July 2001

Junk E-mail

Everyone is familiar with the junk mail that is delivered by the U.S. Postal Service every afternoon. Junk e-mail (spam) is the same thing in your electronic mailbox. Since we have entered an era of communication through e-mail, electronic spam has become a large problem to both the home computer user and the corporate information services department. In addition to wasting people’s time with unwanted e-mail, spam also wastes a lot of network resources. Most spam is generally some sort of e-mail advertising for a product that is sent to a mailing list or newsgroup. Below are some tips for recognizing spam and limiting the amount of spam you receive.

Junk e-mail can be cleverly disguised, making it difficult to distinguish from personal e-mail. Below are some tips on how to distinguish between unwanted junk e-mail and e-mail that you actually want to read.

I always check the sender’s name before I open the mail. Quickly glance down the “From” column in your inbox to see who sent the message. What you’re looking for is e-mail from addresses you do not recognize. You can also use the domain name to pick out spam mail. The domain is what appears after the @ symbol. For instance, I know that anyone with the domain name nysscpa.org is a member, and these messages I want to read, but any message from a domain like getrich.com is from no one I know. Once you get through cleaning out junk e-mail, you should be left with e-mail from the people you know. The only problem with this method is you may inadvertently delete a message from a long lost friend. This is a price I am willing to pay.

There are some subject lines that make it obvious that the message is spam. My rule is any message that has a subject that includes the words “free” or “hot” or “make money fast” is probably not from someone I know, or want to know. I also avoid any message that does not have a subject.

After you have learned how to pick out spam, the next thing is to try to reduce the amount you get. It is becoming harder to stop spam completely, but there are a few things you can do to reduce the flood.

If you receive a lot of junk e-mail, you should report it to your Internet service provider (ISP). There are actions they can take in order to block mail from spam offenders. Most junk e-mail is forged, meaning that the addresses and domains shown on the “from,” “to,” “reply-to,” and “return-path,” lines are fake. You should forward the original e-mail to support because there is information in the header record that they can use to track down the true origin. You should NOT respond to junk e-mail in any way—even if you’re asking to be removed. The majority of the time this is just a way for the spammer to confirm your e-mail address, and it will show them that you are reading their messages. Responding to a piece of junk e-mail will guarantee even more junk e-mail being sent to you.

You may receive unsolicited mailings any time you do something that makes your e-mail address open to the public. You should be aware that if you post to a message board or newsgroup, chat online, or join mailing lists you are opening yourself up to junk mail. These three activities are the easiest way for spammers to “harvest” names and addresses. If you need to do one of these, I suggest creating a separate e-mail account.

Just like junk mail, spam will not go away. I hope the suggestions I have offered will help to reduce the amount that you get.

If you would like to read further on this topic please visit the links I have provided below.