what is spam?.

hi guys i want to know about spam and how to protect ip from spam?
any best software recommanded for use....

 

One place to watch carefully that I am sure of. E-MAIL

I use MailWasher to preview the mail right on the server. And then delete it right off of the server if it does not look ligit.

I just checked a few minutes ago and there were 16. yes SIXTEEN e-mails. 15 out of the 16 were pure TRASH. And all came in since 12 AM today.

A whlie back I took a chance and gambled by downloading and clicking on an enclosed link. My wife saw stuff that very nearly got me crowned.
not in a nice way either

Unless I get another non-thinking moment I hope that I do not do that again.

BillyBob

 

SPAM is unsollicited commercial email (UCE)

Rules for dealing with SPAM

First and formost, never open spam while onlint.
This includes your preview pane. In OutlooK Express, go to view => layout => Uncheck show preview pane.
Then NEVER OPEN A SUSPECT EMAIL WHILE ONLINE
This is because most spam contain what is called a "webbug" (http://www.bugnosis.org/faq.html)
"A Web bug is a graphic on a Web page or in an e-mail message designed to monitor who is reading the page or message. Web bugs are often invisible because they are typically only 1-by-1 pixels in size. In many cases, Web bugs are placed on Web pages by third parties interested in collecting data about visitors to those pages. "

In the case of SPAM, the unique identifier of the web bug is used to correlate to a database of emails spammed thus allowing them to confirm vaild emails and sell them to other spammers.
I used to recommend forwarding these spam to UCE@FTC.gov and your state attorney general (make sure to do the properties/ message source and copy and paste all the header information ) but due to the fact that you must do this offline (compose the forwared , send , and it will go to outbox but not be sent until you reconnect) and many users have broadband and are unsure of how to do this, I no longer advise it. I say, just delete em.
If you absolutely must see the contents, do a print preview. This generally will only show what has already arrived , and will not trigger the
fetch images that opening the page would. If you see any unique identifiers or .gifs, you know you definitely should not open it.

Never click on the remove from list unless you know it is a valid company that is sending the spam. The real spammers do not use their own machines or addresses. They do not care for the anti spam legislation (can spam act) since they are probably violating other laws too. Usually all the clicking on remove does is confirm you are a live address.

The same applies to bouncing spam back where it came. When they spam a whole range of email addresses at one ISP, they know that the ISP is not going to bother notifying them, the spammer , of each and every incorrect and non existant email address. The ISP will recognize the invalid emails as being spam and just delete them. If you bounce the spam back, it confirms that it is not the ISP sending this bounce, and thus confirms your email as a valid one which can be resold. So if you have a spam bouncer program turn it off, it is worse than useless.

Use a disposeable email address for things which might get you spammed. Like signing up for a rebate offer, a website , free program key etc. Never direct these to your personal private email address. Direct them to a hotmail, yahoo, netscape, or whatever other free web based email account you want to keep for spam. These guys usually have pretty good spam filtering to begin with, since they get so much of it. Their baysean spam filters have a huge database to work with and thus can easily recognize most of it and put it in the circular file.

Which leads us to what to do with your primary account? How do you clean it up and keep this stuff out?
My favorite is to use a baysean filter myself. The easiest way to do this is to use a mail client which has one built in. It comes with some basic recognition rules to identify spam, and each one you add to the junk file(special folder it creates to put spam in), it learns from .
Within a few days, you usually cut spam down to a mere trickle. Although there are some designed for OutlookExpress, my personal favorite is to use an email client with the filter integrated. Mozilla Mail in Mozilla is an excellent alternative email client, and it exists as a stand alone email client Thunderbird. Thunderbird Mail Project Page:
My suggestion is to follow their setup recommendations and set it to leave a copy of your mail on server, but to delete when deleted locally.
Set it to know that anyone in your addressbook is not a spammer (import of address book from OE => export is simple) . Use it to get and read your email. Check that nothing is misidentified as junk (usually after a week you will no longer feel the need to do this) and then delete the contents of the junk file and empty trash,. Click check mail and they are all purged from the isp POP server, all that remains is your real email . (This is basically what you do with programs like mailwasher). Now you can download a copy to OE and no spam. This also gives you duplicates of your email.

There are also spam filters provided by Norton and Mcafee which will integrate with Outlook Express and work in a similar manner and there are programs such as Mail Washer which download the message headers only and you can filter them and then only download the email you want to OE.

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Just to add a little to oshwyn5's comprehensive presentation.
Try to determine whether your ISP has a spam filtering service. This may be mentioned somewhere on their home page or on a link from the home page. Comcast, for example claims to work on spam sent to them. The address is missed-spam@comcast.net. They specifically want you to send the spam by this procedure. (I suspect part of the reason is that you do not have to open the message or work offline.)
Right click on the spam in the list of InBox messages and chose "Forward as Attachment ". That will open up a New Message window with the spam unopened but as an attachment. Address it to missed-spam@comcast.net and press Send. You could also send it to UCE@FTC.gov. You do not need to enter a subject. And, as mentioned, you will not have opened the spam or had to work offline.
Of course other ISP's may have quite different rules. Some agencies/ISP's use spam@ISP.com or abuse@ISP.com as the email address to which to forward spam. As mentioned, you will have to determine what your ISP wants.
What is most necessary is that the agency getting the spam from you see the headers of the spam.
P.S. Some spam has no webbugs, but is trying to sell you something, probably offensive and overpriced. Reading that type of spam will not cause infection, etc., but if you order what is offered, then you will most likely get tracking cookies, spyware, lots more spam, etc. In any event, your InBox gets crowded and how are you to know if there is a bug involved? So, if you can identify an email as possible spam, do not open it. (See my PS to oshwyn5 below if you want to read the message without danger.)
Bugnosis does not work on email messages and only tells you when a bug is on a web page. It does not stop the bug from doing its work. (I never could figure out the value of Bugnosis.)

oshwyn5--I was not aware that right clicking on the spam in the Inbox list|Properties|Details tab|Message Source meant that you actually "opened" the spam in a fashion that allowed any info to be sent back to the spammer. I thought you would, indeed, see the actual message, but that any bugs/tracking cookies/etc. will not be activated and so you did not need to work offline. If that is correct, a person who has to send the actual message (rather than an attachment) to their ISP could then click somewhere in the Message Source window|Control+A|Control+C|open a New Message|address it appropriately|Control+V|enter SPAM as the Subject|Send. The addressee will get the whole message including headers. (Maybe they will get the bug! )
Would appreciate your thoughts on this.

 

thanx for all of ur replies
i bring this matter for more clarification when i some time i recieve message in mirc channels and i never connect some channel server the message appears
ur ip is spam or spam host etc...
so i surprise how they know about this spam ip and how does it works?.
u know i m using windows xp as a main internet server with panda internet security 2005 i thought it's enough to secure of everything but after facing this problem i come here to discuess about this..
so most of time my server only use to connect internet internet sharing with client pc so i don't use pc for email or etc.. so how does it possible spam ?.
how to proctect with panda internet seucirty from spam even i heave enabled spam protectoin ..
thanx

 

You can do this safely as long as the preview pane isn't open. If it's open, right clicking on the email will open the email in the preview pane just as left clicking will.

 

Zander--Yes, that was my understanding, also. Thanks.