Detox - Spam

Introduction

This article aims to make you more aware of what Spam is, how you may end up receiving it and how to reduce the amount of Spam you receive.

What is Spam?

Spam is unsolicited commercial email. The sending of Spam is an actual business that many individuals undertake in the hope of making lots of money.

How Spammers get your email address

There are many ways for a spammer to acquire your email address. Here is a selection:

Spambots trawl the web collecting email addresses from web pages
Harvesters gather email addresses from newsgroups and chat rooms
Joining mailing lists and acquiring the emails of everyone else on the list
Using whois look-ups to acquire email addresses for registered domain names
Creating phoney web sites that require registration to capture your emails
Dictionary attacks which compile christian names and surnames in email format @ domain names such as yahoo, AOL and hotmail in known formats. (If the email server replies back with unknown user then these are removed from the list)
Brute force attacks. Like dictionary attacks except random character combinations are generated instead of names @ domain name
Purchasing email lists from companies and other spammers. These lists usually contain the email addresses of people who have opted-in to a newsletter or bought something from a company at some point and entered their email address during the order process. (Check what you are agreeing to before clicking SUBMIT!)

Once they have acquired a collection of new email addresses the next step is to see which ones are still active and in use. They do this by sending email to their address list with the following:

Content in HTML format with embedded links that you can follow. Clicking on the links will tell the spammer that your email address is active as your browser will send the information they require
Placing a fake unsubscribe/opt-out link in the email. You think you are telling them that you want to be removed from their distribution list but in fact you are confirming your email account's active status. You may in fact receive no more spam from them but that does not mean they will not sell your email address to someone else
The use of HTML emails with links to content stored on their web server so when you view the email they know that your account is active
Request of a read-receipt
Record any auto-vacation responses
Wait for a reply
Lack of a bounce-back telling them that the email address does not exist

Once they have shortlisted their new active email addresses, they add them to their database which is used to email their spam emails. In all probability they will also sell this list to other spammers.

What you can do to reduce the amount of Spam you receive

First off, go to your favourite search engine and enter your email address. Are there any occurrences of it? If yes then Spammers will have no trouble acquiring your email address as the first place they look is the web. If a search engine spyder can acquire your email address, so can a spammer.

The first thing to do then is to remove all occurrences of your email address from the web. This may not be possible if you are a business or the email is there for people to contact you about content on your web site. You can alter it slightly and add words like remove-this-to-email-me or no-spam making sure that the person wishing to email you knows that they should remove this text in order to obtain your correct email address. This is a popular technique among newsgroup users.

Out of all my email accounts, the one with the least spam is the one that is not listed anywhere on the web. The only spam it receives is from companies with fake opt-out links for their newsletters. These I filter into my trash folder.

The second place spammers look is newsgroups, chat rooms or forums. It is therefore advisable to set up a separate email account for your newsgroup and chat sessions so you can register to use these applications but do not bother to use the account other than when you occasionally empty the contents. Instead allow friends to contact you via a messenger client.

Here are some further tips:

Set up an email account for purchasing goods and registering software.
Chose to opt-out of newsletters and commercial email from a web site and select no when asked if they can pass your details on to a third party. Make a note of this because some companies ignore your requests and send you spam anyway
Switch off vacation notices
Disable the returning of read receipts (Windows XP is ideal for this)
Disable the previewing of email messages
If you allow HTML formatted emails make sure you disable the downloading of images etc from the web
Remove Adware and Spyware from your computer
Install a personal firewall
Install an antivirus tool with email protection
Set up a spam filter or use an anti-spam tool