Archive-name: net-abuse-faq/spam-faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 19990705
URL: http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html
Greetings and Salutations:
This FAQ will help in deciphering which machine a fake e-Mail or post
came from, and who (generally or specifically) you should contact.
The three sections to this eight portion FAQ (With apologies to Douglas
Adams :-)) :
o Introduction
o Tracing an e-mail message
o MAILING LIST messages
o Reporting Spam and tracing a posted message
o WWW IP Lookup URL's
o Converting that IP to a name
o A list of Usenet complaint addresses
o Fraud on the Internet and The MMF (Make Money Fast) Posts
o Trying to catch the suspect still logged on
o Filtering E-Mail BlackMail, procmail or News with Gnus
o Rejecting E-Mail from domains that continue to Spam
o Misc. (Because I can't spell miscellaneous :-)) stuff
I couldn't think to put anywhere else.
o Origins of Spam
o How *did* I get this unsolicited e-mail anyway?
o 1-900, 1-800, 888, 877 and 1-### may be expensive long distance
phone calls
o How To Respond to Spam
o Revenge - What to do & not to do (mostly not)
o Telephoning someone
o Snail Mailing someone
Introduction
============================================
Please feel free to repost this, e-mail it, put this FAQ on CD's or any
other media you can think of.
The latest & greatest version of this Spam FAQ is found at:
http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html
Or *nicely* HTML'ed at:
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/net-abuse-faq/spam-faq.html
http://fuzzo.com/spam_faq.htm
or
http://www.netmeg.net/faq/internet/net-abuse/spam-faq/
Or the archive at:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/alt.spam/
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/news/admin/net-abuse/misc/
This is addition to the most excellent Net Abuse FAQ (posted to
news.admin.net-abuse.misc, alt.current-events.net-abuse etc...),
brought to you by J.D. Falk <jdfalk@cybernothing.org> :
http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html
http://samspade.org/d/nanaefaq.html - news.admin.net-abuse.email FAQ
A most excellent book for novices and System Admin's alike, much more
in depth than this FAQ. A full 191 pages of how to fight Spam.
Hopefully if they sell enough then this book will stay updated :
Stopping Spam - Alan Schwartz and Simson Garfinkel ISBN : 1-56592-388-X
- $19.95
O'Reilly & Associates - 90 Sherman St., Cambridge MA 02140 707-829-0515
Or :
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156592388X/albioncom/002-
9724654-4944606
Spam cancellation notice (spam guidelines) :
http://spam.ohww.norman.ok.us/notice.htm
http://www.cm.org for info on NoCeM
http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~tskirvin/faqs/spam.html
Net abuse jargon:
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ip/freenet/subs/complaints/spam/jargon.txt
http://www.deja.com/article/391150606
Software to track the headers / eliminate Spam for you :
http://mirrors.cylink.net/tucows/mac/macintosh.html - Mac software
http://www-oss.fnal.gov/~kschu/fnnews.html - INND PERL spam filter
written by Jeff Garzik (Version 3)
http://www.areianet.gr/IRIX_Spamshield/ - Spam Block for IRIX (SGI)
based on KAI's spamshield 1.40
http://samspade.org/classic/ - Sam Spade WWW Spam tools - Excellent!
http://www.cix.co.uk/~net-services/library/ - Windows Spam Hater
or
TO: bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu
BODY: open ftp.compulink.co.uk
cd /pub/net-services
get spamhl.exe
quit
http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/cleanfeed.html
http://www.julianhaight.com/spamcop.shtml - Spam Cop - Does the header
analysis for you.
http://www.newapps.com/appstopics/Win_95_Anti-SPAM_Tools.html
http://www.neoworx.com/home122share.asp - NEoTrace - helps to find any
IP number, and possibly the name, address, telephone number and
Email contacts of the provider.
