Top 5 Techniques to Protect Yourself From Spam

Top 5 Techniques to Protect Yourself From Spam

It is virtually impossible to avoid having your email address end up on a spammer's mailing list. You can, however, take steps to minimize the amount of spam that you receive. Here are to top five:

Address Munging

Never, ever post your permanent email address publicly online. Posting it on a website, on USENET, or in a guest book, for example, virtually guarantees that it will end up on a spammer's emailing list.
 
If you absolutely have to supply an address, or regularly participate in online forums but do not want further communication, camouflage your address in some way. You can, for example, disguise your address by writing it in such a way that humans can read it, but the spammers automated programs cannot.

Example: instead of JaneDoe@ISP.com, add a blank space before and after the "@" sign, or use characters e.g. JaneDoe at ISP dot com.

This is called  "address munging". While address munging does not allow for a regular, clickable email link, anyone who really wants to contact you will figure it out the proper address. 

If you have a website, provide a feedback form instead of giving your email address.

Sign up for an Alternative Email Addresses

Do not use your primary email address when placing an online order, getting a free download, or want to sign up for a newsletter or free service Get a secondary email address that you can use in these instances. You can open a free email account for this purpose. Email providers such as GMail and yahoo offer this free email service.

Reserve this email address specifically for this online activity - do not offer it to people from whom you want to receive email, as this will likely be lost in the deluge of junk mail.

Also, be sure to log into this account on a regular basis to delete the junk mail and avoid having the account closed. If you get over-spammed, just close this account and open a new one.

Choose an email address that cannot be easily guessed at. One method used by spammers to get email address is to generate a list of likely email addresses based on a combination of first names, last names and commonly used words. They may, for example build an emailing list that has variations of an address like JoelDoe1@hotmail.com, JoelDoe2@hotmail.com etc.
You can foil this spammer's tactic by using a relatively long email address, for example 8 or more characters long. You should also avoid choosing email addresses that include either of your names. Use your initials instead, in combination with numbers, e.g. jtd1509@yahoo.com.

Beware the Phisher Spam

Phishing is a tactic used by spammers to scam you into giving up vital personal and financial information. Its sole purpose is identity theft.

Never divulge any personal or financial information that is requested in an email. Your bank or credit card company would never ask you to confirm or update your personal information via an email or a link in an email. Any such emails should be reported to the bank or credit card company. Never, ever click on any links in this type of spam.

Get a spam filter or spam blocker

Stop the spam dead in its tracks before it ever makes it into your inbox. Well, most of it at least. Though they are not 100% effective, anti-spam software will keep most of it out. Even if you only use the internet a spam filter will help protect you from spam.

The Costs of Spam

The Costs of Spam

The volume of spam that is sent out every minute of the day has reached pandemic proportions. The simple reason for this is because the cost to a spammer ranges from zero to negligible. In fact, anyone with a list of email addresses and Internet access can spam thousands, even millions of people with a single click of the mouse. The cost of spam, however, now runs in the millions.

Bandwidth

Spam takes up valuable Internet bandwidth that would otherwise be used for legitimate business and personal use. Bandwidth refers to rate at which data is transmitted; it is the amount of data that can be transmitted within a fixed amount of time. The lower the bandwidth, the slower the transmission.

When spam uses up valuable bandwidth, and clogs up the system, it causes costly delays in the transmission of important, legitimate information. It forces the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to increase bandwidth just to handle the increased volume. This costs money, and this cost is passed on to the consumer.

Viruses, Worms and Malware

It is becoming an increasingly common menace. Spammers will attach viruses to the email they send out for purely criminal or malicious purposes. Some viruses, for example, are programmed to self-install and give the spammer access to all the vital information stored on your computer. This information is often be used for identity theft purposes.

Other viruses simply do great harm to computers the world over. A Consuner Reports  study estimates that the cost of repairs and replacement parts for damage done to computer systems by viruses was over 8 billion over the past two years. This does ot take into account the billions spent on anti-spam and anti-virus software.

Productivity

Spam is not only annoying, it also takes up valuable time just to go through it and figure out sort out the spam from the valid mail. For businesses that receives hundreds of emails a day, the cost in time and productivity really adds up.
The "cost of spam calculator" that is available at cmsconnect.com estimates  the that spam costs almost $1000 per employee each year, with over 50 hours of lost productivity for each one.

Lost Messages and Data

As we try to battle the spammers by installing spam filters and blockers, these programs often weed out legitimate businesss correspondence. Lost correspondence from a client or supplier can easily cost businesses money, clients and goodwill

Identity Theft

The phenomenon of phishing has become more prevalent as spammers think up new ways to make a buck at your expense. Phishing involves the use of email that is designed to look like a legitimate company has sent it. It is sent out to millions of people in the hope of scamming them into revealing personal information that the scammer can use for identity theft. The cost of Phishing and identity theft to their victims now also runs in the billions.

