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Spam Me

I know I'm having a bad e-mail day when the only messages I get are pitches for multilevel marketing schemes, bogus weight-loss plans or, most ludicrous, ads for programs to help me to launch my own commercial e-mail blitzes.

If much of this junk mail didn't appear to come from morons with little acquaintance with the laws of mail fraud and computer crime -- or at least a spell-checker -- it might be tolerable. But as is, I'm sick of the whole thing -- especially since these people are using my disk space, my connect time and my processing power to shove their message down my inbox.

Unfortunately, this spam epidemic (the term comes from the Monty Python sketch in which a couple's attempt to order breakfast leads to the waitress reeling off a lengthy list of Spam-based entrees) doesn't seem to be slowing. But with a little effort, you can keep your e-mail program from becoming a dumping ground for every tacky pitch out there.

HOW TO AVOID MAKING YOURSELF A TARGET

Most bulk-mailers appear to extract their address lists by trawling public spaces online -- newsgroup postings, personal Web pages, online services' member directories -- for e-mail addresses. Without turning yourself into an online hermit, you can make it harder for them to find you.

Usenet postings:
If you post to Usenet newsgroups -- the worldwide set of electronic bulletin boards accessible through most Internet accounts -- you're sending your e-mail address to millions of computers worldwide. The easiest way to sidestep this publicity is to alter the return address in your postings slightly, by inserting an extra character or phrase, then adding a notice about how to really reach you in your signature. For instance, I might change my own address from "rob@twp.com" to "rob@twp.comx" or "rob@spammers.leave.me.alone," then add a brief line in my signature explaining that my address has been changed to defeat bulk mailers and how to correspond with me. But this works only if you use a separate newsreader program like Free Agent or NewsWatcher (rather than the one in your Web browser); it won't work at all with America Online. Worse, any legit correspondent who innocently hits "reply" without checking your signature will be annoyed when their message bounces.

Web directories:
E-mail directories like Four11 attempt to make it difficult for spammers -- usually by limiting how many addresses can be returned by one search. Some also attempt to block spammers by cutting off access to people who repeatedly trawl address listings. But a smarter tactic is to use the privacy options these directories offer. Four11, Switchboard and WhoWhere allow you to hide your address but still be reachable through a mail-forwarding service (Four11's is a "private e-mail box"; Switchboard, "Knock-Knock"; WhoWhere, "Who'sThere"). If an e-mail directory doesn't offer this, ask it to remove your name from its database.

Member profiles:
America Online's member profiles can be great for finding people, but they're also junk-mail magnets. Filling one out basically guarantees you'll get junk mail, even if you never use the account again. Minimize the information you put in here; leave it blank if you only use AOL for Internet access and don't spend much time in AOL's own areas.

SCREENING YOUR MAIL

The single most effective thing you can do to stop junk mail is to filter it out of your mailbox. But you need a program that does automatic filtering -- so if you're using Netscape, Microsoft Internet Mail and News or Microsoft's hideous Exchange for your mail, you need to change programs. Fortunately, you don't need to spend money. The free version of Qualcomm's Eudora (download) offers powerful filtering and is available for Mac, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Similar filtering capabilities are available in the $60 Pro version of Eudora, as well as Claris's Emailer (Mac, $50) and the less-capable, but free, Pegasus Mail (Mac, Win).

At a minimum, you can have all mail from specific addresses or domains routed directly to the trash, which will take care of repeat offenders. You can also auto-trash all messages with certain phrases, such as the "!!!" so prevalent in the subject lines of junk e-mail. The most effective solution, however, comes after you've gotten a handle on the patterns of your mail. The one identifying characteristic of almost all junk mail is that individual recipients' addresses (i.e., yours) don't appear in a message.

But the same pattern holds true for electronic mailing lists and customer-service messages from your own ISP, so you need to tell Eudora to let those messages by. Then, in Eudora's "Filters" window, create a new filter; in it, have the program transfer messages that don't contain your e-mail address in any recipient header to the trash.

If you use AOL, you don't have the option of using Eudora -- but, after years of inadequacy, the service now provides decent filters of its own. For one thing, it automatically blocks mail from known spammers, a service called "preferred mail." You can also block mail from specific addresses or domains (keyword: Mail Controls) or choose to accept mail only from certain addresses.

SLAMMING THE SPAMMERS

Sending unsolicited bulk e-mail violates the acceptable-use provisions of most Internet providers' contracts and is usually grounds for account termination. But first you need to report the spam to the offender's Internet provider. It should be simple: Just forward the spam you received, with a polite note indicating that you received unsolicited commercial e-mail, to that provider's postmaster -- postmaster@ domain.com, where domain.com is whatever domain appears in the return address of the junk mail. (Some providers, such as AOL and Earthlink, have a special "abuse" address -- abuse@aol.com and abuse@earthlink.net -- for complaints of this sort.)

Unfortunately, many spammers fake the visible headers of their messages. To get around this, you have to look through the headers that usually aren't displayed by e-mail programs. Select your e-mailer's "show headers" command (for instance, in Eudora click the "Blah Blah Blah" icon at the top left of a message window) and look in the Message-ID: and Received: headers. The domains you see there are probably where the spam originated; send your complaints to the postmasters at those sites.

Much spam these days, however, comes from "rogue sites"; you'll know you're dealing with one if your complaints go unanswered or are rejected. In that case, you need to shift your attention to whoever sits "upstream" of that site -- whatever Internet provider gives that site its link to the rest of the Net. Here, things get complex. The "Get That Spammer!" Web page provides a good set of tools to track down spam sites, as well as instructions on how to use these utilities.

Please don't send spam to rob@twp.com.