http://www.spamhippo.com/
http://www.spammerslammer.com - Works with windows e-mail programs that
uses pop mail
http://www.vipul.net/ricochet/ - automated spam tracing and reporting
agent
Your Daily Spam News:
Spam@MAIL-ME.COM - Web: http://spam.concordia.ca
Subscribe to Spam-News : join-spam-news@mailshield.com
or - nanas-sub@cybernothing.org
http://www.spam-news.com
http://www.spamhippo.com/cgi-bin/newsspam - Top Spam Sites
Spammers and how to stop them :
http://abuse.net/spam-l - Improve your spam-fighting skills
http://come.to/the.lumber.cartel - TINLC - There Is No Lumber Cartel
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Communications_and_Networking/Electronic_Mail/Junk_Email/
http://headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/Tech/Spam_Wars/ - spam news
http://members.aol.com/bombagirl/freeware/email4u.txt - getit4u.txt has
a Spam section
http://members.aol.com/macabrus/cpfaq.html - CyberPromo Saga
http://members.tripod.com/~cyberstalked/hb140.html - Maryland Anti-
Harassment bill
http://members.tripod.com/~cyberstalked/story.html - Stalked by The
Woodside Literary Agency
http://members.tripod.com/~JOWazzoo/ConsumateSpamLinks666-FAQs.html
Consummate FAQ's page
http://members.tripod.com/~JOWazzoo/ConsumateSpamLinks666.html -
Consummate Spam Links Page
http://morehouse.org/hin - Internet Security
http://persona.www.media.mit.edu/judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html
http://rvl4.ecn.purdue.edu/~cromwell/lt/468.html - Internet Security
http://spam.abuse.net/spam/
http://spam.abuse.net/spam/howtocomplain.html
http://viper.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/oceanf.htm Regulation of
Computing and Information Technology
http://www-db.aol.com/corp/news/press/view?release=531& - AOL wins
against Spammers
http://www-fofa.concordia.ca/spam/complaints.shtml - Complaint
Addresses
http://www.abuse.net/cgi-bin/list-abuse-addresses - Complaint
http://www.antionline.com/ - Internet Security
http://www.ao.net/waytosuccess/nospam.html
http://www.ao.net/waytosuccess/spamnews.html
http://www.cabal.net/jason/index.html - A spammer tries to sue the
Cabal (TINC)
http://www.cauce.org - Trying to legislate against
http://www.ecofuture.org/ecofuture/jnkmail.html - How to Get Rid of
Junk Mail, and Telemarketers
http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/ - Improve your spam-fighting
skills
http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/tracking.html
http://www.coachnet.com/soho__21.htm - Small Office / Home Office
Newsletters Anti-Spam Articles for business
http://www.coachnet.com/soho__22.htm
http://www.coachnet.com/soho__29.htm
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/coast/hotlist/ - Internet Security
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/news/news.admin.net-abuse.email.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq/
http://www.internetwk.com/columns/frezz020199.htm - A good article on
why the Internet should be self governing WRT Spam
http://www.junkemail.org/scamspam/ - "Help stop Scam Spammers!"
http://www.kclink.com/spam/ - A fight to bill Spammers
http://www.looksmart.com/eus1/eus53832/eus53833/eus225492/eus282819/eus
278700/r?l&igv& - Spam link list
http://www.mcs.com/~jcr/junkemail.html
http://www.nags.org/
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/anti-spam - Anti-Spam mailing list
http://www.ot.com/~dmuth/spam-l - Maintainer of the Spam-L FAQ
http://www.petemoss.com/
http://www.phase-one.com.au/fravia/pageadvi.htm - Stalking the spammer
Enemy
http://www.spamgirl.com/email.htm
http://www.stanford.edu/~edhou/StanfordSpamFAQ.html
http://www.studio42.com/kill-the-spam/index.html - "I am sick of Spam
and I want it to stop"
http://www.sunworld.com/swol-08-1997/swol-08-junkemail.html - Sunworld
Anti-Spam
http://www.usenet2.org/ - A Usenet with no Spam
http://www4.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_index_19970819.html -
Special Spam Fighting Edition
E-Mail headers and tracing tools FAQs and links:
ftp://info.cert.org/pub/tech_tips
http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~bryanc/ - Mac WhatRoute
http://eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca/~tburgess/local/spam.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~laser3/simon.html - Yet another newbie guide
http://kryten.eng.monash.edu.au/gspam.html
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/emailfaq.html
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/resource-list.html
http://t2.technion.ac.il/~s2845543/yanig.html - Also yet another newbie
guide
http://www-fofa.concordia.ca/spam/tools.html - Macintosh Spam fighting
http://www.crl.com/~sjkiii/news-admin-net-abuse.html
http://www.elsop.com/wrc/nospam.htm
http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/antispam.html - Spam Software
http://www.spam-archive.org/ - A collection of email-Spams.
