Spam Issues

What is spam?
Spam messages (or UCE-"unsolicited commercial email") are messages that have been sent to your email account by companies or individuals from whom you did not request information. Often these emails offer to sell you something or direct you to a website which you may not want to visit. Sometimes spam messages will contain viruses.

Why do I get spam?

There are several reasons why people get spam, however, two reasons seem to be most common. Often people sign up for newsletters or other services on the Internet and have to submit their contact information, including email address. When you do this, companies will often send you email about other products or may sell your email address to another company for money.

The other method of getting on a spam list is that you could sign up or use a website that uses "cookies" to store data about you on your local computer for purposes of logging you in or providing a customized page. Since cookies are readable by any server on the Internet, they present a bit of a security risk. Other websites on the Internet will read the cookies when you go to their site and extract any contact information about you and resell this information to companies that will send out spam messages. Thus, your contact information has been taken from the cookie and redistributed without your knowledge.

What we are doing about spam now

We are running a spam filter provided by ActiveState, which is a subsidiary of Sophos. For more information, please see our Spam Filter Information page. We are also blocking so called "spamming domains," which are known to only send or relay spam. Examples of domains we are blocking are contained in online databases such as Open Relay Database . As is standard practice on the Internet, email from these addresses are automatically dropped to protect you, us, and our equipment.

What YOU can do to cut down on spam

Do delete the message - The best thing you can do when you receive a spam message is to just delete the email prior to opening the message.

Do install a filtering program - There are several programs on the market which can filter spam messages or at least distinguish them from legitimate messages. Examples of these programs include McAfee SpamKiller . The What You Need To Know website contains links to many software vendors who have spam products. Keep in mind that it is the user's responsibility to filter their email, and that the CCPL Internet Help Desk does not support nor endorse any of the above programs.

Do be careful of who you give your email address to and what information you provide websites - In today's world, identity theft is becoming more and more common and you need to make sure that you take the necessary steps to secure your personal information.

Do read the privacy policy of websites before submitting information - It is very important to read a website's privacy policy before submitting your information. Often websites will detail how they handle your information and for what purposes it can and will be used.

What NOT to do

Do not click the "Remove Me" link on the email - The senders of spam messages often include some sort of "Remove Me" link at the bottom of their messages. While this may seem like a legitimate way to remove yourself from the mailing list, it often has the opposite effect -- usually it confirms that your address is valid and as a result, you will get MORE SPAM.

Do not launch a Denial of Service (DoS) or other attack on the spammer - Most of the time the email address of the spammer is forged and it may not be valid or the person at that address will not be the spammer. Please take note that under no circumstances should you take any retaliatory actions against a spammer's apparent email address. "Mail bombs" or similar attacks are considered Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and are taken very seriously by our staff. Executing a DoS attack against another server results in a slower connection for everyone and may result in your account being locked or terminated.

For more information

To learn more about spam, you can visit http://spam.abuse.net or search using your favorite search engine for something like "stop spam".

If you have additional questions about spam, feel free to contact the Help Desk at 410.386.4455 or by email.