dresses from their mailing lists, and the service is available
to non-members as well.
- If you receive spam that appears to be originate from a Penn user
or computer, or appears to pass through a Penn computer (see "e-mail
relays", below), contact Penn Information Security at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Using Penn computing resources for commercial purposes is a violation
of the Acceptable Use Policy. Be aware, though, that e-mail headers
are very easily forged, especially the "From:" and "To:"
- If the spam is coming from off-campus (and this is the case well over
99% of the time), and you want to be more proactive about it, you can
attempt to identify the spammer's Internet Service Provider (ISP) and
send a complaint directly to them. This sometimes yields results, and
some ISPs will be very responsive, but be aware that is easy for spammers
to simply change ISPs, or open a phony account with one of the free
e-mail services (Hotmail, Yahoo, et al) and pick right up where they
left off. There are a number of web-based services that will help you
trace and identify the sources of spam (as much as is possible - spammers
are very crafty). Probably the best known is SpamCop (www.spamcop.net) .You can do this yourself, of course, but you'll need
to know how to interpret e-mail headers and do a whois lookup. A good
set of free tools for this can be found at http://www.samspade.org
With regard to Usenet spam, there are rules on Usenet relating to the
posting of multiple copies of the same "article". When the thresholds
are exceeded, the posting is termed "spam" and cancels for the
posting can be issued. This definition relies solely on message count,
If you are a regular poster to Usenet, you can reduce your "spam
profile" to some degree. One technique is to avoid putting your actual
e-mail address in a posting (either in the headers or the text of the
post) in a form that can be interpreted and collected by a "bot"
(automated web-crawling software application that combs websites, newsgroups,
etc. for data). For example, 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. A