Methods Used to Avoid Spam

Cliff Lamere    2 Jan 2004

I am no expert on the subject of spam, but I'd like to make some comments based on what I have concluded about it.

To begin, I'd like to recommend that each person have two email addresses which are used for different purposes.  Your internet service provider (ISP) probably allows more than one address for the price that you pay monthly.  If you have a free service, you can still sign up for more than one address.  I suggest that one of the addresses be used for private communications.  You won't have to change it, because it won't receive spam. The other address can be used in riskier situations. When the spam gets annoying, it can be replaced with a different address. The people who have your private address will not be affected by the change.

            The discussion below assumes you have only one email address and must protect it as much as possible.  It should become clear why I will personally be using more than one address.

If companies or individuals can get our email addresses, they often add it to a database of addresses which they sell.  So....

HOW DO SPAMMERS GET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS, AND HOW CAN YOU AVOID PROBLEMS?

1)  While you surf the web, your email address is invisible. However, you are enticed to give up your email address.

A)  You sometimes give your emai address when ordering something online.  They often ask for it, but that doesn't mean you have to give it.  I sometimes give a false email address if I can't proceed to the next step without giving one.  If they are going to send me something that I order, I must give the correct mailing address, of course.

B)  I recently bought an item in a local store.  When I needed telephone support, the representative of the company wanted my email address.  When I asked the reason why it was needed, I was told it was so that I could be emailed information in case of updates to my item.  I suspect it will also be shared with other companies.  Even a reputable company may sell or trade your address, so you have to consider what you are going to get for giving it to them.

C) There is a lot of free software online and many of the programs are very useful.  When you download them, the website can easily do that without your giving an email address, but sometimes they require an email address before allowing you to get the program.  In some cases, a false email address will work.  In other cases, they say that they will send you a password via email that you must use to make the download.  That is primarily so you have to give them a correct email address.  You are getting something for free, but must pay with your email address which will very likely be sold and increase the amount of spam you receive.  

 

If the URL (website address) from which the download begins starts with ftp instead of http, that site can get your email address easily without asking you for it.  http sites can't do that.

2)  Web crawler robots (spambots) controlled by spammers can find the email addresses on webpages and add them to their database.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) participated in a six week experiment and learned that 86% of the email addresses that were put into new webpages received spam during the test period.  Chat rooms and news groups had similarly high percentages.  In one case, spam arrived just 9 minutes after the email address was given to a chat room!

I used to have over 30 webpages with my email address listed so that people could contact me.  Now, an email address is only on my home page.  Before deciding to use a second email address, I was ready to try a new technique to avoid spambots.  I was going to present my old address as:

clifflamereXXX@global2000.net

There would have been instructions that the XXX would have to be removed before sending the email to me.  Any spammer who sent a message to that address would not reach me, but website users could adjust it to contact me.

There is a way of sending emails with a false address with an added word.  The recipient has to remove the extra word or symbols when answering it.  I haven't looked into that possibility which is inconvenient to answer and can cause problems if the recipient doesn't see your instructions to remove part of the address before sending it.

3)  Mailing list emails are archived and available to anyone.  I don't know how dangerous it is to write to a mailing list, but there may be good reason to be concerned.

4)  Spammers have software that creates a multitude of combinations of letters and numbers.  Some ISP's only allow 8 characters, so the number of variations is limited.  Once all possible combinations are generated, they can be sent out to all of the large ISP's like AOL.  Most of the combinations will creat false addresses, but many will be correct.  I don't think there is any way to avoid this kind of spam.

These spammers use a subject line that is likely to get you to read the email.  The contents of the email may even be annoying on purpose.  Part of the email tells you how to avoid receiving any further mailings.  Just click on some link and send them your email address so that they can remove you.  Well, they don't know which addresses work unless you tell them, so NEVER respond to such an email.

5)  Message board messages can be found by spammers, and so can email addresses unless they are converted into a graphic.  RootsWeb does that on some or all of its message boards.  Spambots can't read what is on a graphic.  There are probably some message boards that don't hide your email address that way.  I don't know how much of a problem they would create for you.

Spam Blocking Causes Problems, Too

Many ISP's are trying to block spam, but in so doing the programs that they use also sometimes block legitimate mail.  If a person sends out spam using a certain ISP, other ISP's like Road Runner temporarily block all mail from the offending ISP.  The two ISP's discuss the problem, and once there is an assurance that the spam will no longer be sent out by the spammer on the first ISP, the second ISP removes the block.

The reason that I mention this is that you sometimes may get no indication that your mail was blocked.  Whether you send or receive email, it is hard to be sure that it wasn't blocked in one direction or the other.  Rather than decide that a person did not answer your email, it would be better to ask.  They may not have received it, or you may not have received the answer.  Sometimes the mail bounces back to you so that you know it didn't get through.  I don't know under what circumstances it bounces back and when it just disappears (as I know has happened to some of my emails).  And, before deciding that a person no longer uses a particular email address, you might want to try again after a month or two (sometimes it takes quite awhile to resolve problems between ISP's).

A relative has never received any junk mail.  Her use of the internet is considerably less and all email is private.  She is not on a mailing list; she has never downloaded anything except desktop photos for which no email address was divulged.  Many of you must be like her and have wondered why others of us get so much spam and you don't. Basically, our habits are different.

Summary

I recommend the use of two email addresses; one for private communications, and one for other activity.  The latter would include internet activities like sending emails to mailing lists and message boards, using chat rooms, making downloads, making online purchases, etc.  The only exception to this would be the possibility of having private and mailing list conversations using the same address.  It would be more convenient, and I don't know the risk of spam resulting from messages archived by a mailing list.

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