Want to do something about this kind of nonsense? The following was
posted by Natalie K Bjorklund some time ago to the arabidopsis
newsgroup, and I cross post it with her permission:
Spamming and off topic posts are a major annoyance especially when they
arrive in your e-mail inbox because you're on a list serve. There are a
few things individuals can do to get rid of a lot of the spam.
The admin. at net.bio.net might want to think about this too.
1) Set your killfile to delete anything posted to more than 1 - 5
newsgroups. This will get rid of a lot of the multiple group cross
posted spam from amateur spammers. If you don't know how, talk to your
provider. It won't protect you from the pros but like all crime most of
it is done by amateurs.
Check out:
http://www.smartpages.com/bngfaqs/news/announce/newusers/top.html
for great FAQs on some of this.
2) Contrary to what a lot of people think, it does help to complain. The
trick is to know where to complain to. Most providers are very
responsible and will immediately cancel the account of someone they get
multiple complaints on. To file your complaint, look at the full header
of the message and it will usually have a lengthy list of locations.
Most
of the time the last header is the return address. Send a copy of the
offending message to postmaster at ---- and abuse at ------ filling in the
last
part with the e-mail address.
Yes, this can end up bouncing back to the wrong person and hurting
someone
else. Or worse, some of the more professional "spammers" set their
machines up so any protest messages get sent to the list serve again. So
if you're unsure how to complain properly, find out how by checking out
news.admin.net-abuse.misc.
There are a small number of completely rogue servers who will do
anything
for a buck including letting spammers have accounts and then doing
nothing about their users, ignoring complaints from all reasonable
people.
Fortunately they represent a minority. Again the killfile is a joy and a
wonder. Set your killfile to block any and all posts from rogue sites.
This does two things.
1) Prevents you from getting garbage.
2) Puts tremendous pressure on the rogue site to clean up it's act
because all it's legitimate users leave to find accounts where their
e-mail
is accepted from.
Lists of rogue sites are regularly posted on the admin.abuse groups.
Ask your provider to help if you don't know how to do it yourself. Start
with this month's King of Spam hill @earthlink.net. This will also
prevent you from getting those incredibly annoying unsolicited e-mail
advertising which tend to come from the same servers.
These measure will reduce the crap by about 90%. A new set of special
filters are in the process of being compiled and designed that will
aleiviate the problem of spammers on usenet.
Those #*^%@! ads in my e-mail:
A special note about unsolicited e-mail advertisements. There are a few
companies out there whose execs should be drawn and quartered. They have
programs designed to crawl around web pages and newsgroups and collect
e-mail addresses. These are then sold to unscrupulous or unwary
advertisers. The best way to handle these are to complain. Most of them
keep and trade lists of trouble makers and and complainers and they
screen
their lists before they sell them. If you make enough noise you get off
their lists by being label a problem. It'll take about a month of
complaining about every single ad you get but they will start tapering
off in about two weeks.
Complain in the following way.
1) A 1-800 number from what looks like a legit company? Call them and
let
them know what you think of their advertisement. Some companies out
there are
actually stupid enough to think this is a legitimate form of
advertising.
A few thousand complaining telephone calls from ex-potential customers
usually convinces them it's time to fire someone and get off direct
e-mail advertising. Faxes work even better.
2) Send copies to the postmaster@ or abuse@ and follow it with the
e-mail
address. aol.com. and sprint and all the biggies _don't_ allow e-mail
direct mail and will immediately cut off those who send it.
3) Set your killfile to block rogue sites.Start with @earthlink.net
4) Bill them. Start adding something like the following tailer to your
e-mail signiture:
All Commercial E-mail sent to this address better be about
a topic I have written about or I will consider it Unsolicited Comercial
E-Mail (UCE). There will be a $200 archive and download fee for each UCE
recieved. Mailing constitutes acceptance of these terms. Invoice sent
upon
recipt of UCE.
You won't get any money but you will sure get on the trouble maker list
in a big hurry.
Good luck. Usenet and e-mail are a new medium but rules of conduct exist
and are enforced by the majority. We have to be our own police.
For more info the following groups are really great:
news.announcenew.user - (moderated - full of FAQs with lots of good
info)
news.admin.net-abuse.misc - high traffic (200+ messages per day but lots
of good info and insights into the wonderful spam warriors)
news.admin.misc - (good general info, some crap)
news.admin.announce - (moderated, lists of all cancelled spams)
or try: <URL:http://www.vix.com/spam/> for more info
Natalie K Bjorklund
Grad Student
U of Manitoba
Julia Frugoli
Dartmouth College
visiting grad student at
Texas A&M University
Department of Biological Sciences
College Station, TX 77843
409-845-0663
FAX 409-847-8805
"Evil is best defined as militant ignorance."
Dr. M. Scott Peck