http://www.ultranet.com/~gmcgath/selfdefense.html
http://www.winsite.com/win3/winsock/page6.html - Windows Internet
Utilities
http://www.winsite.com/win95/netutil/index.html - Win 95 Net Utils
http://www.winsite.com/win95/netutil/page11.html - netcop /
netlab95.zip
http://www.deja.com/article/420339665 - Forgery FAQ
http://www.deja.com/article/436881631 - How spammers get your E-Mail
address
Spam Info in other languages:
http://inews.tecnet.it/articoli/aprile98/Netsurfing9804a.html - Italian
Spam info
http://kulichki-lat.rambler.ru/moshkow/SECURITY/stopfash.txt - Russian
http://member.nifty.ne.jp/usr/negi/news.html
http://member.nifty.ne.jp/usr/negi/newsgroup0.html
http://people.frankfurt.netsurf.de/Wolfgang.Kynast/nospam.htm - German
Anti-Spam links ...
http://www.alkar.net/moshkow/html-KOI/SECURITY/stopfash.txt - Russian
Anti-Spam
http://www.despaml.interrob.de/ - German Anti-Spam Mailing List
http://www.droit.umontreal.ca/~labbee/ - French (Canadian)
http://www.ethereal.ru/~avk/anti-ad.html - Russian spam & headers page
http://www.online-recht.de/vorent.html?LGBerlin980514 - German Anti-
Spam and costs
http://www.student.hro.nl/0445746/ - Dutch anti spam site
Translate from/to English French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian
http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/
http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-
bin/translate?urltext=http%3a%2f%2fdigital%2enet%2f%7egandalf%2fspamfaq
%2ehtml&lp=en_de - English to Deutsch
http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-
bin/translate?urltext=http%3a%2f%2fdigital%2enet%2f%7egandalf%2fspamfaq
%2ehtml&lp=en_fr - English to French
Or paste the text into:
http://www.unojust.org/html/trans.htm
Or why Netabuse is bad :
http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9808/10/tastyspam.idg/
Equal time, The spammer's viewpoint (Why Spam is good):
http://www.juicycerebellum.com/spam.htm
http://members.theglobe.com/SpamSucks/spamspeak.html - Spammers Speak
http://x.deja.com/article/484286843 - Gerald Kohler (
gkohler@worldnet.att.net ) argues for spam, with some good rebuttals.
Click on "Thread" then click on message 8 then click on next in thread
to follow the conversation.
What the alt.binaries.slack Organization has done to fight Spam :
http://www.sputum.com/spit/Main.htm
http://www.shreve.net/~cuthulu/sputum/
Proud to be a NetScum (Many anti-Spammers have been added by the
spammers) :
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/supplements/TheNet/fall97/NET_SCUM.html
http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/images/netscum/
http://www.netscum.org/
http://www.aldeberan.org/netscum/index.html - NetScum Site Recreated
PLEASE email follow-ups, additions / changes to gandalf@digital.net
My news source is OK, but I sometimes miss items.
I accept all and any input. I consider myself to be the manager of
this FAQ for the good of everyone, not the absolute & controlling Owner
Of The FAQ. I do not always write in a completely coherent manner.
What makes sense to me may not make sense to others. If the community
wants something added or deleted, I will do so. I removed any e-mail
and last name references to someone making a suggestion / addition.
This is so that someone doesn't get upset at this FAQ and do something
stupid. If you don't mind having your e-mail in this FAQ (or where it
is required), please tell me and I will add it back in.
First off, before trying to determine where the post or e-mail
originated from, you should realize that (just like the National
Inquirer, or a logical argument from Canter and Siegel) the message
will have *some* amount of truth, but all or most of the information
may be forged. Be careful before accusing someone.
