Spam

Spam - unsolicited commercial e-mail - is an ever-increasing problem; it's estimated that more than 80 percent of the e-mail on the Internet now is spam.

The generally accepted explanation for how unsolicited e-mail became known as spam is from the skit on Spam from the BBC television show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus". If you'd like, you can view the skit.

In late 2003 the federal Can-Spam Act was approved and signed into law. While it does provide for prosecution and penalties for those who use e-mail in fraudulent ways, the law also prevents states from enacting stricter regulations and made illegal some which were already in place, a goal of the companies that send out unsolicited e-mail. Since the law protects non-fraudulent but unsolicited e-mail from any regulation, rather than limit the amount of spam being sent out it paved the way for the continuing growth in spam.

As a result, e-mail users are left on their own to deal with the e-mails. No single approach probably will be completely successful, but there are ways to reduce the problem you have sorting the mail you want from the mail you don't.

The only preventative measure is one that has limited benefit. If you avoid activities which make it easy for spammers to find your e-mail address, you can reduce the chances that you will turn up on the lists that the spammers sell to one another. To do that, you need to avoid posting messages on bulletin boards which will list your e-mail address; avoid buying things online where an e-mail address is required; avoid posting to online forums and review sites, and keep your e-mail address off web pages.

One way to reduce how often you give out your e-mail address is to get a free e-mail address from one of the free services and use that when registering on a web site that you don't want to be able to pester you with spam. You can occasionally check out the free address and delete what has accumulated, or abandon the address entirely if the spam load becomes burdensome.

One of the requirements of the Can Spam Act is that spam messages must have an opt-out method listed in the message, to give recipients a chance to get off the mailing list. My advice and the advice of many others continues to be to ignore such links and simply delete the message.

First, the opt-out links often don't work. When they do work, you have to supply your e-mail address, which gives the spammer a list of e-mail addresses whose owners read spam enough to see the opt-out link. You've just made your address more valuable than it was before. Even if the spammer takes you off their list, they are likely to sell your address to someone else. Since so many of the spam messages never arrive in anyone's mailbox, knowing that your address is valid is providing the spammer with valuable information.

Today's spammers often use what are called "dictionary" attacks. They go through lists of names that might be valid and send an e-mail to every account that might exist; it is the e-mail equivalent of phone solicitation computers that dialed every conceivable phone number, knowing that many won't work. Only a few need to get through to make the effort worthwhile.

Spammers also often use different methods so their messages appear to be from someone they are not. Don't assume that the "from" address on the message is truthful. At times you will see your own address there.

So what can you do?

Several companies sell anti-spam software. Most scan all your e-mail and put messages believed to be spam into a separate folder so you can review them before they are deleted.

The programs use various methods to determine what's spam. Some look for words that frequently are in spam. They are the ones that the spammers have had great success in beating, by such tactics as using zeros instead of Os and spaces between the letters in words.

Some anti-spam software gets updated descriptions - much like virus programs - so that when a new spam message hits the Internet, your computer will be taught how to recognize it.

The latest anti-spam approach uses what are known as Bayesian filters. The filters study a message's contents and determine the likelihood that it's spam, based on a series of factors and not just by looking for key words.

While you can buy anti-spam software, many e-mail clients include spam filters, including two free ones, Mozilla Thunderbird and Pegasus.

Some e-mail providers are doing their own filtering and you may be able to take advantage of that. One option, for example, is to set up a free Gmail account (www.gmail.com) and have your e-mail forwarded there and then downloaded to your computer. Gmail's spam filters work well and can be easily checked by logging on to our account.

In addition to software you install on our computer, there are services on the web which offer spam filtering as a service. Users direct their e-mail to the company's servers, where it is scanned and the spam messages removed. Those that pass the filter are either sent along to the recipient or have to be viewed on the company's web site.

Other services receive your mail for you and then send a message to the sender asking for confirmation that the mail was sent. If the header information on the e-mail message has been altered, a common practice of spammers, that confirmation message won't come back and the original message won't be sent to the recipient.

One such service, SpamArrest, charges $35 per year to individuals. If you want to check on the messages the service has labelled as spam, you have to log on to its servers to review them.

A similar service is provided by MailBlocks, at a cost of $10 per year.

Many software manufacturers offer anti-spam products.

Symantec, maker of Norton Antivirus, provides Spam Alert as part of its Internet Security software, which retails for $69.95. The package also includes Norton Antivirus and Norton Personal Firewall. McAfee sells SpamKiller for $39.95. Both the Norton and McAfee packages can be purchased for less from sources other than the companies themselves.

Another commercial product is Safeworld Spam and Pop-Up Blocker from Encore Software, which sells for $29.99.

If you are interested in further information, check the links in the upper right.