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What to do When You Receive Spam
First of all, relax. Spam happens to everyone. The person
sending the spam did not single you out, and they are not
out to get you. In the world today, we are bombarded with
information, unfortunately not all of it is going to be what
we want to hear. Do not respond to spam with angry messages,
and do not attempt to "spam the spammer" as this
simply compounds the spamming problem. This doesn't mean that
you shouldn't do anything; however, there are more effective
ways to battle spam.
[More Information on Identifying Spam]
Once you have identified an email as spam, follow these steps:
- View the header information and determine
where the spam is actually coming from. To access
the header information of an email follow
the client-specific instructions below:
| Email
Client |
Header
Instructions |
| Microsoft
Outlook Express |
With
the email message open:
- Select File
from the top menu
- Click the Properties
option
- Select the Details
tab.
|
| Microsoft
Outlook |
With the email
message open:
- select View
from the top menu
- Click Options
- The header information
is displayed in the box labeled Internet
Headers
|
| Netscape |
To view
the full header information for all e-mail
messages:
- Select View
from the top menu
- Select Headers
- Select All
|
| Eudora |
From
the top of an opened email:
- Click the Blah
Blah Blah icon
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- The important header information is located in
the Received lines. Each time an email
message is passed between mail servers or computers, a Received
line is added to the header. Reading the Received
lines from the top down describes the path back to the sender.
Therefore, the very last Received line will contain
information about the original sender of the email. Recieved
lines are formated as follows:
Received: from
anywhere.com (spamman@anywhere.com
[194.168.31.1]) by you.ca (0.0.1/0.0.2)
with SMTP id MAA00153 for jdoe; Mon, 13 Aug 2002 07:12:42
-0500
The information located in the from field (coloured
orange), contains the name and IP Address of the sender.
If this is the last Received line in the header,
then you know the email originated from 194.168.31.1
- Now that you know the email and IP Address of the sender,
you can use a Whois database to find the spammer's
domain administrator and the ISP that is hosting
them.
Using the spammer's email address, enter
the domain name portion (eg: anywhere.com).
If it is a .com,
.net,
.biz,
or .org,
domain name, then visit Internic.net
and type the name into their Whois search. If it is a .ca
domain name, the place to check is the CIRA
Whois Database. For a list of Whois servers for the
top level domains of all other countries, visit the Top-Level
Registries page.
Using the spammer's IP Address visit one
of the following IP Address Whois Databases: whois.arin.net
for North America, whois.ripe.net
for Europe, and whois.apnic.net
for Asia Pacific.
[More information on Tracing Spam]
- Once you have found the spammer's ISP, report
the spamming incident to the postmaster or email
abuse contact of their domain. If there are no postmaster
or abuse email addresses found, send your complaint to the
administrative contact of their ISP. Be sure to include
a copy of the original spam's header in your message to
allow the ISP to locate the spammer's account and deactivate
it.
- You may also report the spamming incident to a
spam blacklisting service. These services keep
extensive lists of servers that originate spam and harbour
spammers. Many servers on the internet use these blacklists
or RBL's to automatically block any messages they receive
from servers listed. When you submit spam to an RBL, make
sure to include the original headers with your message so
that the appropriate action can be taken.
[More Information on Reporting Spam]
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