[thelist] Fed Up!

Madhu Menon webguru at vsnl.net
Sun Oct 7 16:44:27 CDT 2001


At 01:32 AM 10/8/2001, you wrote:
>My questions:   (1) Is there any way to remove myself from any of these
>lists rather than one at a time?   and (2) At first I just let sleeping dogs
>lie ... after several days of this I'm just royally IRKED ... is there a way
>to sign THIS person up for some spam?

Tch,tch. They don't call it spam for nothing. It usually means that they're 
not interested in the "honourable" way of doing things like subscribing you 
only when you "opt-in".

RULE no. 1 of managing spam:
Asking them to remove you or following their "unsubscribe" instructions is 
the *worst* thing you can do. This merely confirms that your email address 
is "live" and you will then be bombarded with even more spam. Instead, 
contact the ISP whose mail server it has come through and ask them to take 
some action (the abuse at example.com address is usually the one to use if you 
can't find it on their site). NEVER resond directly to spam.

RULE no. 2
Expect that the "From:" email address will be bogus or worse, belong to 
some innocent user. It's trivial to forge "From:" headers. By retaliating, 
you might be punishing Joe User who possibly had nothing to do with it. For 
example, I get spam from ZDNet India that comes from an email address that 
bounces mail.

RULE no. 3
You can never totally rid yourself of spam unless you never sign up for an 
email account. Even if you don't tell *anyone* your email address, spammers 
might run a automated mailing attack where they try millions of 
combinations of email addresses at yourhost.com (that's why Hotmail and 
Yahoo accounts get so much spam. There's a good chance that *any* username 
exists on those services)

(I'm sure there are more rules, but I consider these the most important :)


>(PS. Don't bother writing nasty mails to me or the list telling me this is
>"wrong" ... you try having your mailbox overflow with garbage every singe
>hour of the day ... I'm angry.)   If you'd rather not send this information
>publically, contact me privately.

Try it? I've had much more than that. I'm sure many of the people on this 
too have had to handle lots of spam. What do you think happens when you put 
a "webmaster at example.com" link at the bottom of thousands of pages on a 
popular site? All the bloody spambots crawl and pick it up. :(

What kind of spam are you receiving? Is it "regular spam" or simply things 
like subscriptions to newsletters that don't have a "double opt-in" 
process? What's regular spam? You recognise it by subjects like these:

1) credit card processing for your site!
2) You can be a millionaire NOW!
3) Add inches to your penis
4) Get cheap home loans
5) This scheme really works!!!!!!!!!!
6) University diplomas
7) Find Information About Anyone
8) Grow Younger 20 Years
9) Hot XXX pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yeah, they usually have 
that many exclamation marks ;)
10) LOSE WEIGHT WHILE YOU SLEEP
(and several variants of the above)

And lastly, the surest way of telling "regular" spam is if there's a footer 
or header vehemently denying that the mail is not spam (e.g., "THIS MAIL IS 
NOT SPAM!!!!"). And they sometimes also point to the "US Unsolicited 
Electronic Mail Act of 2000, which states that mail cannot be considered 
spam if it contains contact/removal information, which this mail does." and 
points you usually to this URL: http://spamlaws.com/federal/hr3113a.html

(The Act was never enacted, so it's all bull)


I'm sure most people on thelist get crap like this regularly. Not much you 
can do there but complain to the ISP(s) involved. If it looks like a real 
content newsletter from a credible site, it may be worth trying to 
unsubscribe from their mailing list.

What can you do about filtering spam? Here are some ideas:

1) If you're using a Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. account, they usually have a 
"spam filter" feature. Activate this from your account preferences screen.

2) If you've got a regular POP account, see if you can configure your mail 
client to flag messages that are not directly addressed to you. Outlook 
2000 can do this, I'm sure. You can then delete stuff that's spam (Caveat: 
messages from mailing lists like this one will also get caught in the 
filter). If you want more help on using filters with your email client to 
stop spam, check out this article: 
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,47324,00.asp

3) Consider using a program like MailWasher that lets you filter the mail 
before downloading it, saving bandwidth. Mailwasher lets you check the 
headers of a message, delete them directly from the server if it's spam, 
and even bounce messages. You can download it at: 
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/nickbolton/download/mailwasher.exe

4) Keep a spare account Yahoo/Hotmail/[any web mail] for giving out to 
people you don't know well, subscribing to newsletters, or registering with 
sites. Despite their privacy policies, some sites *do* rent out your 
personal information. Give your "secure" address only to a few trusted 
friends and colleagues. This also lets you deal with important mail first 
before reading all the newsletters and e-zines in your other account.

5) Avoid putting your email address on your web site (if any) in a form 
that spambots can harvest. Create a contact form and use a server-side 
script to handle the emailing. If you *have* to put your email address on a 
site, put it as "you at example dot com" (people can read this but bots 
can't) or hyperlink to "mailto:you%40example.com" (spambots won't find it 
but your email client will handle it fine).

6) Check out the Google directory on spam at: 
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Abuse/Spam/ for tons of 
resources on the topic.

Hope that helps.

Madhu
PS: this is hilarious: http://ftp.pcworld.com/pub/screencams/compaq.jpg

<<<   *   >>>
Madhu Menon
User Experience Consultant
e-mail: webguru at vsnl.net





More information about the thelist mailing list