Spam

From Daily Data

Spam

Spam is the unrequested receiving of e-mail. In large numbers, it can intrude upon your ability to check your e-mail, delay the delivery of e-mail and even slow the Internet. In many cases, spam is offensive to the recipient.

First, a brief tutorial on e-mail. Most people use an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora or K-mail to access their e-mail. (There is also a web-based client for Daily Data users, SquirrelMail, which may be accessed from the Daily Data Client Services page [1].) However, these clients do not actually send or receive mail directly - they communicate with an e-mail server somewhere. At Daily Data, the server is located at mail.dailydata.net and, in this case, is used for both sending and receiving mail (which is not always the case). So, some terminology: the program you use to access your e-mail is an e-mail client. Your e-mail client communicates with an e-mail server to send (an SMTP server) and receive (an IMAP or POP server) the mail.

There are people who send e-mail to anyone they can get an address to, advertising everything from counterfeit prescription drugs to pornography to get-rich-quick schemes. They purchase large numbers (in the millions in some cases) of e-mail addresses collected from the Internet, then "bulk mail" the messages to them.

This is illegal in many areas, so to keep from getting caught, these spammers will attempt to forge the source of their e-mail, making it appear to come from someplace else. Generally, the e-mail will even appear to come from some innocent persons e-mail account and, in some cases, sophisticated spammers will even make the e-mail appear to come from yourself.

There are, however, commonalities to spam. Generally, spammers will use HTML to send the message (e-mail generally uses standard text, though some e-mail programs allow HTML). HTML e-mail is very dangerous, and spammers take full advantage of it. HTML e-mail can do any or all of the following on an incorrectly configured computer, simply by reading the message:

• Download and install a virus on your computer
• Automatically open a web site (imagine a porn site popping up on your computer at work, simply because you opened an e-mail)
• Tell a spammer you have opened an e-mail, when you opened it, your e-mail address, and the address of your computer

Spammers can, and do, take full advantage of this, so receiving an HTML e-mail is one indicator of it being spam. Because of these problems, many e-mail programs have the ability to NOT open HTML based e-mail.

Spammers will also tend to send e-mail to you from an "Open Relay," a site that allows anyone to send as many e-mails as they like (sometimes for a charge, sometimes simply because the server is not set up correctly). Some of the most common Open Relays are listed in places on the net and, an e-mail from one of those sites is a good indicator of spam.

One question a lot of people have is, "How did they get my e-mail address?". The answer is complex, but one of the main ways spammers collect e-mail addresses is to extract them from web pages, news groups and spare e-mail they find. Another way is to purchase e-mail lists from companies that collect them as part of a transaction, say an online store. If your e-mail address is posted on your web site, some spammer will find it. If you use newsgroups or ICQ, spammers will search through those sites (using special programs called spiders) and collect the addresses from there. Finally, have you every received an e-mail message that contains tens, or maybe hundreds of e-mail addresses from forwarded jokes or interesting topics. Eventually, if these e-mail addresses are not deleted prior to forwarding, they will end up in the hands of a spammer. Using BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) instead of placing every recipient's name in the "To:" field of a message will significantly decrease this chance.

And, what do spammers do when they get your e-mail address? First, of course, they send you spam. But, after that they will sell your address to other spammers. You can by CD's full of, literally, millions of e-mail addresses, all collected in this manner.

So, if you have a new e-mail account, it is likely you will not be getting much spam. However, as time goes on, the chance of your e-mail address showing up in one spammers mailing list will increase. And, eventually, you will be the target of tons of spam. custsvc@dailydata.net, our customer service e-mail address, has been posted on our web site for over five years. It sometime gets several hundred spam emails in one day. And, it is important enough, it cannot be easily changed. Some statistics show older e-mail accounts will receive, on average, 30% of their total traffic in spam.

There are only two solutions: Change your e-mail address, or identify spam and delete it. We will be happy to change your e-mail address as needed, or create a special temporary e-mail account you can use for online purchases or registering for websites such as forums. There are a variety of products which detect and filter spam from your email. Daily Data has, in the past, used a program called Spam Assassin for our clients. [spamassassin.shtml SpamAssassin] information is available on the link here.

Our current spam-filtering solution is a program called ASSP. More information about that at [ASSP].

Contact Daily Data for more information.