The Spam Report
Spam™,
the tasty sort of meat food by
Hormel, is not the kind of Spam I am talking
about here.
Unsolicited
Commercial Email or Unsolicited Bulk Email
hungry bots can go here for the
client
list!
my lengthy gripe on how i
began spam fighting!
[skip
this and go right to 'what to do about spam' or read the right hand
column]
I
used to do my internet friendly part and accept the 400-500 weekly bounce
backs and just trash them-which is the spammer's argument as to why it's okay
to spam in the first place: "Just delete them!" - but you know what?
i got tired of making sure i
wasn't missing important email - that i pay to receive. so then I decided to do a mass delete of
emails that weren't being sent to me - specifically - in other words, instead
of my getting all email to cybersquaremall.com by default, i have to
now
refuse it all by default, delete anything incoming by default, and make
EXCEPTIONS to the rule in order to get my email. is that not sad? i
think it's very sad - but it's logical. if more email is bogus than not with
that large a gap in %wanted-in versus %unwanted-in, and most of the email
addresses i was receiving the unwanteds at weren't any of my primary email addresses
anyway - it seemed like the smart thing to do.
BUT.
I have no idea how many
legitimate email addresses I have floating around out there. i know I have a
few. So just in case i do and i haven't allowed that email address to be okay
in passing through the gates of my email server, I want my legitimate acquaintances
to know that so, hence, my bounce back. If an old friend has an old email
address of mine...say pookie@cybersquaremall.com
but I forgot to add that to my *allow through* list, then my friend may
receive:
<pookie@cybersquaremall.com>:
host mail.cybersquaremall.com[66.152.97.35] said: 550 <pookie@cybersquaremall.com>: Recipient address rejected: User
unknown in virtual alias table (in reply to RCPT TO command)
...as opposed to nothing,
which is worse. Then your friend thinks you hate them or are ignoring them,
which is worse. Or you fail to get a
client, which is so much worse. This is why it's important for domain owners
to have a contact page and one with more than just your email address.
Unfortunately, not bit-bucketing [auto-deletion as they
come into the server's realm] them will create more undue traffic on
the internet due to the rogue that is a spammer. But you see, that is not my
problem. I paid for my domain name, I
paid for my server space, I spend MY time downloading this email, I spend MY
time configuring these filters and if someone wants to make issue with the
fact this is contributing to the problem I say go suck an egg. I'm already put
out by spammers and I'm not going to be further polite by deleting the
bouncers. And to boot, maybe the people returning the bouncers to ME will
start to get that if I didn't send the email then I don't deserve THEIR spam
either. So you see, it's really a double edged sword for the domain owner. I
figure I'm getting it both ways. First when people email you back asking you
to remove them from your list [and of course there is no
list, and also the originating IP is NOT from cybersquaremall.com but they
wouldn't know that...their only hubris is being ignorant and that's not a
crime] and secondly, when the isp who bounces a rogue message back to
me telling me some address isn't there when it did not come from me OR my
domain in the first place!
I have a client who emailed
me once upon a time telling me he may have a virus, and a couple more emails he
sends and then a distressed phone call.
He can't figure where all these
messages are coming from and who can blame him? I'm usually pretty good at
shielding my clients from unwanted spam...more so than myself since I have
many personal domains and filters for every single domain and rules and obfuscating
and encoding and blah blah blah for myself...? Nah.
But for my clients, YES.
But see....this client, and a few others from the old days when spam wasn't a
problem...their email addresses were out there, as were their domains. This
was back when everyone got happy - while during the fashionable days on AOL -
when the guy would tell us, "You've got mail!" Those days have
passed maybe but some clients' email addresses were already out there,
circulating with their domain all over it. This was one such client. We got
him fixed up right away of course. And now he's happy! But see...I'm not even
going to be able, in good conscience, charge him for this but this is what is
meant when we say "Spammers cost US money!" Someone lost on that
deal.
Those were my working hours and it
was work and it was no more my fault
than it was his fault but someone had to do something and I lost on that deal
and that sucks much spam!
