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Spam Fighter's Toolkit

By: Ralph Tegtmeier

Article Word Count: 1257 words  [Comments (0)]
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Fighting the never ending tide of spam mail can turn into a very

frustrating experience if you don't know the real tricks of the

trade. After all, there's a whole lot more to it than simply

responding to a (usually bogus) From: address with a peevish

complaint!



Here's a fairly extensive overview of resources that will aid

you in effectively combatting unsolicited email, showing you the

possibilities (and, alas, the limits!) of your endeavor.



General resources ----------------- The Spamhaus Project

features a database tracks known Spam Gangs, Spam Support

Services and the providers who keep organized spamming alive by

knowingly hosting stealth spamming services on their networks.

An extensive set of databases allows for tracking of established

spam outfits, including statistics, etc. <

http://www.spamhaus.org/ >



Look up this list of established spambots: <

http://mosa.unity.ncsu.edu/brabec/antispam.html >



Resources for header reading are listed at the Forum for

Responsible and Ethical E-mail (some broken links, though): <

http://www.spamfree.org/resources/header_reading.html >



Some spambot harrassment programs are listed here: <

http://www.turnstep.com/Spambot/harassment.html >



Spam.abuse.net calls for spam boycots and offers lots of

information an spam prevention legislation, and more. <

http://spam.abuse.net/ > Read their useful guide titled "How To

Complain To The Spammer's Provider" at: <

http://spam.abuse.net/howtocomplain.html >



Mail forwarding services ------------------------ Protect your

mail box with disposable email addresses by signing up with

Sneakemail: this service forwards everything to your regular box

without disclosing your real address. If you find your

Sneakemail address is being abused, you can simply delete it.

Plus, it will help you track down businesses that flog your

address to third party marketers. Neat. < http://sneakemail.com/

>



Free email forwarding claiming to sport the net's best anti-spam

filters can be found at Despammed.com. Basically, it works as a

remote spam filter. (That's why they term themselves a "mail

filtration service".) < http://www.despammed.com/ >



Spamex takes a similar approach, offering disposable email

addresses as a measure to counter spam. It doesn't bother with

sophisticated spam filters, though - the minute your Spamex

address receives spam, simply nuke it and get a new one. You can

also fit their log in box link into your web browser's links bar

for facilitated access. Their slogan is noteworthy, too:

"Because Sending You Email is a Privilege Not a Right!" <

http://www.spamex.com/ >



One of the best known anti-spam forwarders is Spammotel (what a

name!) which also offers a pretty sophisticated, award winning

plug-in for your email client, allowing you to keep track of

whom you have given which email address of yours. This, of

course, makes it dead easy to test web sites' privacy policy.

Moreover, it makes for a great tool to help you organize the

e-mail you actually do want to receive. (Windows only.) <

http://www.spammotel.com/ >



Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC offers a commercial spam

protection forwarding service at: < https://stop.mail-abuse.org/

>



Spam filters ------------ Webmasters running their own mail

server may be interested in The MAPS Relay Spam Stopper, a

queryable DNS-based database of spam-relaying mail servers. You

can configure your server to utilize their list if you want to

refuse mail from these types of servers. <

http://work-rss.mail-abuse.org/rss/ >



The same site offers the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL). This is

a system for creating intentional network outages ("blackholes")

for the purpose of limiting the transport of

known-to-be-unwanted mass e-mail. The RBL is a subscription-only

system, working in such a manner that no one is denied

connectivity to a non-RBLSM-subscriber. <

http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ >



Reporting spam -------------- This spam complaint primer spells

it all out as it is and offers a sample complaint covering every

important aspect of reporting spam to get spammers' accounts and

web sites terminated. < http://combat.uxn.com racing.html >



The all-time classic to report spam to is the not-for-profit

Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC. < http://mail-abuse.org/ >



The Network Abuse Clearinghouse is a complaint service that will

forward your spam complaints to the culprits flooding your mail

box. < http://www.abuse.net/ >



The MMF Hall of Humiliation takes the approach of ridicule to

combat spammers. Lots of parodies and spoofs of obnoxious

unsolicited commercial emails, and more. Still, it has a very

serious background, informing in detail about fraud indictments

and offering rudimentary legal analysis of spam scams. <

http://ga.to/mmf/ >



This site offers monthly case studies of reporting spam and

lists successes. You'll see that while it's quite an uphill

battle, it can be done. <

http://www.obliquity.com/computer/spambait/ >



Reporting Tools --------------- Some abuse reporting tools are

listed here: < http://www.abuse.net ools.html >



As for anything on the net, there's a fitting mailing list

available for people interested in software tools that detect

and process unsolicited bulk e-mail: <

http://www.abuse.net/spamtools.html >



Proactive Strategies --------------------



UXN Spam Combat offers a nice one-page form aggregating all the

tools you need to solve the spam problem, ranging from NSlookup

and Trace Routing to Pings, decoding of obfuscated web URLs,

etc. Very useful. < http://combat.uxn.com/ >



Uni-encoding the email addresses displayed on your web site is

still a very efficient method of thwaring email address

harvesters or extractor bots: <

http://fantomaster.com/famshield0.html >



This page offers you tools to "poison" the spambots with by

feeding them tons of invalid email addresses. While this

admittedly places some strain on bandwidth and system resources,

it's also pretty easy to crash a spammer's system this way - ah,

sweet revenge! < http://fantomaster.com/faantispamtip2.html >



Many spammers are now offering their pathetic wares not via the

internet but offline, preferably using toll free numbers. This

article outlines a strategy on where and how to hit them hard -

in their pockets! < http://fantomaster.com/faantispamtip3.html >



Probably the most effective method of prevention is blocking

spammers and their harvester bots from your web site altogether.

This tip expounds the strategy to pursue. <

http://fantomaster.com/faantispamtip4.html >



The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) is an

international organization promoting anti-spam legislation. <

http://www.cauce.org/ > They also publish "True Tales of Spam"

here, where you may see your own story featured some day if you

wish tp submit it: < http://www.cauce.org ales/index.shtml >



Fighting spam with procmail under Unix is discussed in detail

here: < http://www.itworld.com/App/354/lw-03-geek_1/ >



The Mega Zine SpamScript software generates tons of bogus email

addresses on the fly to feed (and crash!) spambot systems with.

< http://www.softham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/spam_bots.htm >



For people who can't run CGI on their systems, here's a remotely

hosted version of the spam script: <

http://www.softham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/spam_bots.htm >



Tips on how to lure in spambots to special, "poisoned" sections

of your site while keeping away innocent visitors can be found

here: < http://www.turnstep.com/Spambot/lure.html >



Articles -------- Steven Champeon, Save Your Site from Spambots.

Techniques to Prevent Address Scraping <

http://webtechniques.com/archives/2001/08/champeon/ >



Spambot Fighting site: < http://www.turnstep.com/Spambot/ >



Humor ----- As a comic aside, spam haikus (some more, some less

witty) are featured by the chockfull here: <

http://www.mmfhoh.org/mmf/haiku.html >



Finally, yours truly's "Spam Sonnet" is offered as an educative

example of what spam can inflict on the sensitive artistic mind

... < http://fantomaster.com/faantispamtip5.html >

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