Forum Moderators: phranque
Question: What is to be done about the avalanche of junk/spam email that is inflicting the online world?
In my opinion, this problem is getting so out of hand, it threatens to drive a stake through the heart of ecommerce.
We are a microbusiness - just my wife and myself - and we receive on a daily basis between 300 & 400 emails, of which 95% is total garbage. Much of it is downright offensive.
I am getting the sense that a lot of people are turning away from using the web as much as they would otherwise because they are tired of being assaulted by this unrelenting onslaught. When you then also factor in a constant barrage of popup windows, and search engine results that have only peripheral relevance to the query, you have a recipe for disaster. For an awful lot of folks, it is not fun anymore.
Fortunately, I found a tremendous email program called EmC5.0 that allows me to bump this crap off the server without having to download it to our machine. But how many casual users even know such programs exist?
Here are a few solutions I will offer about controlling this disease:
[1] Outlook, Eudora, and other email programs must build into the user interface the ability to easily check the server to see what is there prior to downloading, so the spam can be immediately eliminated;
[2] Since much of the problem originates with the free email accounts - Yahoo, Hotmail, etc - they must do everything possible to limit the number of emails that an account can send. Limit by account name, limit with a cookie, limit by IP address if necessary. They might not stop it, but they might slow it down;
[3] Make it a federal law that all mass email communications *must* include a no-nonsense "remove me", just as is being mandated in the telemarketing field. That means that you must remove the person from your own list, and, under no circumstances can you then sell the name to anyone else. If you do, you face severe fines.
Those are just 3 ideas that occur to me - each of which is do-able. I would love to see a dialogue from others who have their own ideas...
Of course, now the spammers try to disguise key words so filters don't work. Its a continuing fight.
It automates filtering, keeps track of blacklists, friends lists, etc. to make it easy to filter out the spam.
Send me a stickymail for the URL.
I have Norton checking all incoming mail for virus. I would never use outlook express as this can allow a lot of things that Eudora will not....such as someone actually getting all your email address right out of outlook AND emailing them out with a virus to look like you are doing it.
I'll just stick with good old Eudora Pro.
Ann
As for handling your own incoming spam, many of us have found safe harbor in mailwasher. [webmasterworld.com...]
[edited by: rcjordan at 5:17 pm (utc) on June 28, 2002]
With this freeware EmC5.0 (available via WebAttack.com), all I have to do is click "Get Messages", and it will bring back to me the entire list of what is sitting on the server. The ones that it believes are spam (according to the filters I have set up) are yellowed, and already checked for deletion. I can add a new filter at anytime, and like MailWasher, can add Favorites (never deleted) or a blacklist (always deleted).
After cleaning off the junk, I then use PegasusMail to retrieve the good messages, which I can read and reply to. This combination allows me to control what would otherwise be an overwhelming aggravation.
But my point mostly concerns all those folks out there who do not know about all this stuff. If they turn away from the web, because it is mostly just annoying, then ecommerce will suffer severely.
So again, I hope the powers-that-be will do everything possible to cut the guts out of the spammers, and simultaneously make it easy for the recipients to use email as it was meant to be used - as a means of communications, and for "permission based marketing".
I really don't care about Britney Spears pictures, or barnyard sex, or the newest herbal enhancer, or any of the other scams coming down the cyberhighway. And I can't imagine that there are many other people who really care to know these things either. Those who do want it can ask for it - the rest of us should be able to *permanently* opt out. Giving the web community a way to eliminate this waste from their lives will go a long way towards restoring enthusiam for this (constantly developing) new medium.....
Very good suggestion rc! I have added a link on one of our pages that will launch a popup when clicked. On that popup are links to the two anti-spam programs we have been discussing, with a brief description of each.
Anyone who wants to join this "fight back" effort by adding a similar page on your own site is welcomed to use both the source code and the screen shot graphics:
[cyberfirms.com...]
If you also want to make your link a popup, then put this in the <head>
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function openInfo(){
info = window.open('stopspam.html','info', 'toolbar=0,
location=0,directories=0,status=0,menubar=0,scrollbars=1,
resizable=1,width=525,height=475');
return false;
info.focus()
}
//-->
</script>And put this at the link itself:
<a onmouseover="window.status='Help is available for removing
email spam from your life'; return true" onclick="return openInfo
'HTML/stopspam.html');" href="stopspam.html"><b>Eliminate Email
Spam!!</b></a>The line has been drawn! Let the battle ensue...
<edited to fix sidescroll>
[edited by: oilman at 7:38 pm (utc) on June 28, 2002]
I am glad to hear that Outlook allows people to check for a listing of recent emails, for deletion if necessary.