Commands used in this FAQ are UNIX & VMS commands. Sorry if they don't
work for you, you might wish to try looking around at your commands to
find an equivalent command (or I might be able to help out some).
There are programs for the Macintosh and Windows machines that do the
same thing the UNIX commands do, see the above URL's for where to
locate this software.
And no, I am not going to tell you how to post a fake message or fake
e-mail. It only took me about 2 days (a few hours a day) to figure it
out. It ain't difficult. RTFM (or more appropriately, Read The @&%^@#
RFC).
Every e-mail or post will have a point at which it was injected into
the information stream. E-mail will have a real computer from which it
was passed along. Likewise a post will have a news server that started
passing the post. You need to get cooperation of the postmaster at the
sites the message passed thru. Then you can get information from the
logs telling you what sites the message actually passed thru, and where
the message "looked" like it passed thru (but actually didn't). Of
course you do have to have the cooperation of all the postmasters in a
string of sites...
Tracing an e-mail message
============================================
To trace the e-mail you have to look at the header. Most mail readers
do not show the header because it contains information that is for
computer to computer routing. The information you usually see from the
header is the subject, date and the "From" / "Return" address. About
the only thing in an e-mail header that can't be faked is the
"Received" portion referencing your computer (the last received).
You will need to take a look at the headers on the message (if you can)
In PINE (for example) you have to turn on the header option in setup,
then just hit "h" to get headers. In Eudora for the Macintosh or IBM,
just press the button labeled "Blah Blah Blah" and you will get the
header. In Claris E-Mailer under Mail select Show Long Headers.
Programs that do not comply with any Internet standards (like cc-Mail
or Beyond Mail) throw away the headers. You will not be able to get
headers from these e-mail messages.
Aussie tells us that in Pegasus to view the full headers for each
message, use CTRL-H. This will show the full headers for the particular
message, but will not add them to any reply or forward. You need to
cut/paste the message into the reply/forward to send these headers.
Richard tells us with Nettamer, a MS DOS based email and usenet group
reader you must save the message as an ascii file, then the full header
will be displayed when you open the saved file with your favorite ascii
editor.
A URL to help you figure out how to look at the headers:
http://www.concentric.net/~Nvam
A little different description of headers:
http://help.mindspring.com/features/emailheaders/index.htm
http://help.mindspring.com/features/emailheaders/extended.htm
http://www.mcs.net/~jcr/junkemaildeal.html - Another Header Analysis
http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers/headers.html - In depth header
analysis
There is spamming software that sends the e-mail directly to your
computer. This makes only one received line in the e-mail making your
life many times easier. The computer that is not your computer is the
spamming computer.
Also, please look through the body of the message for e-mail addresses
to reply to. Complain to the postmasters of those sites also (see
below for a list of complaint addresses).
Gregory tells us that assuming a reasonably standard and recent
sendmail setup, a Received line that looks like :
Received: from host1 (host2 [ww.xx.yy.zz]) by host3
(8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA04298; Thu, 18 Jul 1996 12:18:06
-0600
shows four pieces of useful information (reading from back to front, in
order of decreasing reliability):
- The host that added the Received line (host3)
- The IP address of the incoming SMTP connection (ww.xx.yy.zz)
- The reverse-DNS lookup of that IP address (host2)
- The name the sender used in the SMTP HELO command when they
connected (host1).
Looking at the below we see 6 received lines. Received lines are like
links in a chain. The message is passed from one computer to the next
with no breaks in the chain. The received lines indicate that it ended
up at ddi.digital.net (my computer) from mail.bestnetpc.com. It was
received at mail.bestnetpc.com from unknown (HELO paul-s.-aiello)
([205.160.183.123]). The last three lines suggests that it was
received at in2.|bm.net from mh.tomsurl|.com and from
reb50.rs41|1date.net. Since none of these computers are in the first
two received lines then we can ignore these lines and every received
entry after this line (this UCE had 4 or 5 more faked Received lines in
it that were deleted for this example). We also know that these lines
are faked because no domain name has a "|" character in the name.
Domain names only have alphabetic or numeric characters in the name.
