Winning
the War On Spam
For years I didn't worry much about spam.
But lately it's 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.
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How Do They Get Your Address?
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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 'munging' (mung = 'mash until no good') or
cloaking your email address.
There are many ways of munging your address -
the easiest technique is to use ASCII 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:yourname@yourdomain.com
Your email address will appear exactly as it
did before, and it will still be 'clickable',
but email harvesters will ignore it and move on.
There are also JavaScript's that you can insert
into your web page that will make your email address
visible to humans but invisible to harvesting
programs. Here's one that works very well: http://pointlessprocess.com/JavaScripts/anti-spam.htm
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How To Fight Spam
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The most important thing is never, ever, reply
to spam.
Most spam contains an innocent-looking 'remove
me' email address. Do not use it. Here's 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 message' 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 spammer's
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 anti-spam as you are.
(1) Reporting to Affiliate Programs
Many spammers are affiliates advertising someone
else's 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
(abuse@affiliateprogramdomain.com), 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 'Click Here and Order Now'.
But in your browser just click on 'View Source
Code' and search for the letters 'http'. That
will take you to the spammer's affiliate link.
(2) Reporting to Webhosting
If the spam doesn't contain an affiliate link,
it's likely that it is coming from the owner of
the domain name. In that case you'll have to report
it to the spammer's Web
host or their ISP.
To make a report to the spammer's Web
host just go to Whois, the directory of registered
domain names: http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois
Type in the spammer's 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.
(3) Reporting to ISPs
To report a spammer to his Internet Service Provider,
you'll have to look at the spam's 'extended headers'.
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
right-click and choose 'Show raw message data'.
=> In Eudora Light, click on 'Tools' in the
top menu
bar, and then 'Options', and then select the
checkbox option that says 'Show all headers (even
the ugly ones)' and click OK.
=> In Outlook Express, open the offending
message,
select 'Properties' from the File menu and then
click the 'Details' tab.
Reading and understanding extended headers is
quite a detailed subject. Here's 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 web-based spam reporting service
such as SpamCop (www.spamcop.net). SpamCop deciphers
the spam's message headers and traces the mail
back to its source.
Wishing you every success in the fight against
spam!
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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 build a successful online
business. Click
here to find out more:
http://ezine-writer.com/
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