The Battle Against Spam

Fighting Spam
How prevalent is Spam? According to Scott McAdams, OMA(Ontario Medical Association) Public Affairs and Communications Department (www.oma.org):

"Studies show unsolicited or 'junk' e-mail, known as spam, accounts for roughly half of all e-mail messages received. Although once regarded as little more than a nuisance, the prevalence of spam has increased to the point where many users have begun to express a general lack of confidence in the effectiveness of e-mail transmissions, and increased concern over the spread of computer viruses via unsolicited messages."

(what was meant above is.........It's ALL OVER THE PLACE, Affecting nearly everyone.)

In December of 2003, in the U.S.A., President Bush signed the "Can Spam" bill. This was the first national standard developed surrounding the issue of 'bulk, unsolicited commercial e-mail'. Approved by 97 to 0, in a vote within the Senate, this bill prohibits senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from using false return addresses to disguise their identity (spoofing) and the use of directories to generate such mailers.

In addition, it prohibits use of misleading subject lines and requires that emails include an easily visible 'opt-out' mechanism. The legislation also prohibits senders from 'harvesting' addresses from Web sites.

Violations constitute a 'misdemeanor crime' - subject to up to one year in jail.

One major point that requiring attention in this issue with spam is:

Spam is now coming from other countries in ever-greater numbers. Foreign emails are harder to fight, because they come from outside our country’s laws and regulations. Because the Internet extends beyond borders and internet users tend to have 'global mindset' when using the internet, the U.S. laws are fine where they can be employed and upheld - but are not sufficient to stop the collective 'Spam problem.'




What can be done about this?

Well - here are the top 5 Suggestions to protect yourself from spam:


Number 1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on the net.
There are products called "spam spiders" that search the Internet for email addresses to send email to. If you are interested, do a search on "spam spider" and you will be amazed at what you will find. Interestingly, there is a site, WebPoison.org, which is an open source project geared to fight Internet "spambots" and "spam spiders", by giving them bogus HTML web pages, which contain bogus email addresses

A couple suggestions for this issue a) use form emails, which can hide addresses or also b) use addresses like sales@company.com instead of your full address to help battle the problem. c) There are also programs that encode your email, like jsGuard, which encodes your email address on web pages so that spam spiders will have difficulty reading your email address.

Number 2: Get spam blocking software. There are many programs out there for this. (try http://www.cloudmark.com/ or http://www.mailwasher.net/ ). You may also buy a professional version. Whatever you do, get the software. It will save you time. The software is not foolproof, but really does help. Often, a certain amount of 'manual set-up' is required, but it's worth it in order to block certain types of email.

Number 3: Use the multiple email address approach.
There are a lot of free email addresses available online. If you feel that you must subscribe to newsletters, then simply create a "back-up" email address. This would be somewhat like giving your cell phone number to only your best friends but the phone number with your voicemail options to everyone else.

Number 4: Attachments from people you don’t know are BAD, BAD, BAD.
A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and attachments can have viruses. Corporations often have filters that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far more "open country" for spamers. General rule of thumb: if you do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering. Firewall vendors offer this type of service as well.

Number 5: Email services now have "bulk-mail" baskets. If what you use currently does not support this, think about moving to a new vender. The concept is simple. If you know someone, they can send you emails. If you don’t know them, put them in the bulk email pile and then "choose" to allow them into your circle. Spam Blocking software has this concept as well, but having extra layers seems critical these days, so it is worth looking into.