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Spam Blocking

Information about HiWAAY's AnteSpam email spam and virus blocking service.

Question: How do I slow down the spam flood?

Answer:

Junk email, or spam as it is more often known, has become a persistent nuisance for everyone who uses email. HiWAAY blocks over 65 million junk email or spam messages every month! Spam continues to increase daily, as does the cost for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email users who have to deal with the mess. HiWAAY Support is constantly asked: "How did the spammer get my email address?" or "How do I stop the spam?"

Unfortunately, there's no way to completely stop it, but it's certainly possible to slow it down. Here are some ways that spammers get your email address and some things you can do to protect yourself:
Do NOT respond to a spam.
I know it's tempting to fire off a reply to a spam demanding to not be sent any more. However, your reply will almost never go to the sender. It will either bounce back to you or go to an innocent person whose email address was inserted into the message by the spammer. This devious practice is so common that many folks are often mystified by messages showing up in their mailboxes asking (usually very impolitely) why they are sending spam. In the extremely rare case that the reply does get to a spammer, the most likely result will be more spam. The best response is to just delete the message.


Do NOT use the unsubscribe link included in a spam.
Almost every spam message I receive has a link in the email that tells me I can go to this web site to remove myself from the list of spam recipients. Truth in advertising is not a concept that can be applied to spam. The link, if it works at all, will do nothing more than verify your email address and increase the amount of junk flooding into your mailbox.


Do NOT visit the web sites linked to a spam.
OK, curiosity is a fine trait, but it's a bad idea to visit any web site listed in a spam. If you're lucky, your visit will only be used to confirm your email address and make you the happy recipient of more junk. If you're unlucky, visiting one of these sites might well load up your computer with any number of applications designed to track your web surfing habits. These applications, sometimes called scumware, but more commonly known as "spyware," are often so badly written they can cause your other applications to crash or lock up your computer. Of course, a locked-up computer can't receive any more junk mail, but that's a drastic solution.


Turn off HTML email viewing in your email program.
This is the single best thing you can do to decrease the amount of spam. The pot of gold for a spammer is a list of validated email addresses. A validated address is one where the spammer knows the owner is actually reading, or at least viewing, the junk. The simplest way to verify an email address is to make the spam an HTML email with nice bright colors and pictures. The trick is that an HTML email is a web page and like a web page, the pictures get sent to you by a web server. When you view the email, your email program not only tells the web server where to send the picture, but it also tells it your email address. This means that all you have to do is view an HTML spam message in your email program's preview pane for the spammer to know you've opened his message. This is so simple to do, so devious that it has become the most common method for spammers to pad out their lists of validated email addresses and the biggest source of ever increasing flows of spam. The fix is to set your email program to never download HTML graphics.


Always run antivirus software and keep it up-to-date.
Some spammers have picked up a few sleazier techniques over the past few months, and some of that annoying spam has started including software that can download and install nasty programs on your computer. These programs are commonly called spyware. (Remember that from those spam web sites mentioned above?) Spyware is sort of a misnomer since the stuff that comes via email really doesn't do a lot of spying. What it's more likely to do is, for example, continuously launch pop-up windows advertising gambling and pornographic web sites whenever you go online, or allow your computer to be used by spammers to send out spam. If you are using a Windows-based computer, then you should be running antivirus software anyway. Most antivirus software can detect the common varieties of spyware as it tries to sneak in through your junk email.


Always run anti-spyware software and keep it up-to-date.
For all the spyware that your antivirus software might miss, there are specialized programs that do nothing but search out and destroy the spyware junk that might be hiding on your computer. Two of the best ones are free for home use. They are Adaware and Spybot. Both are regularly updated to detect the latest versions of spyjunk. Using both is a good idea.

Adaware may be downloaded from:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Spybot may be downloaded from:
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?lang=en&page=download

Of course, if you are using a Mac or other non-Windows-based computer, then you're pretty safe from spyware, at least, for now.


Don't fill out online forms without understanding the site's privacy policies.
You usually see online forms when you log into a web site, download software or request further information about a company's products and services. It's always a good idea to do a little reading before you fill out the form. Look for the web site's privacy statement. Some companies have discovered that there's money to be made from selling the information collected from online forms. Selling customer contact information is such a commonly accepted practice that unless the web site specifically says the collected information will never be shared or sold, it would probably be best to leave the form blank.


Don't post your email address online.
Do you have your own web site? Perhaps you take part in online discussion groups or blogs. If so, did you put your email address on your web site? Is your email address online anywhere else? Try a simple experiment. Go to www.google.com and search for your email address. Did it show up? Well, spammers use Google, too, and dozens of other more automated ways to search the Internet for email addresses. If at all possible, keep your email address off the web.


Use anti-spam filtering.
This sounds obvious, but many anti-spam filtering software is not that easy to set up and use on a daily basis. One easy-to-use solution is the built-in spam filters in your email program. Outlook, Mozilla Mail, Eudora Pro and Mac OS X Mail all have built-in filters that simplify blocking spam mail. You do have to spend some time "teaching" the filter the difference between what's spam and what's not, but the results are often quite impressive.


Use an Internet Service Provider that blocks spam.
Many ISPs do their best to block spam before it gets to you. Your ISP almost certainly hates spam more than you might think. That flood of junk that is a nuisance to you costs your ISP a considerable amount of money. HiWAAY provides AnteSpam antispam and antivirus filtering as a free service to all our @hiwaay.net mail accounts.


Don't buy things advertised through spam.
Technology and laws can go a long way toward slowing down the spam flood, but the fact is that spammers spam because it works. People buy stuff in response to all these junk emails. As a matter of fact, they buy a lot of stuff. One study said in 2003 they bought 11.7 billion dollars worth of stuff. That's a LOT of stuff, and from the spam I get, I just can't believe there's that big of a market for herbal Viagra clones. Yet, here's the true source of spam. If you want it to stop you'll have to educate your family and friends to not buy products from spammers and companies that use spam to market their wares, because as long as there's a dollar to be made from it, the spam will continue to flow.


Change your email address.
If your email address has already been so contaminated by the spam that none of the steps above can help, then it's time to get a new email address. At HiWAAY, all you really have to do is create a new maibox and start using it. For your new address, use a name that's not a real word and not a name. It's amazing what a difference this can make. I have several mailboxes at hiwaay.net addresses. A few of them are several years old. Some get lots of spam. Some get none. After you've created your new mailbox, make sure you only give your new address to the people you want to receive mail from and follow the tatcics above to keep it clean.


Unfortunately, no one solution can block all the spam. Some junk will always ooze through. However, combining all the techniques above can reduce the flood to a more manageable trickle.


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