xample, if your e-mail address is email@example.com,
and you regularly append a signature to your newsgroup postings that contains
that address (usually so people can make off-group, private responses),
then you might want to consider editing the signature in such a way that
an actual human can still recognize and interpret it, but a "bot"
will be unable to. In this case, a couple of possibilities might be:
firstname.lastname@example.org (remove 'x's for correct address)
You can also do this with the configuration for your newsgroup headers.
Be aware, though, that if you use the same program to read and send both
e-mail and newsgroup postings (Microsoft Outlook, for example), the headers for
both e-mail and newsgroup will use the same configuration settings. Normally,
you do want your e-mail headers, especially the "Return Address",
to be accurate, so if this is the case, you may want to consider using
different programs for e-mail and newsgroups.
What should NOT be done about "spam"?
Don't try "fighting fire with fire" by "e-mail bombing"
the suspected spammer - remember, the return address is almost certainly
forged, and you may leave yourself open to a complaint from an innocent
third party. Also, there have been instances where spammers subjected
to this sort of "return fire" have turned the tables and successfully
prosecuted the responsible party.
Do not use the "Click here to be removed from this list"
links that are often found in spam messages. All you will do is give
them a response that tells them there is a live, breathing person at the
other end who is reading that address - which is exactly the kind of information
they want to know. Letting them know you're there is a sure way to get
even more spam.
Aren't there ways of filtering "spam" out
at the mail server?
There are many people devoting a great deal of time and brainpower to
coming up with accurate and efficient ways of filtering out spam before
it gets to your mailbox, and a lot of progress has been made, but it's
still a very inexact science. As quickly as new rules and methods of filtering
are devised, the spammers tend to be able to work around them and/or come
up with new tricks. The problem is that, no matter how good the filters
are, there will always be some level of the following:
- "False positives" - legitimate e-mails that are flagged
- "False negatives" - spam that makes it through the
filters and is considered "OK"
The possibility of false positives, in particular, requires that instead
of sending messages flagged as spam directly into the trash, they must
be directed into some sort of "quarantine" mailbox until the
user can inspect them to make sure that one or more important, legitimate
messages haven't been wrongly flagged. Although this probably doesn't
require as much user time as current user methods of handling spam, it
does significantly cut into the presumed time savings of filtering. Also,
many system administrators are reluctant to implement spam filtering due
to the added processing time and load it places on the system.
That said, though, a number of large mail hosts at Penn have begun offering spam filtering services - check with the support staff for your mail host to find out more.
Can't there be a list of addresses I don't want to
receive e-mail from that can be blocked at the server?
For a variety of legal and policy reasons, for Penn-owned e-mail servers,
the principle at work is the University cannot determine who is or is not
allowed to send you e-mail, in the same way that no one can dictate who can and cannot send you postal mail through the U.S. Postal System. Nearly all programs
for reading e-mail have filtering capability,
and you are entitled to use it to set up your own local filters. Remember,
though, it could end up being a long list of filters - spammers change
addresses frequently, and use all sorts of tricks to get around filters.
Your machine may end up using as much or more processing time and power in running
the filters as it would have taken to simply delete the messages.
What is an open e-mail relay, a