In a soon to be published Staff Report http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmaillist.html SDSTAFF Doug explains why NOT to hit the REMOVE button on spam. He also suggests three webpages to use to actually fight back against spam. I’d like to add an even better one. Of the three Doug provides, two are lookup features that allow you to find information on ISPs in your email headers, and the third is a FAQ telling how to use the other two by parsing your headers to find out where the spam originated and who to complain to. This may be easy and inuitive for Doug, but for a cyber-moron like me, it’s confusing and time consuming. For example, I typed “straightdope.com” into GetNet and got a meaningless (to me) long series of numbers and letters in reply.
Years ago, when spam was just becoming a problem, for me, at least, I swear to you I had the idea for a website to which you could forward all your spam, which would then trace the spam for you and send an automatic complaint to the appropriate ISP. It was such a good idea, someone else had to think of it too, and someone did. Spamcop.net does just that. Send them your spam, push a few buttons, and the right ISP gets an automatic spam complaint in approprite geekspeak, so I don’t look like the illiterate I am.
BTW, Spamcop does have additional for-fee subscriber features, which I suppose makes it a commercial site and may be the reason Doug didn’t link to it already, but everyting I described is completely free, and only the most spam-obsessed would want to pay for the extras. Even though I really did come up with the idea myself, I have absolutely no connection with Spamcop (like I said, they thought of it themselves, too, I’m sure). I just thought you might want to know about it, and Doug might want to add it to his report.
PS–The Spamcop webpage recommends using an email address you don’t mind getting spammed (or one that already does) to send complaints from. (Spamcop uses your address to send the complaint.) I suppose it only takes one complaint sent to the wrong computer (the spammers instead of the ISP’s) to get back on their list. All the more reason to let them find the right address for you.
I tried “spam fighting” for a while, sending polite complaints to spammers of my email inbox, and of usenet spammers polluting my favorite discussion newsgroup with pictures of “hot teens,” etc.
And you know it’s not easy. You have to analyze the email headers and any URLs in the body and try to find a real email address for the spammer, and the identity of his ISP before you even get to the letter writing part.
All it did was get me on more mailing lists, and earn me even more spam – this time trying to sell me bulk email programs and lists of email addresses.
It seems that many providers are in on it with their spammers. They could be ex-spammers, finding more potential in selling bandwidth to spammers. Or they could be people who just found a niche serving spammers. Many of them seem to operate in the state of Florida.
So it’s futile to do anything but delete the mail. If you use a good email program you can set up filters to trash spam. Earthlink (my provider) offers a spam blocking program that works pretty well, blocking 90% of bulk unsolicited email… but 90% of a flood is still a flood.
And as a sign of the times, unsolicited bulk snail mail seems to be at an all time high, too. My apartment manager has a recycle bin - a large 55 gal trash can - next to the mailboxes. It fills up weekly.
That’s why I like using spamcop. I don’t use it all the time, just occasionally. Sometimes I get bored and send a whole lot of them to spamcop; sometimes I just get one that I really want to see go down. I agree that it’s mostly futile, but at least with spamcop its easy. Also, I haven’t noticed any increase in spam from using it, although maybe it just gets filtered out. And it is a little kick when you do get a response from an ISP telling you they’ve booted the scumbag.
Doesn’t SDSTAFF Doug ever check the boards? What about my suggestion of adding it to your report?
Yes, I check the boards, but only the higher admins can change a report once it’s been posted. Adding a link to spamcop is fine by me.
As for letters being futile, it’s simply not so. I’ve nuked hundreds of spammers. You may simply not be tracing back far enough to reach the ISP. If you get e-mail that’s from “joe38@ebiz.com” then the people at “ebiz.com” are NOT the ISP, and are not worth contacting. You trace back until you see an address that ends in “.net” and send your complaint to THEM. Complaints sent to addresses ending in “.com” will generally get you nothing but more spam.
…for mentioning SpamCop. I was going to if you hadn’t, describing it in much the same way as you did.
