail)

What is Spam?
How Can I Prevent Spam?
How Can I Fight Spam?
I Get a Lot of Spam. What now?
Spam Links.

What is Spam?
Spam is unsolicited commercial e-mail (U.C.E.). Most spam is sent by bulk e-mailers to thousands, if not millions, of addresses. Unlike traditional mail, it costs practically nothing for spammers to send millions of messages.

How Can I Prevent Spam?

Experts agree that anyone who uses e-mail will eventually get spammed. The most important ways to avoid spam is to
1) NEVER ASK TO BE REMOVED FROM A SPAMMER'S MAILING LIST, and
2) NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM A SPAMMER!

Roger Ebert's Boulder Pledge:
http://www.panix.com/~tbetz/boulder.shtml

"Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community."

See the following info for the reasons why and other ways to stem the "scourge of spam."

Six Simple Things You Can Do to Keep Spam at Bay

Some advice from a MSN HotMail Customer Service Representative
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM RECEIVING SPAM:
Avoiding Spam: How to cut down your chances of being spammed. If you avoid the practices below, you can reduce your chances of receiving spam. List brokers and sometimes individual spammers use a variety of tools and techniques to grab e-mail addresses wherever they may appear online.

Avoid the following practices:
· Posting to an on-line service or any Internet bulletin board.
· Posting in a Usenet newsgroup or mailing list.
· Spending time in chat rooms or an online service that displays your address.
· Including yourself in an unprotected online service's member directory.
· Remove yourself from any unprotected member directory you may be published on.
· Open a second e-mail account, one that you can use as an address for newsgroup and listserve publications or for posting on bulletin boards.
· Use the Block Sender option to block the delivery of e-mail from specific senders or domains.
· Use the Inbox Protector feature to filter spam to your Bulk Mail folder.
· Never reply to unsolicited e-mail with a remove request since this only validates to a spammer that your address is current.

How Can I Fight Spam?
The best way to arm yourself in the fight against the scourge of spam is to learn more about e-mail and spammers. The spam links below lead to a wealth of information on the subject. Since many members want more concrete advice on ways to deal with spam, here are a few approaches used by our members:

Huey:
"I just ignore spam. I immediately delete all of it when received. I never waste time reading this junk."

Dewey:
"I delete spam from Show-Me Net's server. I use Popcorn to get a list of messages in my mailbox and delete all the junk without even downloading it. Then, I use my regular e-mail program to download my "good" messages."

Louie:
"I actively fight spam. I learned how to find the offending server from the full headers and complain to them. When a spam contains an 800 number, I call it and complain. When a spam directs me to a web site, I complain to the host."

I Get a Lot of Spam. What now?
It wastes a lot of time to get and delete tons of spam using Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, and other regular e-mail programs. When you check your mail, these programs download all of your messages from Show-Me Net's server to your computer. A better way is to delete spam from the server first. E-mail programs, like Popcorn, Pegasus, POPmonitor (Macintosh only), or Eremove (Linux only) can produce a list showing the sender, subject, size, and date of all your messages on the server. This makes it possible to delete spam and other "problem" messages without ever moving them to your machine. Then, you can use your favorite e-mail program to download and read your mail.

What About Anti-Spam Programs?
Many commercial anti-spam programs are available, but most do not work as well as the Postini junk mail filtering we provide as a free service to our members. Commercial anti-spam programs that claim to "bounce" mail back to the spammer do not work. They actually increase the amount of unwanted email and are a fraud on Show-Me Net's Postmaster. They do not actually bounce mail. They create a new massage that claims to be from Show-Me Net's Postmaster. The spam message is inserted into this new message which is sent to the spammer. Since the spammer's address is almost always fake, the new message can't be delivered and actually bounces back to Show-Me Net's postmaster. To compound the problem, each message often bounces back two more times. This is a real burden on staff who get way too much mail already. Accounts of members using these programs will be disabled until the "bounce" feature is removed.

Spam Links.

Spam Cop
The Net Abuse FAQ
Elsop's Anti-Spam Page
Where to Complain About Frauds & Scams on the Internet
CAUCE: Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail
Six Simple Things You Can Do to Keep Spam at Bay
Anti-Spam Script

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This page was last modified September 10, 2004

http://www.showme.net/spam.htm