Do not get confused by the "Received: from unknown" portion. The word
"unknown" can be *anything* and should be ignored, this is whatever the
spammer put in the SMTP HELO command when they connected to the SMTP
server.
Received: from mail.bestnetpc.com (IDENT:qmailr@mail.bestnetpc.com
[205.160.183.3]) by ddi.digital.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id
CAA10768 for <gandalf@digital.net>; Thu, 26 Nov 1998 02:55:11 -0500
(EST)
Received: (qmail 25259 invoked from network); 26 Nov 1998 08:05:49 -
0000
Received: from unknown (HELO paul-s.-aiello) ([205.160.183.123]) by
mail.bestnetpc.com with SMTP; 26 Nov 1998 08:05:49 -0000
Received: (from uudp@lcl|lhost) by in2.|bm.net (8.6.9/8.6.9) id
CFF569794 for <suppressed>; Thursday, November 26, 1998
Received: from tomsurl|.com (mh.tomsurl|.com [100.257.57.69]) by
m4.tomsurl|.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA21932 Thursday,
November 26, 1998
Received: from reb50.rs41|1date.net (root@reb50.rs41|1date.net
[256.36.1.176]) by tomsurl|.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PBA023891
for <suppressed>;
So we complain to whomever owns unknown (HELO paul-s.-aiello)
([205.160.183.123]). Make sure that you do a nslookup on the IP
address's. I try to verify 205.160.183.123 is paul-s.-aiello. Indeed
paul-s.-aiello does not even exist and 205.160.183.123 does not resolve
to a name when I do a NSLookup. Next would be a traceroute. See
further below for more in-depth tracking on resolving an IP.
IP portion = 205.160.183.123
Traceroute 205.160.183.123 gives us:
Step Host IP
Find route from: 0.0.0.0 to: 205.160.183.123 (205.160.183.123), Max 30
hops, 40 byte packets
<snip>
13 acsi-sw-gw.customer.alter.net. (157.130.128.26 ): 235ms
14 atlant-ga-2.espire.net. (206.222.97.24 ): 272ms
15 206.222.104.37 (206.222.104.37 ): 279ms
16 orland-fl-1-a5-0.espire.net. (206.222.99.7 ): 362ms
17 iag.net.orland-fl-1.espire.net. (206.222.106.6 ): 195ms
18 d1.s0.gw.dayb.fl.iag.net. (207.30.70.38 ): 230ms
19 s0.gw.bestnetpc.net. (207.30.70.254 ): 231ms
20 * * *
21 205.160.183.123 (205.160.183.123): 372ms
See the traceroute section below for how to interpret the "*" (and
other codes) that are returned from a traceroute.
Note - if you see something like the following realize that the only
portion you can trust is within the "([" and the "])". The spammer put
in the (faked) portion "mail.zebra.net (209.12.13.2)" :
Received: from mail.zebra.net (209.12.13.2) ([209.12.69.42])
Kamiel tells us that you might also want to make sure that the IP is
not hosted by an intermediary site. Check it out at:
http://www.arin.net
You should complain to the abuse@ or postmaster@<Last Two or Three
words at the end of the name>. I would complain to abuse@iag.net OR
abuse@espire.net (but NOT both sites) since after looking below at the
list of complaint addresses in this FAQ there are no alternate
addresses for iag.net or espire.net. Unless it is a "major provider"
(someone in the below complaint list) I usually complain to the
upstream provider rather than risk the chance of complaining to the
spammer and being ignored. If you go too far up the chain, however, it
may take quite some time for the complaint to filter down to the
correct person.
Louise tells us that you are entitled to make an 'alleged' accusation
but to prevent yourself from being libel, prefix your statement with:-
"Without prejudice: I suspect you are the culprit of such and such."
The constitutional and legal boundary of 'Without prejudice' exempts
Politician's opinions being spoken publicly and this prefix is often
adopted by Solicitors (English) or Lawyers/Attorneys (USA).
I use :
abuse@XXXXX - Without prejudice I submit to you this Unsolicited
Commercial E-Mail is from your user XXXX. UCE is unappreciated because
it costs my provider (and ultimately myself) money to process just like
an unsolicited FAX. Please look into this. Thank you.
