Some suggestions on dealing with spam

[Brett Dikeman]

At 4:21 PM -0700 3/1/02, Zsolt wrote:
>I get so much spam a day it's not even funny. Some I would love to
>block if possible. A didn't really look into it, but if anyone knows
>how to do it that would be great. I run Netscape not Outlook.

Well, here's some suggestions for what they are worth.  This is not
the place to get into a deep technical discussion; if you'd like to
comment on my suggestions, feel free to discuss it with me in
private, and I might revise my suggestions at a later date.


There are many things which can be done:

-http://spamcop.net/ provides several different services, including
reporting spam(free; they do all the analysis for you, but you have
to provide the FULL email including all headers) and filtering
services(not free; $3/mo.)  They offer about a zillion ways to do
this filtering for you, outlined here:
http://mail.spamcop.net/setup.php

-encourage your ISP to use better checks on incoming email, or a
real-time blackhole list(such as Orbz, www.orbz.org, among others.)
There are several different blacklists offered by different groups,
and they vary in implementation, philosophy, and how strict they are.
Some are based on actual evidence of spam(ie, machine B gets spam
from A, A becomes blacklisted when the service gets reports from
machine B and other systems) and many actually verify the system is
an open-relay before listing it(so it has a very low false rate)

-use an ISP that doesn't resell your email address to spammers.
Generally, these are the smaller ISPs, and you'll get better service
from them to boot.  Cloud9, my provider, charges me $18/mo for email,
web space, shell account access, and unlimited dialup(I never use the
dialup.)  Reliability has been excellent.  They're a small ISP, which
means you don't go through voicemail hell trying to reach
someone(save on the weekends, when there's one guy working the phones
and you have to wait a few minutes :-), and usually, when I send a
message to their support staff, I get a snappy answer from someone
who is generally at least as knowledgeable as I am(I also found that
technicians at my old DSL provider, speakeasy, were very well
trained; I loved dealing with speakeasy, save the install period,
which Verizon/Covad kept screwing up.)

-limit the places you give out your email address(Ie, don't give your
email address to people who will give your email address away); if a
service requires it, then use a "throwaway" account such as a free
webmail account, not your real email address.

-report spam to the network company that owns the IP range the
message came from.  This takes a good understanding of email and
internet technology; the "from" address is almost never the real
source of the email address and you shouldn't just send an email to
"abuse@" with the domain name from the From header.  There are guides
on how to do tracking properly.  One good place is the FAQ for the
spam-L list: http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/tracking.html


Brett
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"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/