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What is Spam?
Spam is unsolicited email on the Internet. It is a form of bulk mail from the sender's
point-of-view and often sent to a list gathered from subscribers to a
discussion group or obtained by companies that specialize in creating email
distribution lists. In much the same way that retailers and businesses use
postal mailing lists to send potential customers catalogs and other
information, an increasing number are using e-mail messages as a direct
marketing tool. In general, it's not
considered good internet etiquette to send spam. It's generally equivalent to
unsolicited phone marketing calls except that the user pays for part of the
message since everyone shares the cost of maintaining the Internet.
Email spoofing is the practice of changing from field of
an email so that it looks like the email came from someone or somewhere
else. Email spamming may be combined with email spoofing, so that it is
very difficult to determine the actual originating email address of the
sender. Some email-distributed viruses
use spoofing, such the Klez or Sobig virus, take a random name from somewhere
on the infected person’s computer and mail themselves out as if they were
from that randomly chosen address. Recipients of these viruses are
therefore misled as to the address from which they were sent, and may end up
complaining to, or alerting the wrong person. As a result, users of uninfected
computers may be wrongly informed that they have, and have been distributing a
virus.
Email phishing is the act of sending an email to a user
falsely claiming to be an established legitimate business in an attempt to scam
the user into providing private information. The email usually directs the user
to visit a website where they are asked to update personal information, such as,
passwords and credit card, social security, and/or bank account numbers. This website
is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.
Some apparently unsolicited email is, in fact, email people
agreed to receive when they registered with a site and a box was checked
agreeing to receive postings about particular products or interests. This is
known as both opt-in email
and permission-based email.
How to Avoid Getting Spam
¨ Never
post your real email address on a forum or bulletin board. Spammers use special
programs which harvest these and use them to build spam lists. Once your email address has been caught in
this way, you'll never get off the spam lists.
¨ Set up
multiple email addresses. If you
regularly sign up to a lot of web sites, which may sell email addresses as a
source of revenue, consider having one email address just for this purpose,
while keeping your other - real -
email address private to friends and family.
¨ When
you register with an internet site, make sure you do not give them the right to
sell your email address to spammers. (Watch for little checkboxes and make sure
to remove any which are checked by default).
¨ Use
the email filters to reject spam with obvious catchphrases in it
(debt consolidation, porn, sex, viagra, hot girls etc)
Dealing with Spam
If you suspect a
message is junk mail, treat it as such by deleting
it -- even without opening it.
Common clues include information in the subject headings and unknown
senders. Do take
action to stop spam.
Users can setup rules to filter the messages to stop spam messages and block
spam sites.
All incoming email is
now being scanned & tagged in an attempt to identify spam. Users will need to setup a filter to move
messages tagged as spam. Please note
that there is no foolproof way for system administrators to configure the
campus-wide email system to determine spam and from valid email.
Outlook
XP:
Setting up a Mail Filter:
1. Create
a new folder where filtered messages filter will be kept.
In Outlook, click File, then New and select Folder.
2. Name
the folder Spam. Click OK to
create the folder
3. Click Tools and select Rules Wizard.
4. Click
the New button and choose Start from a blank rule.
5. Select
Check messages when they arrive
(default setting) and click Next.
6. Place
a check in the box to select “with
_specific words_ in the message header”.
In the Rule Description area, click
on the “specific_words”
link.
In the Specify word or phrase… field,
type “X-Spam-Status: YES”.
Then click the Add button and click OK.
Then click Next.
7. Place
a check in the box to select “move it to
the specified folder”.
In the Rule Description area, click
on the “specified” link and
select the Spam folder in your
Inbox. Click OK, then click Next on
the following two windows.
8. In the
Please specify a name for this rule:
field, type Spam Filter.
9. Confirm ‘Turn
on this rule” is selected and
click Finish.
10. Finally,
click OK to close the Rules Wizard.
Junk Sender List: You
can also filter messages with a list of senders of junk and adult content
e-mail. As you receive unwanted e-mail messages, you can create a list of the
e-mail addresses of these senders to filter.
To
create a Junk Sender list in Outlook 2000 and 2002.
1.
Open the Inbox and click the Organize button on the toolbar, or choose Tools, Organize.
2.
Click the Junk
Email link and configure Outlook to either color or move messages that
fit the Junk Senders list.
3.
Click the Click
Here link to access options that open a dialog box that allows you to edit
the Junk Senders list.