How To Avoid Spam Robots |
For years I did not worry much about spam. But lately it's got out of control. Over half of my email is now spam, and it was growing byweek - until I took action. This article shows you some strategies for winningwar on spam. ------------------------------------------------ How Do They Get Your Address? ------------------------------------------------ Inold days, spammers got their addresses mainly from Newsgroups - if you did not post to Newsgroups, you were reasonably safe. But they're now usingmuch more efficient method to build their lists - email harvesters. Email harvesters are robots that roamInternet collecting email addresses from web pages. Examples are EmailSiphon, Cherry Picker, Web Weasel, Web Bandit and Email Wolf, to name justfew. How can you protect yourself from email harvesters? By 'munging' (mung = 'mash until no good') or cloaking your email address. There are many ways of munging your address -easiest technique is to use ASCII code forpunctuation in your email address (instead of symbols). Forcolon after mailto use : and for@ symbol use @ and for period use . . With this method, your email address would become: mailto:yourname@yourdomain.com but it will display as: mailto:yourname@yourdomain.com Your email address will appear exactly as it did before, and it will still be 'clickable', but email harvesters will ignore it and move on. There are also JavaScript's that you can insert into your web page that will make your email address visible to humans but invisible to harvesting programs. Here's one that works very well: http://pointlessprocess.com/JavaScripts/anti-spam.htm ----------------------------- How To Fight Spam ----------------------------- The most important thing is never, ever, reply to spam. Most spam containsinnocent-looking 'remove me' email address. Do not use it. Here's why: Spammers typically buyCD containingmillion or so email addresses, but they have no idea how many of those addresses are active. So before beginning their marketing campaign in earnest, they send out'test message' toentire list. The test message containsemail address for removing yourself. When you reply to that address, it confirms tospammer that your address is active and therefore worth spamming. Worse still,spammer may be distilling from that CDlist of confirmed active addresses that he will then sell to another spammer. The key to dealing with spam is to report it tothreerd party: (one) affiliate program thatspammer is advertising, (two)spammer's web host, or (three)ISPspammer used to connect toInternet. When you report spam tothreerd party, remember to be polite - they did not sendspam and they're probably just as anti-spam as you are. (one) Reporting to Affiliate Programs Many spammers are affiliates advertising someone else's products or services. So look forwebsite address that containsaffiliate link, something like this: www.affiliateprogramdomain/eightfouronefivetwosix Then just sendemail toaffiliate program (abuse@affiliateprogramdomain.com), informing them that you are receiving spam from one of their affiliates. Most affiliate programs have zero tolerance for spamming and will removeaffiliate spammer without warning. Now, affiliate spammers do not want you to see their affiliate link, so many of them send their email as HTML. All you see inmessage are words 'Click Here and Order Now'. But in your browser just click on 'View Source Code' and search for letters 'http'. That will take you tospammer's affiliate link. (two) Reporting to Web Hosts Ifspam doesn't containaffiliate link, it's likely that it is coming fromowner ofdomain name. In that case you'll have to report it tospammer's web host or their ISP. To makereport tospammer's web host just go to Whois, directory of registered domain names: http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois Type inspammer's domain (the website address that appears in spam) together withextension (.com, .org, .net etc). The host for that domain will usually be listed asTechnical Contact inWhois record and there will beemail address for contacting them. (three) Reporting to ISPs To reportspammer to his Internet Service Provider, you'll have to look atspam's 'extended headers'. Extended headers showservers thatmessage passed through in order to get to you. The instructions for viewing extended headers will vary depending on what email client you are using. => In Pegasus Mail, openoffending message and then right-click and choose 'Show raw message data'. => In Eudora Light, click on 'Tools' intop menu bar, and then 'Options', and then select the checkbox option that says 'Show all headers (even the ugly ones)' and click OK. => In Outlook Express, openoffending message, select 'Properties' fromFile menu and then click'Details' tab. Reading and understanding extended headers is quitedetailed subject. Here'sexcellent free tutorial on how to decipher extended headers: http://www.doughnut.demon.co.uk/SpamTrackingonezeroone.html Asalternative to these reporting techniques, you could use web-based spam reporting service such as SpamCop (www.spamcop.net). SpamCop deciphersspam's message headers and tracesmail back to its source. Wishing you every success infight against spam! ------------------------------------------------------------
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