How do you stop spam email ? Studies show unsolicited or what is more commonly known as junk spam email is now called “spam”. Spam accounts for about half of all e-mail messages received. Once it was just a little bit of a nuisance, but the prevalence of spam has increased to the rate that many users have begun to express a general lack of confidence in the effectiveness of e-mail. Spam is now attributed to one of the main causes and the spread of computer viruses.
To try and stop spam email, in 2003, President Bush signed the “Can Spam” bill, this became the first national standards around bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail. The bill, approved by the Senate by a vote of 97 to 0, prohibits senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from using false return addresses to disguise their identity (spoofing) and the use of dictionaries to generate such mailers. In addition, it prohibits the use of misleading subject lines and requires that emails include and opt-out mechanism. The legislation also makes it illegal for senders to harvest addresses off Web sites.
Violators can be subject to up to one year in jail.
Unfortunately this can only be acted upon to violators from the United States. Spam is now coming from other countries in greater and greater numbers. To stop spam emails from these countries is difficult. These emails are harder to fight, because they come from outside our country’s laws and regulations. Because the Internet opens borders and thinks globally, these laws are fine and good, but do not stop the problem.
So what can you do to stop spam emails ?
Here are the top 5 rules to do to protect from spam:
Number 1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on the net.
There are things called “spam spiders” that search the Internet for email addresses to send email to. If you are interested, do a search on Google and enter “spam spider” and you will be amazed at what you get back. There is a site called WebPoison.org an open source project geared to fight Internet “spambots” and “spam spiders”, by giving them bogus HTML web pages, which contain bogus email addresses. These spammers can even use your e-mail address as the sending address when they send out their spam e-mails.
Number 2: Get a good spam blocking software.
There are many programs out there for this, specially an outlook express spam filter if you are using it. Whatever you do, get the software. It will save you time. The software is not foolproof, but they really do help. You usually have to do some manual set up to block certain types of email.
Number 3: Use the multiple email address approach.
There are a lot of free email addresses to be had. If you must subscribe to newsletters, then have a “back-up” email address. It would be like giving your cell phone number to your best friends and the business number to everyone else.
Number 4: Reading attachments from people you don’t know is a no no.
A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and attachments can have viruses. Corporations often have filters that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far more “open country” for spammers. General rule of thumb: if you do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering. Firewall vendors offer this type of service as well.
Number 5: Email services now have “bulk-mail” baskets.
If what you use currently does not support this, think about moving to a new vendor. The concept is simple. If you know someone, they can send you emails. If you don’t know them, put them in the bulk email pile and then “choose” to allow them into your circle. Spam Blocking software has this concept as well, but having extra layers seems critical these days, so it is worth looking into.
Make sure you have anti virus software that checks coming mail for viruses and Trojans. These programs don’t stop spam email but sure do prevent viruses from entering your system.