BE SURE to verify the IP address. Windows '95 machines place the name
of the machine as the "name" and place the real IP address after the
name, meaning a spammer can give a legitimate "name" of someone else to
get someone innocent in trouble. A spammer at cyberpromo changed their
SMTP HELO so that it claimed to be from Compuserve. The Received line
looked like the below, but a quick verification of the IP address
208.9.65.20 showed it was indeed from cyberpromo :
Received: from dub-img-4.compuserve.com (cyberpromo.com [208.9.65.20])
by karpes.stu.rpi.edu
The below e-mail was passed to me thru a "mule" (un1.satlink.com
[200.9.212.3]). The Spammer hijacked an open SMTP port to reroute e-
mail to me:
Received: from un1.satlink.com (un1.satlink.com [200.9.212.3]) by
ddi.digital.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id GAA06372; Fri, 27 Nov 1998
06:53:20 -0500 (EST)
Received: from usa.net ([209.86.128.234]) by un1.satlink.com (Netscape
Messaging Server 3.54) with SMTP id AAT2FEA; Fri, 27 Nov 1998 08:46:07
-0200
A NSLookup on 209.86.128.234 resolves to
user38ld07a.dialup.mindspring.com, so after I complain to
mindspring.com I also send the postmaster of the open SMTP port the
following :
postmaster@XXXXX - Your SMTP mail server XXXXX was used as a mule to
pass (and waste your system resources) this e-mail on to me. You can
stop your SMTP port from allowing rerouting of e-mail back outside of
your domain if you wish to. FYI only. Info on how to block your
server, see:
http://maps.vix.com/tsi/
Test for server vulnerability :
http://maps.vix.com/tsi/ar-test.html
There are some systems that "claim" to "cloak" e-mail. It is not true.
If you receive one that looks like the following :
Received: from relay4.ispam.net (root@[207.124.161.39]) by
ddi.digital.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA28969 for
<gandalf@digital.net>; Thu, 26 Jun 1997 10:41:46 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from --- CLOAKED! ---
or
Received: from cerberus.njsmu.com ([204.142.120.2]) by ddi.digital.net
(8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA06250 for <gandalf@digital.net>; Mon, 25
Jan 1999 07:11:18 -0500 (EST)
From: hostme39@aol.com
Received: from The.sender.of.this.untracable.email.used.MAILGOD.by.IMI
It is still broken down as follows :
- The route the e-mail took originated from one of the systems above
the line marked "cloaked" or the line "untraceable" (in fact this makes
it even easier to trace). There is no magic to it. Complain to that
provider. If you get no response from the site that spammed, you
should ask your provider to no longer allow the above site
[207.124.161.39] to connect to your system.
It has been kindly pointed out to me that there is a "feature" (read
"bug") in the UNIX mail spool wherein the person e-mailing you a
message can append a "message" (with the headers) to the end of their
message. It makes the mail reader think you have 2 messages when the
joker that sent the original message only sent one message (with a fake
message appended). If the headers look *really* screwy, you might look
at the message before the screwy message and consider if it may not be
a "joke" message.
There are also IBM mainframes that do not include the machine that they
received the SMTP traffic from. You have to route the message (with
headers) back to the postmaster at that system and ask them to tell you
what the IP of the machine is that hooked into their system for that
message.
It has also been pointed out that someone on your server can telnet
back to the mail port and send you mail. This also makes the forgery
virtually untraceable by you, but as always your admin should be able
to catch the telnet back to the server. If they telnet to a foreign
SMTP server and then use the "name" of a user on that system, it may
appear to you that the message came from that user. Be very careful
when making assumptions about where the e-mail came from.
Note for AOL users when looking at headers:
If you get double headers at the end of a message (like the below) the
spammer has tacked on a extra set of headers to confuse the issue.
Ignore everything except the last set of headers. These are the *real*
headers.
