How to combat SPAM
There's no Silver Bullet that will stop Spammers, BUT there are things we can do to reduce the impact.
We'll start with the bottom line.
1. DON'T respond to "opt-out", just grimace and delete the e-mail.
2. Don't bother reading messages from unknown sources, just immediately delete them. (That's also a good defense against viruses and hackers.)
3. Have two e-mail accounts. One for trusty friends and family, the other for everyone and everything else.
The third part is more for your home/personal use.
How e-mail works. You type up your message and press SEND. Our Postoffice takes your message and, via the Internet, sends it to the Postoffice of the recipient. Their Postoffice checks that it is a valid account. If it is, your message is delivered. If it is not, their Postoffice will send an "undeliverable" message back to you (using the "sent from" portion of your e-mail).
What do Spammers do? They send to known, valid e-mail addresses. They also use a program that generates more e-mail addresses with just about all possible combinations of letters and numbers. But before any of the junk mail is sent, the Spammers change the "sent from" address to something bogus. That way, when e-mail is undeliverable, their own mailboxes are not swamped with those hundreds of thousands of undeliverable messages. Instead, the undeliverable messages just vanish into thin air - *poof*
How do you spot a bogus "sent from" address? Could be easy, could be hard. Some are flat out and obviously invalid. Some look valid, but are just made up. Some look correct, but there's a subtle single character change, or an extra space added. For example, I've seen this as a bogus address:
Your_Friend@ aol.com.
That added space before "aol.com" makes the "sent from" address invalid, bogus.
What do Spammer's value? The most valuable thing to a Spammer is knowing a valid e-mail address, especially an active address. A list of valid and active e-mail addresses is worth a lot of money to mass marketing people.
How do they discover valid, active addresses? They buy and sell address lists amongst themselves, or get them from hackers who stole it. Another technique is a little more dastardly. As a courtesy, they will put a one-liner in their message to give you a way to "opt-out" from getting more e-mail from them. Trouble is, this "opt-out" response tells them that yours is a valid and active e-mail address. They may stop spamming you, but they may also sell your e-mail address to other mass marketers.
How can I stop Spam? Sorry, but you can't stop Spam. No one can, not even the Lone Ranger. The European community is actively and aggressively addressing the issue. Our Congress is addressing the issue too, but the SPAM lobby is very effective in convincing Congress not to do anything serious. But don't expect any resolution anytime soon, on either front. There are a lot of things that may never be resolved, such as how to enforce an anti-spam law across international boundaries.
I hope this helps you in our fight against e-mail Spam.
We'll start with the bottom line.
1. DON'T respond to "opt-out", just grimace and delete the e-mail.
2. Don't bother reading messages from unknown sources, just immediately delete them. (That's also a good defense against viruses and hackers.)
3. Have two e-mail accounts. One for trusty friends and family, the other for everyone and everything else.
The third part is more for your home/personal use.
How e-mail works. You type up your message and press SEND. Our Postoffice takes your message and, via the Internet, sends it to the Postoffice of the recipient. Their Postoffice checks that it is a valid account. If it is, your message is delivered. If it is not, their Postoffice will send an "undeliverable" message back to you (using the "sent from" portion of your e-mail).
What do Spammers do? They send to known, valid e-mail addresses. They also use a program that generates more e-mail addresses with just about all possible combinations of letters and numbers. But before any of the junk mail is sent, the Spammers change the "sent from" address to something bogus. That way, when e-mail is undeliverable, their own mailboxes are not swamped with those hundreds of thousands of undeliverable messages. Instead, the undeliverable messages just vanish into thin air - *poof*
How do you spot a bogus "sent from" address? Could be easy, could be hard. Some are flat out and obviously invalid. Some look valid, but are just made up. Some look correct, but there's a subtle single character change, or an extra space added. For example, I've seen this as a bogus address:
Your_Friend@ aol.com.
That added space before "aol.com" makes the "sent from" address invalid, bogus.
What do Spammer's value? The most valuable thing to a Spammer is knowing a valid e-mail address, especially an active address. A list of valid and active e-mail addresses is worth a lot of money to mass marketing people.
How do they discover valid, active addresses? They buy and sell address lists amongst themselves, or get them from hackers who stole it. Another technique is a little more dastardly. As a courtesy, they will put a one-liner in their message to give you a way to "opt-out" from getting more e-mail from them. Trouble is, this "opt-out" response tells them that yours is a valid and active e-mail address. They may stop spamming you, but they may also sell your e-mail address to other mass marketers.
How can I stop Spam? Sorry, but you can't stop Spam. No one can, not even the Lone Ranger. The European community is actively and aggressively addressing the issue. Our Congress is addressing the issue too, but the SPAM lobby is very effective in convincing Congress not to do anything serious. But don't expect any resolution anytime soon, on either front. There are a lot of things that may never be resolved, such as how to enforce an anti-spam law across international boundaries.
I hope this helps you in our fight against e-mail Spam.