Actually, that's not exactly what I said. :) First, I'm talking about Oulook Express. Outlook is a completely different program and I specifically said that I am not aware of the capabilities of the latest version of Outlook.
Outlook Express allows for automatic filtering and deletion of e-mails at the server level. No user intervention is required - or possible. There is no list of e-mails to look at - e-mails which meet the filter criteria are deleted without being seen or downloaded.
I know there are a lot mailwasher fans here, but I don't really see the point in deleting spam from Mailwasher vs. your e-mail program. Why use two programs, go on line twice, etc.? I would just as soon download the junk and delete it on the desktop. Just my preference.
Won't get in to the Eudora vs. MS issue.
For many of us, it comes down to an issue of quantity of spam (= accumulated file sizes) and access speed. In the rural area where I live, high speed access is not even available, and the fastest we can *ever* connect is 28000 kps, even though we run all 56k modems.
So when I open my email at 9am, there are never less than 100 emails, some of which have file sizes of 300k (or more). To download all that junk, then have to delete it from my harddrive, is a considerable aggravation. The program I use - EmC (which apparently is just like MailWasher) - lets me wipe out the likely 95+ spams in a matter of about 2 minutes. Then the other 5 real messages are downloaded and I can deal with them.
By the time I shut down at 11pm, I'll have at least 200 more messages, so by keeping EmC open, I can periodically check to keep the account as clean as possible.
If Outlook Express does not allow for user intervention, then I don't like it - too many times good messages will get deleted if the recipient cannot see the sender/subject. Both EmC and MailWasher will give you all that information, so you can decide for yourself whether to let it through or not...
It is pretty strict and does cause problems w/ some false positives. But what you can do is send an automated reply to the person who sends the message, alert them to the fact that their ISP supports open relays and educate them in that message. I've helped shut down a number of open relays in this manner. One even running on a local school district's email system.
If you have any control over mail servers, make sure your mail server does not work as an open relay. If you are really serious about hurting spammers, block all incoming mail to any of your users (this is for web hosting companies or ISP's) that comes from an open relay. If you can figure out a way to detect that a message comes from formmail, block those too as it is almost assuredly a script.
I've also seen some .htaccess files on these forums that block certain user agents such as spam bots, etc. Email messages also sometimes have X-Mailer headers which are the equivalent of user agents. Perhaps we should build an X-Mailer blacklist too.
something that people don't often realise is that moves to make spam illegal and have already come close to succeeding. CAUCE came close to a legal victory in europe, prevented only by some ignorant MEPs. there is a chance that further efforts to educate MEPs could force a change in the law. see www.cauce.org and euro.cauce.org
if possible, join CAUCE and promote it. the more people on board, the better the chances next time this gets to court.
Obviously, mass-emailing works. They play the numbers, a 2% return is great, if they mass mail to millions of addresses.
They could really care less whether or not you want or view the ads. Someone, somewhere does.
I think if it were possible to educate people to the fact that many of these companies are just waiting to rip you off, it would eventually become ineffective for them to send these mass mailings because the rate of return would diminish. Who wants that job? Not me.
I had someone come in and ask me for a quote on turning one of those "$10,000 or more a month working from home" large bold text spam mails into a web page with a response form.
Funny though, as interested as he was in making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on this fabulous business opportunity, paying $100 for a webpage with installed formmail script was too much... he never emailed back.
Thank goodness he didn't! If I do hear from him again, my conscience is going to get the best of me... There's no way I could take money from someone that gullible, or inflict that kind of trash on the internet as a whole...
That's what I don't get about email spammers: how do they sleep at night knowing they've spent their day fleecing the ignorant and harrasing the rest of us?
"No one ever went broke under estimating the intelligence of the public"
How sad that we have humans willing to test such cynicism...
I've been using it a couple of months, and the the reduction in spam has beenquite significant. It's certainly not the perfect answer, but it helps.
funny that ... a couple of months back i made sure a spammer didn't sleep too well ... i phoned him up around 2am ... he wasn't too happy ...
since then the company he works for has sent me at least another 100 emails at various email addresses ... friends have also received a lot of spam from the same people ... the company is just plain ignorant ... enough is enough, the time has come for revenge ... ddos time ;)
I just noticed the reccomendation to block all mail coming through formmail??????
I sincerely hope not! That's how I recieve my orders, LOL.
Ann
The other week there was a lot of noise being made in the media about a tool called Cloudmark SpamNet. It's an Outlook 2000/XP plug-in that takes a Napster type approach to spam reporting. I haven't tried this, but would be interested to hear if it works.
if you want to continue using formmail, rename it to something obscure, ensure you are using v1.9 or above, use referrers (see the formmail docs for formmail for more info) and do not allow sending of emails to any email address other than your own.