------------------ Headers --------------------------------
Return-Path: <Gloria@me.net>
Received: from rly-za05.mx.aol.com (rly-za05.mail.aol.com
[172.31.36.101]) byair-za04.mail.aol.com (v51.16) with SMTP; Mon, 16
Nov 1998 19:16:02 1900
Received: from mailb.telia.com (mailb.telia.com [194.22.194.6]) by rly-
za05.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with ESMTP id TAA05189;
Mon, 16 Nov 1998 19:15:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Gloria@me.net
Received: from signal.dk ([194.255.7.40]) by mailb.telia.com
(8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id BAA14174; Tue, 17 Nov 1998 01:15:50 +0100
(CET)
Received: from 194.255.7.40 by signal.dk
viaSMTP(950413.SGI.8.6.12/940406.SGI.AUTO) id AAA28586; Tue, 17 Nov
1998 00:53:13 +0100
Message-Id: <199811162353.AAA28586@signal.dk>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 98 18:27:19 EST
To: Gloria@papa.fujisankei-g.com.jp
Subject: ATTENTION SMOKERS - QUIT SMOKING IN JUST 7 DAYS
Reply-To: Gloria@papa.fujisankei-g.com.jp
------------------- Headers --------------------------------
Return-Path: <lifeplanner@zcities.com>
Received: from rly-yd04.mx.aol.com (rly-yd04.mail.aol.com
[172.18.150.4]) by air-yd02.mx.aol.com (v56.14) with SMTP; Mon, 11 Jan
1999 23:54:48 -0500
Received: from phone.net ([207.18.137.42])
by rly-yd04.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
with SMTP id XAA01327;
Mon, 11 Jan 1999 23:51:03 -0500 (EST)
From: <lifeplanner@zcities.com>
To: <Someone@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:54:19 -0600
Message-ID: <13653344018870252@phone.net>
Subject: Life insurance, do you have it?
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
MAILING LIST messages
========================================
Stephanie kindly defines MAILING LIST versus LISTSERVER :
A MAILING LIST is a type of email distribution in which email is sent
to a fixed site which holds a list of email recipients and mail is
distributed to those recipients automatically (or through a moderator).
A LISTSERVER is a software program designed to manage one or more
mailing lists. One of the more popular packages is named "LISTSERV".
Besides Listserv, other popular packages include Listproc which is a
Unix Listserv clone (Listservs originated on BITNET), Majordomo and
Mailserve. Most importantly -- not all mailing lists run on
listservers, there are many mailing lists that are manually managed.
You may hear of mailing lists being referred to as many things, some
strange, some which on the surface make sense, like "email discussion
groups". But this isn't accurate either, since not all mailing lists
are set up for discussion.
Istvan suggests "Majordomo software is remarkably funny about headers.
It does not like headers which contain anything odd. All messages the
software receives which do not conform to its rigorous standards are
simply forwarded to the list moderator. It turns out this feature is
effective at stopping between 80 and 90% of spam actually getting to
the list."
Kirk tells us that you can set majordomo up so that new subscribers
have to reply to a subscribe request, thus verifying the address is
legit. Additionally the lists can be configured so that only
subscribers can post. And finally you can put filters on content.
I've got the list I manage configured to reject multipart email and
email which contains html.
Richard mentions "Listserv can be configured to restrict non-members
from sending to a list and can restrict spam based on the headers
similar to Majordomo. I've used both of these features successfully.
You can read more about Listserv capabilities, if you are interested,
at:
http://www.lsoft.com/listserv.stm
http://www.lsoft.com/spamorama.html#FILTER (info on its spam
filter)
I suspect that Listserv's spam filter may be better than Majordomo's
(but I've not managed any Majordomo lists)."
Example Header appears below:
Received: from dir.bham.ac.uk (dir.bham.ac.uk [147.188.128.25]) by
gol1.gol.com (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id GAA27292 for <XXXX@gol.com>;
Sun, 5 May 1996 06:31:15 +0900 (JST)
Received: from bham.ac.uk by dir.bham.ac.uk with SMTP (PP) using DNS
id <26706-38@dir.bham.ac.uk>; Sat, 4 May 1996 20:56:49 +0100
Received: from emout09.mail.aol.com (actually emout09.mx.aol.com) by
bham.ac.uk with SMTP (PP); Sat, 4 May 1996 21:13:03 +0100
Received: by emout09.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA29156; Sat, 4
May 1996 15:35:53 -0400
Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 15:35:53 -0400
From: Jeanchev@aol.com
Message-ID: <960504153553_287142426@emout09.mail.aol.com>
Subject: CRaZy Complimentary Offer........
