There are a lot of ways to deal with spam, but there is nothing you can do to prevent it. Believe it or not the reason a person gets spammed is largely the user's fault. This has a lot to do with the emailing & surfing patterns that you use.
Firstly, tracking down the email sender. Depending on what email program you are using, you can view the hidden headers of the email. On OE, this is usually attained by right clicking on the mail and then looking at details and message source. The visible reply address can be spoofed by a blind monkey, but the IP addresses and the originating SMTP (the mailserver used to send out the address) address can rarely be spoofed or covered. (yes they can be done, but most spammers rarely have the time or inclination to do so, nor do they have the resources to dedicate to a remailer). The originating SMTP address and the sender's IP address are valuable clues as to the identity of the perpetrator. Using reverse lookup tools or simply typing 'tracert aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd' in a DOS window should get you close to finding out the server/ISP used to send the mail. At which point, you could start sending out email addresses to the administrators telling them about your problem, and they might be inclined to check on this for you, and perhaps stop the miscreant from using their sendmail server. The person to talk to is usually listed on the website of the ISP etc. or you could use the resources at
www.abuse.net to help you out.
However, as you probably see, this relies on the kindness of strangers, and would show you that you will get nowhere. Most sysadmins, though should be vigilant, don't care too much when the problem is with someone else. So it is up to you to stop spam.
Here's a rough list of things that you can do:
PRESERVE YOUR ANONYMITY ON THE NET.
- Though the net is the best thing since sliced bread, it is a lousy place to leave your identity lying around. This means your IP address (especially if you own a static IP), your email address and other ways of identifying you.
- remember you cannot be spammed if the spammer doesnt know you exist out there!
- this would mean creating a temporary junk email ID (like yahoo/hotmail etc etc) that you can use for public places .. like forums or newsgroups etc.
- removing your email ID from places like your website (esp. if it is a high traffic site) or other places where it is posted.
Possibly the most important piece of code that spammers have is something that searches & mines addresses. They can take out lists of addresses from websites, from newsgroup postings from pretty much any site that is supposed to have some contact information.
- REFRAIN FROM TRYING TO TYPE OUT YOUR PIECE OF MIND TO A SPAMMER.
consider yourself lucky if you get a bounced back email. cos if the spammer gets a hold of your reply, and is able to establish that there is such an email address out there (s)he will be sure to target you and will be sure to pass it on to other such spammers. Basically most spam also originates as a random trial of possible email addresses. Say you were an @home customer, with the ID:
myname@home.com .. spammer's have tools that will mass mail to
lyname@home.com,myname@home.com,nyname@home.com,oyname@home.com,pyname@home.com,qyname@home.com,.... u get the gist. By writing back to them would only confirm your identity.
- Be careful of what cookies are allowed on your computer and what sites you surf to. Cookies can send back a lot of information about you
- Be mindful of any spyware installed on your computer, the same as cookies.
- Use a clean email address for YOUR work.. amongst people you know and trust, and those you can be sure will not attach you to some form of a long mailing list.
- Try to tell your regular emailing "friends" to use the BCc: (blind carbon copy) option as opposed to the Cc: . Its there for a reason .. to prevent others from seeing the list of emails. (nothing more annoying than getting a 3 sentence fwded joke with about 300 lines of email address)
- Unfortunately, these may not be failsafe methods, but these will go a long way to protecting your inbox.
Regarding your current problem of spam in your mailbox ... get a new email address