The cost of spam is a financial drain on the economy. We pay a high price for the spammer to scam his victims. The spammer pays nothing.

Spam -What is Your Protection Under the Law?

Spam -What is Your Protection Under the Law?

Spam has become an ever-increasing problem in recent years, costing legitimate businesses a great deal in both time and money.

In response to the growing threat from spam, new legislation was enacted in 2003. it was called: Controlling the Assault of Non Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM act). This act created some requirements for all companies who are sending bulk commercial email, as well as those companies whose products are offered for sale in the spam emails. It also instituted penalties for violators, as well as giving the client or consumer the right and the means to request that the e mailers cease the spam efforts.

CAN-SPAM was enacted in January, 2004. The act covers any email which have as its purpose advertising or promotional efforts for any service or product, including those whose contents reside solely on a web site.

The legislation also covers "transactional or relationship messages," meaning those emails which help a web site to deal with any transaction, even those which are agreed on, or make updates to any customer whether new or exisiting. None of these may contain false or spoofed routing information.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the United States agency for consumer protection, was granted the authority to enforce the act and the DOJ, or Department of Justice is additionally charged with the enforcement of the CAN SPAM act. It also provides that Internet Service Providers who are hurt by the spam may in fact sue the violators of the legislation to recoup losses to their own business.

Other Major Provisions of the Law

-It bans any attempt to falsify the information in the header or subject line.

These must correctly identify what the message is about, and accurately display routing information as well as  "To" and "from" information. The email must accurately indicate the identity of the sender and recipient. It must accurately portray the domain from which the email originates as well as the senders real email address.

- It bans misleading subject lines

The subject line must not mislead the recipient to open the email under false pretenses. It should clearly indicate the actual subject matter of the email.

- Emails sent in this fashion must offer the recipient a legitimate means to get out of receiving the commercial email in the future. Any such requests to opt-out must be honored by the spamming company, and the email address deleted from its sending list. The commercial emailer will have 10 days to after the request to cease sending messages to that address

- Commercial bulk email should easily be identified as an advertisement or solicitation. It must also include the sender's actual physical postal address

- The recipient must be fore-warned of any sexually explicit information the email may contain. This warning must be displayed in the email's subject line.

Each and every violation of this law or the aspects of the law subjects the sender to strict fines that can go as high as $10,000 per incident and, for certain violations, the commercial emailer will face possible jail time.

Another legal initiative aimed at fighting spam is the "Digital PhishNet" (DPN), which was established in 2004. It is a collaborative effort between the Internet industry and criminal law enforcement. Its purpose is to identify and to prosecute spammers who break the law through phishing. Online auction sites, financial institutions, ISPs and other groups within the industry are all involved in this imitative.  Important data and information is forwarded in real time to law enforcement.

How to Report Spam Abuse

How to Report Spam Abuse

Spam is as prolific as the leaves on the trees and because there are so many kinds of it, it is a challenge to find the right site or organization to report spam to.
Each type of spam will violate the law in one way or another and each can be prosecuted if it can be proven.

Saving and sending the entire email header is an important step in reporting spam. The header of every email you receive will contain information on the full chain of computers through which the email passed in order to get to you. Generally, most email will pass through at least four computers: The spammer's computer, the spammer's ISP, your ISP and finally your computer. This is the most reliable way for an anti-spam service to track down the spammer's ISP because the spammer will camouflage the "from" address.

As the email passes through each computer, information is added to the header indicating who the mail came from, as well as where they are sending it. While this header information will seem complicated, you just need to make note of the originating ISP, which will be easy to recognize. For example, if you receive your mail through AOL and you note "yahoo" in the string of information, then you will know to report the spam to yahoo.

To read the information in the email header, just right click on the email, choose properties and then either "options" or "header" depending on your email program. Then cut and paste the header path in its entirety, into the body of the email. Finally, forward the spam email first, to the spammer's ISP, and then next to spam reporting agencies

You should also forward the spam to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You can do this at the website: uce@ftc.gov. While the FTC will not take action on individual incidents, they will add the spam to a database reffered to as UCE (unsolicited commercial email)

A common spam scam you may come across is called a "419 Scam", or the Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud. These spam emails generally relates a tale of woe - a death in the family and a huge inheritance that the sender needs your (financial) help to claim. As improbable as it sounds, many people have fallen for this scam and millions of dollars have been defrauded from them. Fax a copy of this spam along with the header information to the United States Secret Service.

Here is a list of the agencies you may report spam to, along with the type of email they can handle or will deal with.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/ - This site offers you information about the law enforcement actions that have been taken against deceptive mailers and companies and those who do not honor opt-out requests from email recipients..

www.spamabuse.org
This is a third party reporting agency.

www.spamcop.net
Another third party agency which will report spam on your behalf to the relevant anti-spam agency.