SPAM COSTS SOMEBODY SOMETHING ALWAYS ALONG the way - even if it's
just your ISP adding them to a blacklist - a resource has been utilized
because an asshole wanted to get away with being non-ethical.
what to do about spam!
- hey, i do this and i suggest
this to my friends, family and clients.
1. I encourage all people
reading this page right now to understand that just because something pops in
your email with a from@whoevers_domain_this_is it
does not mean that it's actually FROM that email address!
hey,
if i was spamming you knowing myself to be a lowly callous creature of sorts i
certainly wouldn't have my *REAL* email address in the FROM field.
2. I
encourage email spam filters in the machine you use to read your email.
Third-party
or the ones that may be built into your email client that follows certain
*rules* and deletes or filters accordingly.
3. NEVER
EVER EVER NEVER EVER click on the bu!!$&8# link that says "Remove
Me!" or "Unsubscribe by clicking here" or "Opt out
here". Cause when ya do that, you've just
told Mr. Spammy that your email address is sacred enough for you to care
enough to OPT OUT and also that your email address did not die a cyber
death...ie, that it's still *good.*
4. Get paranoid.
Use a fake email address in the newsgroups or wherever.
Google
will archive your postings so if your email address was on a post you made
last year...there ya go: spambot city. [You can also use the x-no-archive
feature that tells google to not archive you but then some wise guy comes
along and replies to your post complete with your FROM address and ... there
ya go, again.]
5. Stay
paranoid. When you sign up for announcements from a website, or submit an
email form or have to enter your email address for one reason or another,
check out their AUP or Privacy Policy.
[Make
sure your email is *safe* in their hands and they are not going to add you to
any lists. An example: cybersquaremall.com's
is right here.]
6. Take
advantage of the free email services so you can save your REAL email
address for your friends and family.
[ Free email services like
yahoo.com and
hotmail.com.
]
e ducate your
friends!
AKA 'Friendly
Fire'
1. Explain to
your friends that when they mass email you with your email address in the 'CC'
field, that they open you up to spammers stealing your address. Teach them the
value of 'BCC.'
2. You know
those friends you barely know who always send to 'spam' you the latest way on
how to make a billion dollars because Bill Gates will see to it only IF you
forward 'this email' to 100 people? Send those well-intentioned ignorants to
Snopes
ASAP!
3. For those people you barely know but they feel so comfortable with
you along with the other 851 people on their CC list, who find it
desirous to tell you how Jesus died for your sins and unless you're
ashamed of Jesus you, too, will forward this to 500 people? I do like
the next website.
even
more aggressive measures!
link to this page!
|
"How
could linking to this page be an aggressive measure in fighting spam?"
Besides boosting my
self-esteem and making me happy to see that people are becoming
educated on spam, do you expect more? If so, here it is - broken down
Barney style:
1.
People will see your button, click on it and read this stuff. The
spammer may begin to see the error of his ways and change. The
victim, on the other hand, may learn how to better identify spam
and learn the what not's as well as the WHATs to do in a spammy
situation. I
don't hold much stock for the spammer changing his ways, but the
victim wants to quit getting it and I want to help.
2.
This is the fun part. The button will be linked to this page. THIS
page is linked to THIS page which is a dynamically on-the-fly created webpage with fresh new emails
every time! It also links to
this page which, to a spambot, looks like a live bunch of email addresses just ripe for the harvest.
The beauty is that
spambots are kinda dumb and follows links whenever it finds one to
follow. So if you're website or whatever is unfortunate enough to be
followed from a spambot, it'll come here, and then it'll go here and
get bunches of email addresses that
are.not.real.
Besides clogging up
their email client sending out emails to phony addresses, the links on
the other pages lead to more links that regenerate more p.h.o.n.y.
emails and pages. It's a vicious cycle for the bot. We love this
script and it's called Webpoison.
|
Snag a button
and link it to this page or just text link to
http://cybersquaremall.com/spam
in your newsgroup postings, websites or anywhere a potential spammer may set a
bot loose.
FINALLY - Take the The
Pledge
"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."
-
- kathi ©
- updated or revised sept 24, 2007
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