Winning the War On Spam
by: Michael Southon
For years I didn’t worry much about spam.
But lately itกs got out of control. Over half of my email is now spam, and it was growing by the week until I took action.
This article shows you some strategies for winning the war on spam.
How Do They Get Your Address?
In the old days, spammers got their addresses mainly from Newsgroups if you didn’t post to Newsgroups, you were reasonably safe. But they’re now using a much more efficient method to build their lists email harvesters.
Email harvesters are robots that roam the Internet collecting email addresses from web pages. Examples are EmailSiphon, Cherry Picker, Web Weasel, Web Bandit and Email Wolf, to name just a few.
How can you protect yourself from email harvesters?
By กmungingก (mung = กmash until no goodก) or cloaking your email address.
There are many ways of munging your address the easiest technique is to use HTML code for the punctuation in your email address (instead of symbols).
For the colon after mailto use : and for the @ symbol use @ and for the period use . . With this method, your email address would become:
mailto:yourname@yourdomain.com
but it will display as:
mailto:[email protected]
Your email address will appear exactly as it did before, and it will still be กclickableก, but email harvesters will ignore it and move on.
There are also JavaScriptกs that you can insert into your web page that will make your email address visible to humans but invisible to harvesting programs. Hereกs one that works very well: http://pointlessprocess.com/JavaScripts/antispam.htm
How To Fight Spam
The most important thing is never, ever, reply to spam.
Most spam contains an innocentlooking ‘remove meก email address. Do not use it. Hereกs why:
Spammers typically buy a CD containing a million or so email addresses, but they have no idea how many of those addresses are active. So before beginning their marketing campaign in earnest, they send out a ‘test messageก to the entire list.
The test message contains an email address for removing yourself. When you reply to that address, it confirms to the spammer that your address is active and therefore worth spamming.
Worse still, the spammer may be distilling from that CD a list of confirmed active addresses that he will then sell to another spammer.
The key to dealing with spam is to report it to a 3rd party: (1) the affiliate program that the spammer is advertising, (2) the spammerกs web host, or (3) the ISP the spammer used to connect to the Internet.
When you report spam to a 3rd party, remember to be polite they didn’t send the spam and they’re probably just as antispam as you are.
Reporting to Affiliate Programs
Many spammers are affiliates advertising someone elseกs products or services. So look for a website address that contains an affiliate link, something like this: www.affiliateprogramdomain/841526
Then just send an email to the affiliate program ([email protected]), informing them that you are receiving spam from one of their affiliates.
Most affiliate programs have zero tolerance for spamming and will remove an affiliate spammer without warning.
Now, affiliate spammers don’t want you to see their affiliate link, so many of them send their email as HTML. All you see in the message are the words กClick Here and Order Nowก.
But in your browser just click on กView Source Codeก and search for the letters กhttpก. That will take you to the spammerกs affiliate link.
Reporting to Web Hosts
If the spam doesn’t contain an affiliate link, itกs likely that it is coming from the owner of the domain name. In that case youกll have to report it to the spammerกs web host or their ISP.
To make a report to the spammerกs web host just go to Whois, the directory of registered domain names: http://www.netsol.com/cgibin/whois/whois
Type in the spammerกs domain (the website address that appears in the spam) together with the extension (.com, org, .net etc).
The host for that domain will usually be listed as the Technical Contact in the Whois record and there will be an email address for contacting them.
Reporting to ISPs
To report a spammer to his Internet Service Provider, youกll have to look at the spamกs กextended headersก.
Extended headers show the servers that the message passed through in order to get to you. The instructions for viewing extended headers will vary depending on what email client you are using.
In Pegasus Mail, open the offending message and then rightclick and choose กShow raw message dataก.
In Eudora Light, click on ‘toolsก in the top menu bar, and then กOptionsก, and then select the checkbox option that says กShow all headers (even the ugly ones)ก and click OK.
In Outlook Express, open the offending message, select กPropertiesก from the File menu and then click the กDetailsก tab.
Reading and understanding extended headers is quite a detailed subject. Hereกs an excellent free tutorial on how to decipher extended headers: http://www.doughnut.demon.co.uk/SpamTracking101.html
As an alternative to these reporting techniques, you could use a webbased spam reporting service such as SpamCop (www.spamcop.net). SpamCop deciphers the spamกs message headers and traces the mail back to its source.
Wishing you every success in the fight against spam!
© 2002 by Michael Southon
About The Author
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3 years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this simple technique to get massive free publicity and dramatically increase traffic and sales. Click here to find out more: http://www.ezinewriter.com
This article was posted on July 31, 2002
by Michael Southon