For stock fraud, email the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at enforcement@sec.gov . They are prosecuting however they are only able to deal with fraud in email that has to do with stocks and bonds.

How to Choose Anti-spam Filter Software

How to Choose Anti-spam Filter Software

Nowadays, spam is more than just an irritating flood unwanted email. It is also a means by which spammers can transmit viruses, spyware and adware to your computer. An anti-spam filter is essential to minimizing this potential risk.  It will also stem the flow of spam into your inbox.


What is an anti-spam filter?

An anti-spam filter is a program designed to detect and block unsolicited bulk email. It works by scanning any incoming email for words, phrases, html code and other spammer tactics to determine whether an email is spam or not. It does this based on probability formulas that calculate the likelihood that an email that has certain words is spam.

It will also create black lists and white lists. The blacklist will store email from unknown ISP and email addresses or ISP addresses; the whitelist will hold email that is sent from pre-approved sources. The filter software will also keep these lists up to date. Whenever the filter detects that an incoming email is spam, its address is added to the blacklist. Whenever the sender or recipient confirms an email as trusted and legitimate, it will be added to the white list.  Most of the "sporm" (spam pornography) will be filtered out as well as any email that it detects has adult content.

What Should You Look for in Anti-spam Filter Software?

Here are other important features you should take into consideration:


- Make sure the anti-spam filter software is compatible with your particular email service. Do not take it for granted that it will work with what you have. Click Here

- It is important that the software program is easy for you to use and navigate. Anti-spam software is worthless if you can't figure out how to use it or if it has features you do not understand.

- The features and tools the software offers should enable you to customize the program to suit your own needs. It should be flexible in letting you set your own rules regarding which email to permit into your inbox and what you want to filter out or block.

- Ideally, it should enable you to set up whitelist, which will indicate particular email and ISP addresses that should always be delivered to the inbox. This will ensure that legitimate email from trusted sources will never be filtered out or accidentally deleted.

- The software should install with ease, with zero or minimal errors encountered during set up. Some anti-spam software requires registration, additional downloads or other steps to be taken before it can be used.

- The software you choose should be stable in its release and workings. One way to check this is to look at the release package and view what the programmers or company states is the last stable release. It is probably not in your interests to buy software that is still in the beta phase, particularly if you are not familiar with the program.

Spam is irritating at best, and maliciously destructive at worst. Buying the right anti-spam software will go a long way toward protecting you from the spammers of the world.

How Spammers Get Your Email Address

How Spammers Get Your Email Address

Each minute of each day, there are literally thousands upon thousands of spam email messages flooding in boxes the world over. Some of that email even goes out from what appears to be your very own email address! Where on earth do spammers get your email address? There are various ways - some are legitimate, and most are not.
Typically, spammers will "harvest" email addresses from legitimate web sites, such as USENET groups, chat rooms, message boards, AOL profile pages and special interest group postings. These are sites you have visited and requested more information from, or corporate sites where you may have placed an order.

The spammers collect these addresses using automated programs called spam bots. Spam bots are designed to harvest the email addresses from these web sites. They scan every page on the site, collecting any text containing the symbol "@" they find. The email addresses they collect are compiled into a database, loaded into a bulk-emailing program and out goes the spam. Often, these harvested email addresses are also sold to other spammers ; once you email address makes it to a spammer's mailing list, it will make it onto their fellow spammer's lists.

Some websites require you to register before you can place an order or access certain parts of the site. Not all these websites will be as protective of your email address as you may wish. Newsgroups are particularly notorious for exposing their users' email addresses to the spam gatherers. Most newsgroups do not take a great deal of care to hide the email of their users, and each and every email member email address is exposed and up for grabs by spammers. Some of the websites that ask you to register may also sell to spammers.

Another method commonly used by the spammers is to target a domain. They simply guess or make up every possible variation of email address based on the domain name, for example @yourDomain.com . They create a mailing list of these addresses and then spam them. Corporate emails are especially vulnerable, as their emails have a distinct format such as @BusinessName.com.

While most of the spam will bounce, it really does not bother the spammers because they can and do send out millions of this type of junk mail a day. A small proportion of the emails will actually be legitimate and will receive the spam - that is good enough for the spammer. This method of gathering email addresses is called a brute force spam attack.

One way to defend against this is to make it more difficult for the spider to harvest your email. When you place your email address on a web site, remove the @ symbol and replace it with the word "at." This makes it far more difficult for the spam harvester to gather your address, because it cannot be gathered mechanically; it can only by read by a human who is actually reading the site. Alternatively, you should display your email address as an image rather than as text.

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