Spam: Where Does it Come From?

Mishawaka, IN. One of the more perplexing problems confronting the individual user is dealing with unwanted bulk e-mail, commonly referred to as spam.  Already, individuals are spending up to two hours a day dealing with e-mail, and their productivity is greatly slowed by inboxes full of spam.  Often, the unwanted e-mails are designed to look like something else, using subjects like "The Information You Requested" or "Important Notice about Your Domain".

Beyond the productivity issues, spam can also bring pornography or other undesirable content to the user's desktop.  This can offend the user, or create a situation where company internet policies are unexpectedly violated.

People often wonder how they appear on spam mailing lists.  Unfortunately, there is often no easy explanation.  Completing an information request on the web or placing a web order can put your e-mail address in play, as can having your e-mail address appear anywhere on the web: your company or personal web site, a discussion group posting, a web guestbook, etc.  Spammers often operate sophisticated bots (automated programs that can visit web sites without human direction) that harvest e-mail addresses.  Once an e-mail address is discovered, it may well be consolidated into any number of new spam databases.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal found that brand-new addresses started receiving spam within days or weeks of creation and first use.  The reporter who wrote the article attempted to track down the source of the spammer's mailing lists, with very few tangible results.

Spam can be particularly troublesome to users with slow connections or those who use an alternate device to read mail, like a handheld organizer or a cellular telephone screen.

Avoiding Spam

What can a user do to avoid spam?  The only sure way to keep an e-mail account spam-free is to never use it - hardly a practical solution.  

The typical user is faced with a conundrum. An e-mail address is a great convenience and a wonderful way to receive information, but with each use the potential for time-wasting, bandwidth-hogging spam goes up.

Here are a few things that can help:

Multiple E-mail Addresses.  If you keep one e-mail address reserved for family, close friends, and important business associates, it has a good chance of staying spam-free for a lengthy period of time.  Be sure the people who have this address understand it is the equivalent of an unlisted telephone number - otherwise, they are likely to send you information from web sites, pass it along to others, etc.

Many users employ "throwaway" addresses set up at free services like Yahoo and HotMail - they use these to place web orders, complete information requests, etc.  Eventually, when the spam volume becomes excessive, they abandon this address and start a new one.

Web Site E-mails.  While posting an e-mail address on a web site is a convenience for visitors, posting a large number of employee e-mails is asking for spam.  Instead of posting individual e-mails, use a web form that allows the visitor to select the department that should receive it.  E-mail addresses can also be encoded or disguised in various ways to make it more difficult for bots to detect them.  Some web sites place the e-mail in a graphic image rather than text, which makes the address visible to a human visitor but not detectable by the current generation of bots.  (The disadvantage of this technique is that the user must type it into his e-mail - the use of a clickable link and/or text makes the address subject to harvesting.)

Don't Reply to Spam.  Reputable firms will always provide instructions on how to remove your name from their mailing list.  In most cases, if you are familiar with the company and its privacy policy, it will be safe and effective to follow the remove instructions.  For the vast bulk of spam, however - the spam for get-rich-quick schemes, pornography sites, free vacations, work at home, weight loss, herbal stimulants, and so on - if you attempt to remove yourself you are more than likely telling them, "I'm alive, and I read this e-mail - send me lots more!"  Reporting spam to the sender's ISP is time-consuming and usually ineffective as well.  The best and fastest approach is simply to delete the spam e-mails.

Deal With "Forwards".  We all have them - friends or relatives who send us jokes, pictures, rumors, dubious news items, and so on.  Typically, they have an entire list of people they feel responsible for keeping informed, often sending many items each day.  While this practice may seem harmless, these messages often bear attachments.  Not only does this clog one's inbox, these well-meaning senders can often forward a virus-infected attachment without realizing it.  In addition to the direct risk, sending an e-mail to a list of recipients often exposes ALL of the e-mail addresses it was sent to.  If the message in turn gets forwarded to multiple generations of other recipients, your e-mail address may end up in the hands of a spammer.  The best approach: politely ask to be removed.  Explain that you delete forwarded messages for security reasons, and you would hate to accidentally delete an important personal message.  If that person ONLY sends you personal messages, they can be sure that you'll read it.

Use Rules and Filters.  Some of the commercial e-mail providers, like Yahoo, have junk mail filters.  Be sure to use these if they are available - it won't keep all spam out of your primary inbox, but it will segregate much of the spam into a folder where it can be easily deleted.

E-mail clients like Microsoft Outlook let the user establish rules for sending e-mail into designated folders or even deleting it.  Rules may be established for senders, for message subjects, etc.  Focusing on the message subject or content may be more effective than trying to block hundreds of senders, since spammers often employ many addresses or even totally fictitious ones.  Be careful with aggressive filtering, though - sometimes a personal e-mail can unexpectedly trigger a spam filter and meet the same fate as your incoming junk.

If your company operates its own mail server, additional filtering options may exist - check with your network administrator.

Spam-fighting Resources

For more information on spam, its origin, and how to prevent it, check out:

  http://spam.abuse.net/

  http://www.ecofuture.org/jnkmail.html

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CompStar Technologies is a leading Indiana-based provider of networking, technology, and communications services. With offices in Mishawaka (serving South Bend, Elkhart, Warsaw, Michigan City, Fort Wayne, Niles, St. Joseph, and Benton Harbor, Michigan) and Indianapolis, CompStar provides network design / support, network security, wireless networking, business telephone systems, VoIP (voice over IP), and cctv / video surveillance systems. CompStar is the Technology Division of Direct Line Communications, headquartered in Mishawaka, Indiana.