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Spam FAQ
May 18, 2006: Overview of Proofpoint implementation
If you have a question that is not answered here, please email support@prairienet.org with FAQ in the subject and we will
answer your question and add it to this FAQ.
Spam Control
What You Can And Can't Do About Spam
How do I change my spam settings/check quarantined messages?
- Initially, there will be only one setting. Viruses and certain spam will be discarded.
Probable spam will be tagged as spam and delivered.
Quarantining suspected spam requires additional system resources. If we find that the system can handle Prairienet's message volume comfortably with some to spare for peak loads, we will look into turning on the quarantine feature.
What does 'tag and deliver' mean?
- Proofpoint will discard certain spam. Probable spam will be tagged as spam, meaning that a line is inserted into the header or subject line. You can then use your email program's filter function to automatically move tagges messages to a separate mailbox.
Our domain is hosted on Prairienet. Will our email be filtered?
- We may be bringing various domains on in phases, but eventually, email for all virtual hosts will go through the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway.
Will our mailing list be covered? (lists.prairienet.org)
- Mailing lists may be phased in after regular email accounts, but we do plan to route all incoming email through the Proofpoint box.
If your list is configured so allow only members to post and to discard all other mail, your list isn't much affected by spam and you probably won't notice much difference.
If you are a moderator you should see a dramatic reduction in the volume of spam that your list's address receives.
See the Mailman FAQ
on how to use Mailman settings to discard any email from non-members.
Two improvements that EVERYONE should notice is a reduction in the delivery lags we have been experiencing intermittently since the beginning of the year. The should also be a significant reduction of spam to listname-owner@lists.prairienet.org
If you have any questions specific to lists, please don't hesitate to email listmgr@prairienet.org.
Will the Proofpoint box fix the incoming email delivery lags?
- We hope that by effectively blocking viruses and spam, the system can perform normally.
An ever-increasing volume of spam is being sent by 'zombie computers' i.e. infected computers
belonging to unsuspecting end-users, and 'botnets', whole networks of these compromised
computers [Wikipedia: botnet'].
This flood of spam has been straining Prairienet's system resources to the point where
it caused multiple instances of significant email delivery lags since the beginning of this year. With system resources no object, spammers can send to any number of non-existent addresses.
Where can I learn more about the Proofpoint appliance?
- For the technically-inclined, details on the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway are available here: http://www.proofpoint.com/products/msg.php
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What You Can And Can't Do About Spam
How do spammers get my email address?
Let us count the ways:
- They have programs that traverse the Web in search of email addresses and harvest them wherever they find them on a Web page - your homepage, your company's Web site, newsgroup and mailing list archives, Web forums. This is by far the easiest and fastest method.
- They buy your address from the company that owns the Web site you registered with
but failed to read the privacy policy.
- They buy your address from the company that owns the Web
site you registered with after reading a bogus privacy policy which the company had
no intention of abiding by.
- They buy your address from the company that owns the Web site you registered with but forgot to uncheck the opt-out box.
- They buy your address from the company that bought the company that owned the Web site you registered with after you read the credible-sounding privacy policy which now no longer applies.
- They buy your address from hackers or insiders who have stolen an ISP's account roster (this happened to AOL).
- They have programs that traverse USENET newsgroups in search
of email addresses and harvest them.
- They have programs that make up email addresses by the millions and try them out to see if they
are valid. (This is a problem with AOL as well as large free Webmail providers. Prairienet escaped this type of attack until early 2006 when we started receiving huge volumes of email to non-existent users.)
- They make use of virus attachments (which the uninformed activate by opening) to scour private hard disks for email addresses which are then fed into spammers' databases for future use.
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How can I minimize the amount of spam my account receives?
- You can minimize the amount of spam in the following ways:
- Never put your email address directly on a Web page in plain text or allow others to do so.
Web harvesting is the number one method used by spammers because it is so cheap and easy.
Search Google for methods
of encoding and otherwise disguising email addresses on Web pages.
- Don't put your email address on a Web page
indirectly, either. Don't post to Web bulletin boards or
newsgroups from your primary email account or if you do, disguise your
address in some way. E.g.: fredflintstone@SOCKS.bedrock.com (remove SOCKS to email me).
- Before you join a mailing list, check to see whether the list is archived on the Web.
If it is, subscriber addresses should be protected in such a way that they are not
available for harvesting.
- Get a secondary email account. Use a free Webmail account (like Hotmail or Yahoo) for Web
sites or online vendors that require you to register with an email
address. Although such free accounts will start receiving spam literally the minute
they are created, these large ISPs have the resources to provide multi-featured spam
filtering capabilities.
- Use your primary email address only with online vendors that you trust and read their
privacy polices before you sign up for anything.
Even then it's a better idea not to use your primary email address since you never
know when a reliable, trustworthy online vendor will be bought up by another company
with fewer scruples.
- Be careful when you sign up for anything online. You may be "opting in" for
more than just a newsletter. Some sites use what's called a "negative default
option". This means that you are automatically subscribed to their newsletter and/or
agreeing to let them 'share' your address unless you explicitly opt out.
- If you are active on a mailing lists, you might consider using a secondary address for
all your list mail. The more your address is in circulation, the more likely it is that it will
be saved to the hard drive of other people's computers in an address book
or in a Web cache.
If a computer becomes infected with one of any number of email-borne viruses that harvest
addresses from the hard drive, your address may be used as either the sender or recipient
for virus-generated email. In some cases, it may be transmitted to spammers for inclusion
in a database.
Microsoft products such as Outlook Express and Internet Explorer are
particularly vulnerable to exploitation by viruses and worms in this fashion.
There isn't much you can do about this except to encourage everyone you know to
keep their anti-virus protection uptodate and to switch to non-Microsoft programs.
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I don't want ANY spam. What can I do?
- Never use your account to send email. Sadly, all it takes to receive virus-generated spam
is the presence of your email address in the address book of some else's infected computer.
However, it is possible to minimize exposure by learning more about how spammers acquire
your email address in the first place and taking appropriate steps.
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