What+is+Unsolicited+E-mail+or+Spam

What is Unsolicited E-mail or "Spam"?
[|Spam] is unsolicited e-mail or the online equivalent of junk mail. Spam wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't quite so voluminous and offensive but sadly it has become an endemic problem in the Internet world. Typically spam offers some doubtful financial service, impotence treatments and invitations to pornographic web sites. Most people can live without this constant barrage of offensive unsolicited e-mail.

How did they get my e-mail address?
Spammers can get to your mail box in a number of ways - they do not always have to have your e-mail address. Spammers can use tools to "mine" e-mail addresses from newsgroups and web sites. Let's say you posted a message in a newsgroup. A spammer can point a software tool at a newsgroup and comb it for e-mail addresses. Ditto for web sites; if your e-mail address appears on a web site, it is fair game to the spammers. Therefore web site owners often receive a lot of spam. If you must post an email address on your website there are techniques that make it harder for spammers to harvest the adddress. For example, using a picture of the text of your email address, instead of the text itself hides the address from some crawlers. Or you can "munge" your email address at [|www.addressmunger.com]. This will wrap it up in java script making it impossible for spam crawlers to identify. Sometimes people who read newsgroups alter their e-mail address and remove the "@" which the spammers' search tools are looking for. They may change the setting for the reply e-mail address to, for example webmaster_at_bellingen.com and place written instructions to people in the newsgroups to replace the "_at_" with an @ when replying.

What you can do to reduce or remove Spam

 * 1) Remove junk mail before you download it to your PC. Use a free POP account checker like [|www.mail2web.com] to view your POP account contents before downloading your mail in Outlook Express (OE) or your preferred e-mail client. There are a number of tools and web sites you can use to query your mail box before download. Start with [|www.mail2web.com]. Tick the items you want to delete, then press the "Delete" button, say "OK" when asked to confirm.
 * 2) Use your email client's blocked senders feature (see below). My blocked sender's list is very, very long. Blocking a sender means that you will no longer receive mail from that source. Most spammers however are already ahead of this feature, and change or hide the address from which they send the spam, so your Blocked Senders list does not recognise the new sender as a blocked one. To block a sender in Outlook Express simply single click a message header, then go MESSAGE> BLOCK SENDER... Outlook will remove all inbound mail from that source and delete future mail from the same source. This method takes a bit of persistence, but pays dividends over time.
 * 3) Use your [|email client's message rules] feature (see below). OEs message rules feature is really aimed at allowing you to file messages as they arrive. You can however set up rules that look for certain words and characters, say in the subject line of an inbound e-mail, and file that message in the Deleted Items folder or delete it from the server. You could for example ask OE to look for occurrences of the words like "loan repayments" or "teen sluts" and have these messages automatically filed in the Deleted Items or removed before downloading them. If you do this however, you should be aware that you could be accidentally delete bona fide message from people you know.
 * 4) Do not post your email address in newsgroups, or on web pages generally. If you really must post an email address in a newsgroup, consider obtaining a free webmail account from a provider such as Hotmail. Use this to monitor your newsgroup or post questions in forums etc, and discard it when the spam level increases. (Yes, Hotmail and other free webmail providers are spam "magnets" but it is sometimes better to use one to divert spam from your regular email address!) In the meantime your "real" email address is still used by your contacts and receives less spam.
 * 5) Install spam blocking software like [|Spam Inspector] (recently acquired by Microsoft) or [|Spamihilator] (freeware). There are several techniques that these programs use to counter spam for example, constructing a blacklist and a whitelist of senders so that immediately, the program can separate trusted and junk mail. For senders not on either list the software can make rule-based judgements based on the appearance of certain words in the email subject and body text. Suspected spam is usually quarantined in a separate folder so that you can review it, just in case a genuine email has been accidentally trapped. Note that because the use of spam blocking software is increasing, you may consider avoiding the use of certain words in emails to people who use it. Anti-Spam software is a growing industry sector and as yet there is no clear market leader. Examples of spam blocking software include iHateSpam, MailWasher, and KillSpam.
 * 6) Change you email addresses... sounds extreme, but very effective. Here's how. Make two new email addresses for your domain. Decide on a public one that will go on your web site, and a private one that will only ever be passed on by word of mouth and email to your choosen correspondants. Encode the new public email address at [|Email Address Encoder]. It is a hack, and not valid html, but it works. Use the encoded characters on your web site (and in forms). This will slow the spammer's recognition of what is an email address from amongst the code on your site. When the spammers do eventually catch up with your new, public email address, just change it and encode it again... maybe on a six month basis. This works! You can reduce your spam to nil. The best thing about this solution... is unlike any of the above ideas, with this one spam does not come any where near your pc. You will have to tell people though what your new private email address is, and not use the public one on business livery, but that can be phased in quickly.