I did, plus I call it from a secure server now. :)
Ann
When will it stop?
When people finally realize that if you deal with a company that hides behind the Internet, you are inviting a potential thief into your life.
If there is no way to contact the company except thru email then DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THEM.
I personally refuse to do business with any company that I cannot contact.
In the long run, I think people will figure this out and stop spending money with these companies.
Who can come up with a solid definition for what is spam and what is simply a legitimate business trying to keep in touch with prospects and customers?
Until someone can make that definition clear, you cannot simply ban all unsolicited email.
Along with the hundreds of "junk" (which also clog my regular mail box as well) emails, I receive information from Amazon.com (is that spam) or buy.com, or ibm.com or a host of other companies whose messages I regularly delete.
I would say that one important difference between legitimate companies and "spammers" is the ability to be removed from the list. I can contact amazon.com and be removed from their list, but I can't quite seem to respond to the Nigerians.
To support my online business, and to grow it, I regularly send out 5 - 10 K emails a month to a targeted audience. Each email contains a privacy notice and a place to click to be removed from the list. When they ask to be removed, they are removed.
But until a working definition of "spam" is adopted, you can't arbitrarily ask to ban all unsolicited email.
================================================
[1] Outlook, Eudora, and other email programs must build into the user interface the ability to easily check the server to see what is there prior to downloading, so the spam can be immediately eliminated;
[2] Since much of the problem originates with the free email accounts - Yahoo, Hotmail, etc - they must do everything possible to limit the number of emails that an account can send. Limit by account name, limit with a cookie, limit by IP address if necessary. They might not stop it, but they might slow it down;
[3] Make it a federal law that all mass email communications *must* include a no-nonsense "remove me", just as is being mandated in the telemarketing field. That means that you must remove the person from your own list, and, under no circumstances can you then sell the name to anyone else. If you do, you face severe fines.
================================================
I don't know about the rest of you, but my Outlook 2000 already has a filter to do this. However, it is not entirely accurate and perfectly good messages get tossed in with the junk.
[2] Since much of the problem originates with the free email accounts - Yahoo, Hotmail, etc - they must do everything possible to limit the number of emails that an account can send. Limit by account name, limit with a cookie, limit by IP address if necessary. They might not stop it, but they might slow it down;
I think this is a fine idea. My mail server is very easy to configure and limit the number of mails a person can send, although the mailing list accounts don't seem to adhere to that limit. But this is also very easy to circumvent. Just use one account for the "A's", another for the B's, etc.
[3] Make it a federal law that all mass email communications *must* include a no-nonsense "remove me", just as is being mandated in the telemarketing field. That means that you must remove the person from your own list, and, under no circumstances can you then sell the name to anyone else. If you do, you face severe fines.
Also a good idea, but do you really think the illegals care about such a law? If most of the spammers come from off shore, they wouldn't need to do this, and we'd still be stuck. Again, the legitimate ones will be glad to do this, but the Nigerians won't be affected.
It's a rough situation, but I don't know what to do about it either.
Both MailWasher and EmC will list everything on the server (sender, subject, date, file size, etc), with a check box next to each. If you want them, you get them; if not, they are immediately deleted at the server - NO download to your harddrive. A tremendous feature. *That* is what I'd like to see built into every major email program.
And yes, it is easy to circumvent limitations to email accounts. But I take the position that it is important to make it as difficult as possible for these people.
And finally, it is true that a lot of the junk coming in from some areas of the world will continue no matter what all of our laws say. But again, imagine the decrease if we can just clean up much of our own house(s), and, educate people to ignore those scams.
To me, it is important to *empower* recipients, and simultaneously, we must NOT make it easy for the spamcreeps to screw the rest of us!
should i receive one of your spams, i hope you won't mind me returning the favour by sending you 5 - 10k emails? you will after all, by your own definiteion, be a legitimate targetted audience for these emails.
From a business point of view, it a legimate too for prospecting for customers.
From the end-user point of view it's annoying spam email (in most cases).
The point of view depends on whether you're sending or receiving huge amounts of email.
I guess a question to ask would be, does it make sense to annoy thousands to gain a few customers. Are you building long-term business relationships by using this method.
The problem came to be because there is no cost associated with sending out thousands of emails. The US government will need to put a tax on the sending of unsolicated emails to stop this in the future. I don't like this solution, but unless we can apply some cost to this, it will never go away.
it's spam when they send it
it's carefully targeted promotional email when we send it
as far as I'm concerned anything that goes to multiple recipients should be opt in
