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Definitions of Spam on the Web:
- To indiscriminately
send unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages,
especially
commercial advertising in
mass quantities. Noun: electronic "junk mail".
- is unsolicited
e-mail. The term spamming is also sometimes used by search engines
to mean web sites that
try to gain a
higher
listing by submitting hundreds of almost identical pages
or by inserting hundreds of keywords within a web document.
- Spam refers
to electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people
define spam even more generally as any unsolicited
e-mail. In addition to being a nuisance, spam also eats
up a lot of network bandwidth. Because the Internet is a public
network,
little can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible
to prevent junk mail. However, the use of software filters
in e-mail programs can be used to remove most spam sent
through
e-mail.
The Australian
government has enacted new anti-spam laws, effective 16 July
2006. Read on for more infomation. This code requires
email service providers (like Horizen) :
- to provide spam filtering options to their subscribers.
- to tell their subscribers what default filtering of the subscriber’s
email the internet service provider or eail service provider
does at its own servers.
- to advise
their subscribers how to deal with, and report, spam.
- to ensure
their Acceptable Use Policies prohibit the use of their networks
for spamming; and to inform their subscribers
to that
effect.
- to comply
with all lawful requests of law enforcement and regulatory
agencies investigating spam activity.
The code requires
internet service providers: (items not relevant are struck through
like this)
- not to have
open relay or open proxy servers,
and to impose the same
obligations on their subscribers
through their Acceptable
Use Policies. Horizen uses these settings.
to retain
the right in their Acceptable Use Policies to scan their own
networks for subscribers’ misconfigured
mail and proxy servers.to ensure
their Acceptable Use Policies allow for the immediate termination
of connections they host
where the connection
has become an open relay or open server, either due to
intentional misconfiguration
or to unintentionalinfection
by a virus or other intrusion (ie. become a zombie).if notified
that a subscriber’s account is spamming (eg.
because the subscriber’s computer is a zombie),
to take reasonable steps to warn the subscriber
and offer suggestions on how to correct
the problem. The internet service provider may
immediately terminate the connection if the problem
is serious
or continuing.internet
service providers using dynamic IP address allocation to use
all reasonable
efforts to retain
records of subscriber
allocation for at least seven days. An internet
service provider or email service provider
- should publish
SPF records for each domain administered by it.
- shall comply
with all APNIC requirements for keeping WHOIS data updated,
including ensuring that their own internet
service provider
customers do the same.
In addition,
an internet service provider should:
- impose reasonable
limits on the rate at which subscribers can send email (I
monitor logs regularly)
- allow
subscribers to authenticate to their mail servers using SMTP
AUTH. Subscribers wishing to send email
through the
internet service
provider’s mail server, but who are not
connecting through the internet service provider’s
network, must be required to authenticate themselves
using SMTP AUTH or an equivalent.
- not distribute
customer premises equipment that is configured
by default so as to allow
remote administration
across
the internet.
- prevent
automated registration of email accounts.
- provide
reverse Domain Name System (DNS) entries for any server on
an internet service
provider’s network being used to
send email, including those of the internet
service provider’s
subscribers.
where technically
and commercially viable, not permit computers at dynamically
allocated
IP addresses to
connect directly
via Port 25. ---
And for more
information not in the form of legalese from the statutory bodies
: My best mate
Bilbo Bloggins is shocked by the amount of spam that is getting
through to me, he gets nothing like this. Have you got
a spam
filter
on your server?
Are your friends Internet server administrators?
Are they professional computer consultants? Are they IT experts?
If
you needed brain surgery and they gave you opinion about that,
would you let them operate on you?
If not, then why are you listening
to them about computer related matters ...
It seems that everyone
is an expert on sex, politics, religion, driving and now computers
...
Ok I'm being
frivolous but read on.
---
Unfortunately spam is a world wide problem and if there was
an easy solution then everybody would be using that solution.
1)
I am running several spam & virus filters already,
far more spam would be getting through if I wasn't.
- Attachment Filter X. This filter blocks .BAT, .CMD, .COM, .CPL, .EXE, .LNK,
.PIF, .SCR and .VBS files, as well as blocking base64 and uuencoded zip files
that contain those types of files.
- Bulk Mailer Filter 2 & 3 X. These are filters that check the headers
of messages for the signature of 2 common bulk mailer programs.
- Sender Domain Filter. This filter does a check to see if the domain of the
sender (MAIL FROM) exists. If it doesn't exist, it is refused.
- see here for more detailed
information about these filters
2) I subscribe to 2 spam & virus black lists : NJABL & ORDB
3) I regularly monitor and update anti-spam precautions
I take the
attitude that if the server filters out a good message that you
want, then that is a problem (called a false positive). I would
rather you get some spam than miss out on potential real messages
and business opportunities.
Every time
I have tightened up on spam with extra filtering, too many false
positives occur and people miss out on email. And then people
complain that they aren't getting email ...
In the past
I have also used these EIMS
filters but because of the many poorly
run email servers around the Internet I get too many false positives
- No Message-ID, Short Host & Space Patrol Filters.
I am testing
spamassassin with
EIMS currently. This does a LOT
of tests to give each incoming
email a score that determines the likelyhood of it being a spam.
But guess what, spammers read these lists too and try to make
their spam get past the tests.
Want to know
why you get more spam than Bilbo Bloggins? If you have
email addresses on your web site in plain text / html - these
get scanned
by
spammers
and added
to their
spam lists - you get more spam
If you ever reply to spammers to tell them to stop spamming
- you get more spam
If you have an old email address - generally
you will get more spam
If anyone who has you on their email address
list gets a virus, trojan or malware - you get
more
spam
If you subscribe to any mailing lists and they
sell your email address - you get more spam
If you ever post to news groups - you get more
spam
If you have a plain name, obvious or easy to
guess email address - you get more spam
If your email is on public display with your DNS / domain name
records(as it has to be legally) - you get more spam
Etc, etc, ...
Ultimately
the only way to eliminate spam is to :
Not to
use the Internet, never check your email, dont have an email
or change your existing spam ridden email address. Yes, it's
a pain but sometimes there is no other answer. And dont pick
an email address like john@domain.com.
If you
MUST subscribe to www.pornstar.com then do so with a temporary
hotmail / yahoo / google email
address. Dont use your real email address, because you are
asking for it to get compromised.
Why do
people spam? They are under the mistaken impression
that spamming can make them money. It takes very little investment
to set up a mail server in some remote country and go bananas
spamming away.
---
There are
many individual spam solutions for you to use, some are free,
some
are not. Likely your email client already includes some spam filtering
facilities. If all else fails read the manual. Check versiontracker
for some help with spam filtering solutions :
Mac / PC
Also
do a search in google for spam filter ...
Try here alsofor
more information :
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/consumer.htm
To understand
more about spam :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic) |
