The following resources will assist you in keeping your own house <relatively> free of SPAM without having to resort to using a fake or bogus email reply-to address.
Why handle my own spam instead of just using a fake email reply to
address? There are a number of good reasons.
1) You will fail to get direct responses when you send email with
your "no spam" address.
2) You will CAUSE EXTRA WORK FOR OTHERS who must sift through your
clever email address simply to reply to you.
3) You will be a good citizen by not cluttering up the internet
with still MORE spam as people forget and direct email to your fake email
address.
4) You will have the PRIDE of accomplishment from having handled
YOUR OWN problem without shifting the burden off to others who must then
handle mail returned from your fake email address.
Where do I start?
First, use the built in filters in your browser. NetScape
and IE's OutLook Express have built in filters that work very well.
You just figure out the format of email addresses that you DON'T want and
your browser's Email client will put them in your trash file automatically.
Other.
You can report particularly obnoxious spammers by:
Use http://spamcop.net and they
will automatically report the spam for you with a bit of information from
you.
-OR-
You can do it yourself with the following procedure.
a) Cause your browser/email client to display the ENTIRE email header
of the spammer showing all of the internet transit and sender's information
available.
b) FORWARD a copy of the SPAM message to one or more of the following
as appropriate:
abuse@<ISP>
webmaster@<ISP>
postmaster@<ISP>
fraud@<ISP>
Where <ISP> is the domain name of the sender as best you can
evaluate. Often you cannot truly identify the culprit and so you
can send to one or more ISP domain names as seems appropriate. This
is a bit of work, but it sure is gratifying when you get an email
back telling you that the spammer has had his internet service disconnected
for his abuse! I typically get this good news about 1/3 of the time.
Look in the email header, like in the sample below:
---sample start---
Received: from plmlir4.mail.eds.com ([205.191.22.44]) by usplm002.examhub.exch.eds.com
with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2651.32)
id KMBDX9HL; Sun, 7 May 2000 21:00:03 -0500 Received: from plmlir4.mail.eds.com
(localhost [127.0.0.1]) by plmlir4.mail.eds.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP
id WAA13301 for <junk.junk@EXCA01.exch.junk.com>; Sun, 7 May 2000 22:00:03
-0400
(EDT)
Received: from plmlir4.mail.junk.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by
plmlir4.mail.eds.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA11893 for <junk.junk@exca01.exch.junk.com>;
Sun, 7 May 2000 21:55:28 -0400
(EDT)
Received: from ottubsmtp02.shl.com ([159.249.64.2]) by plmlir4.mail.eds.com
(8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA11887 for <junk.junk@junk.com>; Sun,
7 May 2000 21:55:27 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from Proton (cpe-024-221-102-166.phoenix.speedchoice.com[24.221.102.166])
by ottubsmtp02.shl.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id AA75089 for <junk@shl.com>;
Sun, 7 May 2000 21:47:54 -0400 (EDT)Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 21:47:54 -0400
(EDT)From: Newsletter won@uswest.net>
To: <junk@junk.com>
Message-Id: <419.436653.28787627won@uswest.net>
Subject: Is anyone doing the math on this?
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
---sample end---
Look for the last <Received:> line; all other <Received:> lines
may be
false. Follow it across to the domain name (speedchoice.com).
Use a tool
such as SamSpade to validate the IP address (24.221.102.166) is
matched to
the domain. If so, BINGO! Fire off a note to the listed
name (and use some
of the others on your anti-spam list) and quote all the mail headers.
Further action to take: look up the domain of any embedded links
in the
note, like if they refer you to a webpage... follow it. Note
where you
land. Send a note to their abuse handler also.
If you get taken to a domain that looks like this sample
http://849032984302/junk.html then use this link
http://www.abuse.net/cgi-bin/unpackit to determine the "real" IP
address and
then dig that info up too.
The more info you can provide the originating ISPs the better.
I get 98% of
the junk senders shut down quick using this approach.
Best regards,
Vince