Preventing Spam

Here are some things you can do to prevent spam.

The reason that I'm writing this is because I have a client that called and was very upset because of an email saying that a detective agency (they didn't mention the name of the agency) was listening to her phone conversations and she was in trouble. This came with an attachment so that she could listen to the phone conversation. My client is a good person and could not think of anything that she would do that is wrong, but still, the fact that she thought that someone may be listening to her phone conversations was very disturbing.

The first thing you need to do is identify that the email is spam. Here are some basic guidlines, but by no means does this include everything.

1. Use some common sense. This is not being said to sound mean or anything, but spam messages generally play on your emotions. They want you to open up that attachment or that message. One good way of doing that is to make you upset or even angry. Before you even look at your email, make sure that you are not already in a bad mood to begin with because this will only make your "fuse" shorter. Make sure you are in a good mood so that you can look at the email message logically and not just jump to a conclusion.
2. Even if the email addresses you by name, but the rest of it doesn't make sense, don't open it. Chances are, it's spam. Just delete it without opening it. If it's that important, then they will contact you in a different way like phone or a letter in the postal mail etc. If there is something that just doesn't make sense and you don't know the person that is sending you the email, chances are, it's spam.
3. Don't just look at the "From" and assume that the sender is someone you know. The "From" part of the email is very easily disguised to make it look like it's someone on your address book. I even get spam from my wife and myself, but I can easily see what email messages are legitimate and which are spam just by looking at the subject of the email (if it's from my wife) and if it's from myself, I would think that I would remember sending myself an email!
4. Never reply to a spam message. This includes the 'unsubscribe' link. When you click on this link, it actually informs the sender of the spam that your email address is a legitimate email address. Once the spammer knows that your email address actually exists (they don't know for sure until you reply to the message) this can open you up to more spam... A LOT MORE SPAM! I'm not saying that all 'unsubscribe' links are bad, they are actually required if you are signed up for a mailing list, but if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, then it's spam, so don't click on the 'unsubscribe' link.
5. Don't just disguise your email address on your website, don't put it on your website. There are other ways of getting email to you without putting your email address on your website. Even disguising your email address is better than nothing, but it doesn't matter how well you have disguised it, eventually the spam community will figure it out. If you don't have the email address on your web site, it's going to be very difficult for a robot to find your email address, and very difficult for them to send you spam.
6. Don't forward an email, from someone you don't know, to a list of people. This basically just helps the spam message "stay alive" and the spammers get all of these email addresses, so they have more people that they can send spam to.
7. Don't use your business email to sign up for a mailing list, sign up for a website, or sign up for a group. Instead, get a free email account like Yahoo! or Hotmail, Gmail etc. and use that address to sign up for things online. This will help "cut down" on how much spam you get in your business or home email.
8. Before you join a list, make sure the list owner or the web site owner will not sell your email address. See if you can opt out of receiving email from the site where you are registering. If you are still not sure, check the web site's privacy statement, if you are still unsure, don't sign up for the list.
9. Many email programs allow you to preview the message without actually opening the email. This is a good practice as you will be able to see the text without sending a signal to the sender that the message has even been opened, and if you discover that this is spam, just delete it.
10. Use a spam filter. You will have to do some searching for this, but there are a few free spam filters out there and they are pretty good, and free!
11. If you work for a company and have an I.T. department, forward the spam to them so that they can see the message and update the spam filters to prevent it.
12. Never use your email address as your screen name in a chat room. 'nuff said on that one
13. When you are purchasing something online, or filling out a form, watch out for check boxes that are already checked. Most times, this is to automatically enroll you for a mailing list that you may not even want to receive.
14. Don't send personal information to a company via email.
15. Don't contribute to a charity if they asked you to do so in an email.
16. If you are unsure whether an email is legitimate or spam, find the company name in the phone book and call them and ask if they sent out this email to a list of people. If you can't find a phone number, there is a good chance that the email is spam.

If you use Outlook, use the junk mail filter (Outlook 2003 and later). This is really good about filtering out most of the spam. Make sure you check your junk mail folder before emptying it. Sometimes a legitimate email does get put into the junk mail folder, but this is rare, and easy to correct if it does. (right click on the actual message, a menu comes up, go to junk mail, another menu will fly out, and then click on either 'Add Sender to Blocked Senders List' or 'Add Sender to Safe Senders List' but be aware, if you are going to add them to the blocked senders list, make sure that you have repeatedly gotten spam email from the same sender over and over. If you haven't then chances are, the spammer has moved on to the next email address and won't use that email address again.
You can also set your junk mail filters to High.
Make sure you keep your Junk email filter updated too.
Turn off automatic processing of metting requests. Turn off read and delivery receipts also.

You can also send a full copy of SPAM or deceptive e-mail including the e-mail header to uce@ftc.gov. The FTC uses the unsolicited emails stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive spam email.

Check with your Internet Service Provider for their SPAM policy. Many Internet Service Providers may already have SPAM blocking mechanisms in place and may even allow you to forward to them the SPAM messages you receive, helping prevent the same types of e-mail reaching you in the future.

Send an e-mail with the e-mail header to the ISP or web host of the user who is sending you the spam. Below is a short list of some of these e-mails.

1. abuse@aol.com - File a complaint against an AOL users.
2. abuse@hotmail.com - File complaints for MSN and Hotmail e-mail addresses.
3. abuse@geocities.com - File complaints against Geocities users.
4. abuse@sprint.net - File complaints against Sprint
5. users.abuse@usa.net - File complaints against USA.NET
6. mailto:users.%0d%0ajunkmail@earthlink.net - File complaints against Earthlink users.
7. Yahoo abuse form or abuse@yahoo.com - File complaints against Yahoo users.

In closing, this is not a game. If you open yourself up accidentally or on purpose, get ready because you WILL get a lot of spam, and it will not be easy to either filter through this spam or get rid of it altogether.