My usage of SpamCop is similar to yours. I forward mainly porn spam. You’re right, it is satisfying to get a response from an ISP saying that a spammer’s account has been shut down. Of course, many of those spammers will just go out and establish new accounts. <Sigh.>
Speaking of porn, once I got a bit of porn spam titled “Barley Legal Teens!!!” It was obvious that they meant “barely” but were too stupid to know how to spell it. Knowing my reply would be returned as undeliverable, I wrote back: “Much as I’d like to see teens doing legal things with cereal grains, I’ve decided instead to forward your letter to the proper authorities.” As expected, this was returned, but it sure made me feel a lot better! ;-D
(The “authorities” I mentioned included AOL’s TOSspam address and the Federal Trade Commission’s address for forwarding unsolicited commercial e-mail: uce@ftc.gov. Obviously the AOL address works only from AOL, but anyone can forward spam to the FTC address. Also, AOL members should use TOSspam only for spam that originates outside AOL; TOSemail1 should be used for spam sent by other AOL members.)
I knew I’d seen you around here before, Doug. I just wanted to draw you out. I meant futile only in the sense that it makes a small dent. Anyone hoping to eliminate spam from their inbox by reporting it will be disappointed. There’s just too much out there. SpamCop seems to do a good job at getting the right ISP address, though, and if the ISP is cooperative (a few aren’t) you can certainly get back at the individual spammers who are bothering you. To actually stop spam getting into your box in the first place, though, the only tool is filters. The main subscriber service SpamCop offers is an absolutely draconian filtering system that, if used completely, would be more trouble than it’s worth, IMO.
Since it’s your Report, Doug, presumably you’d have to be the one to request an addition by the admins. I’m glad you liked my suggestion enough to approve of it!
And I almost forgot to add…Thanks for mentioning the FTC address, Daveo. I hadn’t heard of it. What do they do with the spam you forward? Is there any point to sending them spam that doesn’t have an illegal componant, such as pornography or a pyramid scheme?
bughunter, what is this “spam blocking program” of which you seek? My ISP is Mindspring, which is also Earthlink, but I’ve never heard of it.
What Mindspring also has is an email address, spaminator@mindspring.com, to which we’re encouraged to forward all our spam. I do, but it has apparently done nothing to stanch the flow.
I get the same spam time after time; I can tell because they usually have the same subject line and text “Make the right decision,” “The millions CD,” “Look, we don’t want to waste your time…” but they’re always from a different address from the time before: typically msn.com, aol.com, yahoo.com and hotmail.com addresses.
As long as it’s free, or even nearly free, to establish a new email address, I don’t see what can be done to slow down the tide.
And, I used to think they found me using 'bots that harvested my address from Usenet postings, but now I think it’s more likely they have software that sends email to every possible address at a given domain, or every possible domain for a given address. So staying out of the public eye, so to speak, is no protection.
To be honest, I don’t know what the FTC does with spam forwarded to it, but I imagine it has some technology that can ferret out spammers’ real addresses, similar to what SpamCop does. As for whether it’s worthwhile to forward spam that doesn’t have some illegal component, I’d say it is. (It takes only a few seconds, anyway.) I’m not sure, but isn’t unsolicited commercial e-mail illegal anyway? I know some spammers have quoted some possibly bogus law to the effect that UCE is legal only if a real company name, address, and phone number appear in the letter, and if removal instructions are included. Therefore, by dutifully providing these things (or official-looking but bogus ones), they appear to be in compliance.
It is a bogus law. I think it was a bill at one time, but it never passed. And since anything you see in Spam (especially the reply button) is bogus, they aren’t even in compliance with the bogus law they pretend to quote. It’s just to keep people from reporting to their ISPs by making them think if it’s legal, it must be OK. Of course it is legal (usually, but see below) but it’s still against most ISP’s Terms of Service.
OTOH, I think at least one state, has passed a law making unsolicited email a crime. I think it’s California, but I could be wrong. Also, the ISP may be entitled to recompense for use of their service that violates the TOS. For most of us, though, we just have to use SpamCop.
So come on, Doug, get that link put in the artical before it vanishes from the home page!
Fiver, the feature is called “Spaminator” and, although I now see I gave the impression that it’s a program you run on your machine, it’s not. It’s a filtering service that ELN provides on their end.
You should call your tech support number and ask how you can turn on Spaminator. For Earthlink subscribers, you go to their Spaminator page and turn it on there.
Hmm, in the authorization step, they appear to have “mindspring.com” as one of the accepted domains. You should try it.