PC Security:
Fighting
Spam
by Ainuddin Mohamad
How
prevalent is Spam? According to Scott McAdams, OMA Public
Affairs and Communications Department (www.oma.org):
“Studies show unsolicited or “junk” e-mail, known as spam,
accounts for roughly half of all e-mail messages received.
Although once regarded as little more than a nuisance, the
prevalence of spam has increased to the point where many users
have begun to express a general lack of confidence in the
effectiveness of e-mail transmissions, and increased concern
over the spread of computer viruses via unsolicited messages.”
In
2003, President Bush signed the “Can Spam” bill, in December
of 2003 which is the first national standards around bulk
unsolicited commercial e-mail. The bill, approved by the
Senate by a vote of 97 to 0, prohibits senders of unsolicited
commercial e-mail from using false return addresses to
disguise their identity (spoofing) and the use of dictionaries
to generate such mailers. In addition, it prohibits the use of
misleading subject lines and requires that emails include and
opt-out mechanism. The legislation also prohibits senders from
harvesting addresses off Web sites. Violations constitute a
misdemeanor crime subject to up to one year in jail.
One
major point that needs to be discussed about this: spam is
now coming from other countries in ever-greater numbers. These
emails are harder to fight, because they come from outside our
country’s laws and regulations. Because the Internet opens
borders and thinks globally, these laws are fine and good, but
do not stop the problem.
So
what do you do about this?
Her are the top 5 Rules to do to protect from spam.
Number
1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on
the net.
There
are products called “spam spiders” that search the Internet
for email addresses to send email to. If you are interested,
do a search on “spam spider” and you will be amazed at what
you get back. Interestingly, there is a site, WebPoison.org,
which is an open source project geared to fight Internet "spambots"
and "spam spiders", by giving them bogus HTML web pages, which
contain bogus email addresses
A
couple suggestions for you: a) use form emails, which can
hide addresses or also b) use addresses like
sales@company.com instead of your full address to help
battle the problem. c)
There
are also programs that encode your email, like
jsGuard,
which encodes your email address on web pages so that while
spam spiders find it difficult or impossible to read your
email address.
Number
2: Get spam blocking software. There are many programs out
there for this. (go to
www.cloudmark.com or
www.mailwasher.net for example). You may also buy a
professional version. Whatever you do, get the software. It
will save you time. The software is not foolproof, but they
really do help. You usually have to do some manual set up to
block certain types of email.
Number
3: Use the multiple email address approach.
There
are a lot of free email addresses to be had. If you must
subscribe to newsletters, then have a “back-up” email address.
It would be like giving your sell phone number to your best
friends and the business number to everyone else.
Number
4: Attachments from people you don’t know are BAD, BAD, BAD.
A
common problem with spam is that they have attachments and
attachments can have viruses. Corporations often have filters
that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far
more “open country” for spamers. General rule of thumb: if
you do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE
ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering.
Firewall vendors offer this type of service as well.
Number
5: Email services now have “bulk-mail” baskets. If what you
use currently does not support this, think about moving to a
new vender. The concept is simple. If you know someone, they
can send you emails. If you don’t know them, put them in the
bulk email pile and then “choose” to allow them into your
circle. Spam Blocking software has this concept as well, but
having extra layers seems critical these days, so it is worth
looking into.
About the Author
Ainuddin Mohamad is the Webmaster of
http://www.BestWebsites.com.my which is a Directory of Best Websites. Since
July 2000
BestWebsites.com.my has featured thousands of best websites in many
categories of interest with descriptions/reviews given by leading publications
and webmasters.
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