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 Thu, Mar 28, 2024 11:32am EDT

A Sure Way To Fight Spam

Here are a few steps that can help decrease your amount of spam, especially those repeated Nigerian scam e-mails! These steps won't be an overnight fix, but over a short period of time, you should see a significant decrease in the amount of spam you receive.

I usually have to send one complaint and it gathers attention and ceases the problem immediately, and 90% of the time I get a mail back from the host/network provider with an apology and a direct address to contact again if it ever happens. Certain e-mail you're receiving may be against the law. Distribution of pornography, especially to a minor is illegal and those online drug solicitation e-mails are the boldest form of drug trafficking and illegal. Deliberate virus transmissions are also illegal.

The easiest thing to do is go to dnsstuff.com and conduct a lookup on each IP address listed in the received portion of the e-mail header & forward the mail to the abuse/hostmaster/admin address.

The other thing to do which can take a few minutes but guarantees relief:

For starters, I DON'T ever view the e-mail. When you view the e-mail which contain images that are pulled from a server, you're sending a hit back to the sender to let them know their mail is being viewed along with your IP address/network information and more than likely your e-mail address, so they keep sending. I always view the RAW message source of the e-mail, which most all e-mail programs will allow you to do, unless you're an AOL user. But if you have to view the mail normally, quickly change to raw message source view. You'll get to see the URL's associated with the mail and more.

Note: Spammers are now resorting to sprinkling in numerous non-related URL's to attempt to confuse the recipient. Just look up the domain link which is typically surrounding an image to be displayed or a "Click Here" direction. Spammers aren't going to go through such efforts to advertise for other companies. They're trying to get you to click onto their site to obtain your information or get you to buy something, or make money simply by clicking the link.

I then use a network utility (if you have Linux or an Apple computer, you can use the built-in Network Utility application) or IP lookup service such as dnsstuff.com to "Lookup" the base part of the web address, even if it's a bogus looking one. For example, if you see a url that looks like this: http://xyshlsh.4h.hr.ldoeldh.com, you only need to look up the base part "ldoeldh.com". That will then give you the admin contact address for the URL, as well as DNS information for the website's host, which usually has to adhere to state and federal laws if they're a major source of spam. Once you get the IP address of the DNS server, look up that address as well.

From there, send a copy of the raw message source e-mail with full internet headers to the abuse/hostmaster/website contact and MOST IMPORTANT, cc: spam@uce.gov (Federal Trade Commission - www.ftc.gov). If you cannot be removed from the spam or it is not being honored after requesting the first time, reports sent to uce@ftc.gov and/or sentinel@ftc.gov (Consumer Sentinel) will be added to the FTC's Consumer Sentinel database, available to hundreds of law enforcement and consumer protection agencies. And if the spam is really crazy and scary (child porn, drug trafficking, software scams, identity theft), cc: askdoj@usdoj.gov (Attorney General's Office, which is actively prosecuting spammers). And for those never-ending drug solicitations, click here for more information (Food & Drug Administration). The FDA and FTC are in the process of shutting the illegal services down as well as prosecuting.

Other helpful addresses for reporting spam:

•Illegal/pirated software spam - those e-mails that tell you where/how to buy cheap software, but you only receive a CD and may have to wire money (a sure sign of fraud): www.siia.net - report piracy and be eligible to receive reward of up to $1 million dollars. Or report piracy to www.bsa.org - Business Software Alliance and be eligible to receive up to $200,000.00 reward.

•Reporting domains with invalid or bogus info to their registrar - https://wdprs.internic.net. If the domain contact information is incomplete or fraudulent, use the Internic online form to report the problem directly to the registrar. Often spammer domains have bogus contact information. ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers) is cracking down on domains with invalid information. When completing the report, be sure to provide the details of the invalid information and that the domain is a major source of spam.

•Helpful information about Nigerian Advance-Fee Loan scam e-mails is available from:

Remember...if it's legal, the spammer wouldn't go through such efforts to hide their company name, actual e-mail address and site URL.

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