Outlook Express 6
To delete mail containing certain words, in the conditions box select "when message body contains specific words" or "when subject line contains specific words" then edit the word list by clicking on the blue underlined text in the Rule Description box.
 * # Open Outlook Express and click on "Tools"
 * 1) Select "Message Rules" then "Mail" (see illustration right)
 * 2) In the conditions box select "Where the From line contains people"
 * 3) Select "Delete it" in the action field
 * 4) In the Rule Description field select the word "Contains People"
 * 5) Type the email address that you no longer wish to receive email from and click "Add"
 * 6) Click "OK" on select people and click "OK" on New Mail Rule || How to access your message rules editor. ||
 * Ruler editor. Tick the boxes to complete the wizard. || Sample completed message rule ||

Thunderbird
See an excellent resource on Thunderbird's message rules (called "filters") at [|www.freemailtutorials.com]

Eudora Lite 5
To set up filters on Eudora Lite, please refer to http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/tutorials/win_filters.html, where you will find detailed instructions and screen shots showing how to set up filters for Eudora.

Outlook Express 5

 * 1) Click on "Tools" then on "Rules" Then on the 'Mail (POP)' Tab. Ensure 'Enabled' is ticked
 * 2) Click "New" then select "Mail(POP)" from the dropdown list
 * 3) Type a name for the Rule
 * 4) Select "if any criteria is met" from 'execute actions'
 * 5) Select "message body" or "any header" from the first drop down list, then "contains" from the second drop down list
 * 6) Fill in the field next to them with the words you want to filter out
 * 7) Select 'delete message' from the last drop down list
 * 8) Click OK.

Eudora Lite 5
To set up filters on Eudora Lite, please refer to http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/tutorials/mac_filters.html, where you will find detailed instructions and screen shots showing how to set up filters for Eudora.

Spam & Your Rights
At present you have almost no rights. If you want to complain your best option is the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Helen Coonan. Government sub-committees are meeting to discuss these and other privacy issues and the Internet but to date no decisions have been made. Privacy Law in Australia is not currently useful in the battle against spam. The Privacy Act of 1988 was amended in 2000 but remains unclear, as there are a large number of exceptions and exemptions to the legislation, as well as heavy reliance on the undefined term "unreasonable". Companies and lawyers will be spending a good deal of time establishing what constitutes "unreasonable" behaviour under the Act. An announcement was made in July 2003 by Senator Alston, then Minister for Communications and Information Technology that spam would be outlawed and fines introduced for those choosing to continue spamming, however no Bill has been passed yet. Please see [|http://www.privacy.gov.au] to find out the limits of your rights in Australia, or go to [|http://www.adma.com.au] to see voluntary codes suggested by the Australia Direct Mail Association. In early December 2003 the US Congress approved the first national bill to combat spam. The bill does not prohibit commercial mail itself, or even mass mailing of commercial mail, but requires senders to identify themselves correctly. Some other measures in the bill include:
 * Fines and prison sentences of up to five years for senders of spam.
 * Senders of unsolicited commercial mail are prohibited from harvesting addresses off websites.
 * Spammers are obliged to include a mechanism so that recipients can indicate whether or not they want to receive messages in the future.

What are computer viruses?
A computer virus is malicious code that is engineered to replace or destroy legitimate files or disable functions on your computer. Computer viruses are "executable". This means they can be double clicked and "run" like any other program on your pc. However unlike other programs on your computer they have undesirable consequences.

