UCE: Internet Unsolicited Email (spam)

Note: spam (lowercase) is not the same as SPAM (uppercase) the latter is a food product that helped the Allies win WWII. The former is wasted bandwidth.

http://public.pacbell.net/faq/caspam.html We are encouraged by California's passage of two new anti-spam laws which took effect Jan. 1, 1999. California Business and Professions Code Section 17538.45 permits Internet providers to sue spammers who send spam into or out of their networks under certain circumstances, and Section 17538.4 requires all spam messages to be clearly labelled "ADV:" in the subject line (and, for adult-oriented material, to be labelled "ADV:ADLT").

http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=2799313973+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=2799313973+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

1999.10.25 The House is weighing The Unsolicited Electronic Mail Act, a bill that would create a nationwide list of computer users who do not want to receive junk e-mail. According to the bill, anyone on the list for more than a month can sue for $500 for every piece of junk e-mail (spam) sent to them.

Reply to remove and send your email address to this address to remove are not accepted as some spammers use this to verify email addresses (and continue spamming) or sell the address to other spammers. People are more likely to be willing to try for removal from an email list if there is a link to a web page that can be identified as the source (e.g. also talks about products featured in the spam)

Also:

• Obfusating email addresses on web pages.
• Some info from Robert Rolf
• An automated spam reporting script for MS Outlook
• How email is sent via SMTP
• Avoiding Virii; Anti Virus; Virus
• Validating eMail headers
• How to run a scam blocking list
• Location Data From IP address to block emails from countries that do not regulate thier servers.

Glossary:

RBL

Realtime Blocking List: A list of known spam sources (by IP address) that is updated constantly. Due to the large size and need for instant updates, most RBLs are not distributed as an acutal list. To check an incomming IP address, a reverse DNS request is sent to the RBL server with the IP in question. If the IP address is known, it is a spam source. Otherwise, it is probably ok.

POP3

Post Office Protocol v3: The language used to transfer emails between email servers and email clients.

SMTP

Simple Mail Transport Protocol: The language used to transfer emails between email servers. SMTP really is simple.

See also:

• http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=map;net=cmaxcnt;mask=65535;sort=spamcnt;format=text SpamCop now has lists of the IP blocks that send the most spam.
   
• http://www.spampal.org/usermanual/servers/server_programs.htm Freeware eMail relay (POP3 but may also work as SMTP relay) that can check the RBL(s), regexps, and URLs and reject email from known spam sources. Developer has been inactive for a long time.
   
• http://www.spamgourmet.com Offers x time use email addresses. Used more than x times, the email address is considered spam
   
• http://www.vicomsoft.com/knowledge/reference/spam.html ...an interesting and informative document designed to raise awareness about Spam and offer practical solutions to email users...

  Looks like they are about to release some anti-spam software, but the FAQ was good when I checked it.

• http://www.nthelp.com/OEtest/oe.htm How Outlook helps spammers target you.
   
• http://samspade.com/t/
• http://samspade.org/ssw/ nice tool set. Does everything (ping, traceroute, dig, relay check, website grab and search, message header analysis, etc...
   
• http://www.abuse.net/relay.html tests smtp servers for unauthorized relay vulnerabilities
• http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/ Ad Aware will seek and destroy adware and spyware. Keeping your computer clean is a great way to avoid spam.
• http://mail-abuse.org/tsi/ar-fix.html
• http://www.whizkidtech.net/cgi-bin/tutorial
• http://willmaster.com/possibilities/demo/aelgwase.html
• http://assp.sourceforge.net/ SMTP transparent proxy with baysean, RBL, and AV support. Sets between your email server and the outside world, checks connections against lists of known spammers, automatically trains itself to recognise and flag spam by looking at identified spam. It is a perl script. Runs in many OSs and works with almost any MTA. As with most FOSS, documentation is abismal, but the online help isn't too bad. My initial concerns with reliablility have proven unwarrented; apparently lots of problems are caused by inexperienced users.
  • http://www.andersonit.com/assp.html Windows installer. Out of date.
  • https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1658510&forum_id=235332 Multiple MTA's with one install of ASSP.
  • http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8259 Aparently not compatible with SpamCop.

Scientists decode the first message from an alien civilization:

SIMPLY SEND 6 TIMES 10 TO THE 50 ATOMS OF HYDROGEN TO THE STAR  SYSTEM AT THE TOP OF THE LIST, CROSS OFF THAT STAR SYSTEM, THEN PUT YOUR STAR SYSTEM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LIST AND SEND IT TO 100 OTHER STAR SYSTEMS. WITHIN ONE TENTH GALACTIC ROTATION YOU WILL RECEIVE ENOUGH HYDROGREN TO POWER YOUR CIVILIZATION UNTIL ENTROPY REACHES ITS MAXIMUM! IT REALLY WORKS!

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