What do they do?
Generally today's viruses: There are a number of web sites that describe the precise behaviours of every known virus. My favourite is [|Symantec Security Centre] (the maker of the Norton's products).
 * Replace or rename Windows system files
 * Attempt to destroy hard drive partitioning or attack the operating system in some way
 * Write themselves into your computer's registry and therefore reinstall themselves each time you restart your computer.
 * They sometimes set their own attributes to "hidden" so they are less easy to find
 * Replicate themselves and send themselves from your computer to other computers

Are Mac's any more or less susceptible?
Generally, the answer to this question has to be "yes". The long answer though is that the vast majority of personal computing is performed on various Windows operating systems, like 90%. For this reason, people who write viruses target Windows. Recently though, Mac has also begun to be targeted.

Where do they come from?
People write them. It is a sad fact. Like people who light bush fires or vandalise your car or deface your fence… they want to spoil things for others. They enjoy taking advantage of people who are less informed about computing than themselves. Or they want to make the point that the most common operating system in the world is extremely prone to malicious attack. Or they are competing with their peers by trying to write a virus that is more damaging and wide spread or "wild" than others. All this is speculation though,

What are the Best Anti Virus Programs?
This is a very good question. Although programs come and go in terms of effectiveness, here is a short list:
 * [|BitDefender]
 * [|Kaspersky]
 * F-Secure Anti-Virus
 * [|PC-cillin]
 * [|ESET Nod32]
 * McAfee VirusScan
 * [|Norton AntiVirus]
 * [|AVG AntiVirus]
 * eTrust EZ Antivirus
 * Norman Virus Control

How do they work?
An Anti Virus program sits between you and a virus executing. For example, an Anti Virus program starts up when you start your computer and from then on it inspects every file you open or save to see if it contains a virus. Similarly, when you receive email, it checks all inbound and outbound email for attachments that contain viri. If it detects a virus, it "quarantines" it, that is, makes it non executable.

To Be Really, Really Sure
Let's say you want a second opinion on whether your PC is clean of viri. Or you don't trust your AV product. Or you think your AV product may have missed something. There are a couple of web sites that use Active X controls from within your browser to install and run a virus checker on your PC. The best in my view is [|Panda Active Scan]. Symantec have a tool too.

What is Spyware?
Spyware is another type of software that installs in the background without your express knowledge. It usually does things like "browser hijacks" to redirect your browser to its pop ups, commercials or websites. Spyware can also send information about selections you make on web sites and other media and return that information to a central server. This was the case with earlier versions of Real Player. People generally consider spyware to be a dirty trick, so today software vendors (who want to protect their reputation) offer to turn on or off information gathering at install.

Pop Ups
Pop ups are extra browser windows that open automatically as you browse from web page to web page. They are more irratating than dangerous. Today most [|browser tool bars] have pop up killers included as does the later versions of Windows. At their worst pop ups would open many, many windows of commercials over your work space - so fast and numerous that they are impossible to close down before other open. On slower computers, this would grind the system to a halt.

What is Adware?
Adware is a computer-licensing model that gives you a program to install for free, but send ads to a pane in the newly installed software. The ads can usually be removed by paying for a full license of the software. The once popular [|Eudora email client] was a good example of this.

What is Phishing?
Before the Internet a person who did "[|Phishing]" would have been called a trickster or con man. Phishing occurs by email. The email generally says something like; "there has been a security breach of your bank account, ebay or paypal account and you have to click here and log in a change your password". See a screen shot of a phish below. The email generally includes the logo of the alleged sender, say the Westpac Bank or the Commonwealth Bank. The link that you are encouraged to click however goes to a third party domain. Once you log in there of course the trickster has got your account details and can usually change your password and lock you out. Then the onus is on you to prove to your bank you are who you say you are and get your access back.

Phishing Scam - don't be fooled //Don't be fooled. Always open your browser and type your bank's URL to start your banking session. Never click a link supplied to you in email - you will be directed to someone else server.//