This is a post from Kevin Lipsitz for his "===>> FREE 1 yr. USA
Magazine Subscriptions". The latest information indicates that the
state of New York has told him he should stop abusing the Internet for
a while ... lets hope it is forever. In relation to the Internet he
makes a slimy used car salesman look like a saint.
For more info about "Krazy Kevin" or the Magazine Spam , Tony tells us
the page "Stop Spam!" is available in html format at:
http://www.iac.co.jp/~issho/stop-spam.html
But as David reminds us, There are a million Kevin J. Lipsitz's out
there. All selling magazines, Amway, vitamins, phone service, etc.
All the losers who want to get rich quick, but can't start their own
business.
Like :
http://com.primenet.com/spamking/
That having been said, e-mail from a Listserve can usually be broken
down the same way as "normal" e-mail headers. There are just more
waypoints along the way. As you can see from the above, the e-mail
originated from :
emout09.mail.aol.com
You might with to also direct the listserve owner to look at & ask
questions in news.admin.net-abuse.misc about how to keep spam off the
listserve. It probably won't be all that difficult of a thing to do.
Reporting Spam and tracing a posted message
============================================
If someone posts a message with your e-mail in the From: or Reply-To:
field, it can (and will if you request) be canceled. Please repost the
message to news.admin.net-abuse.misc WITH THE HEADERS (or it will
probably be ignored) so that the message cam be canceled (the message-
id is the most important) with a suggested subject of the following:
Subject: FORGERY <Subject from the Spam message>
Or you can look at the Cancel FAQ at :
http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~tskirvin/faqs/cancel.html
Try to make sure that the message has not already been posted to
news.admin.net-abuse.misc, news.admin.net-abuse.email or
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet and that it is less than 4 or 5 days old.
Chris reminds us that yes, there are a lot of annoying, off-topic and
stupid postings out there. But that doesn't make it spam. _Really_.
All we're concerned with is _volume_. Don't report any potential
spams unless you see at least two copies in at least 4 groups. The
content is irrelevant. Spam canceling cannot be by content.
For off topic posts, see http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html
The first thing to do is to post the ENTIRE message (PLEASE put the
header in or it will probably be ignored) to the newsgroup
news.admin.net-abuse.misc. Do not reply or post it back to the
original group. A suggested subject is one of the following:
Subject: EMP <Subject from the Spam message>
Subject: ECP <Subject from the Spam message>
Subject: UCE <Subject from the Spam message>
Subject: SEX <Subject from the Spam message>
Please include the original Subject: from the original Spam so that it
can easily be spotted. Thank you.
If the post is particularly amusing (Spammer threat or a postmaster
threat), put C&C in the subject. Seymour tells us it means Coffee and
cats. This originated from a post claiming that a particular outrageous
article had caused spewing of coffee into the keyboard and jumping
while holding a cat, resulting in scratched thighs.
An Excessive Multiple Post (EMP) may exceed the spam threshold and may
be canceled. An Excessive Cross Post (ECP) may not be canceled because
it hasn't reached the threshold. A UCE is for Unsolicited Commercial
Email, SEX is for off-topic sex-ad postings.
Make Money Fast message is immediately cancelable and are usually
canceled already by others, so please do not report MMF posts. See MMF
section below.
Tracing a fake post is probably easier than a fake e-mail because of
some posting peculiarities. You just have to save and look at a few
"normal" posts to try to spot peculiarities. Most people are not
energetic to go to the lengths of the below, but you never know.
Dan reminds us that first you should gather the same post from
*several* different sites (get your friends to mail the posts to you)
and look at the "Path" line. Somewhere it should "branch". If there
is a portion that is common to all posts, then the "actual" posting
computer is (most likely) in that portion of the path. That should be
the starting postmaster to contact. Be sure to do this expeditiously
because the log files that help to trace these posts may be deleted
daily.
If you *really* want to see some fake posts, look in alt.test or in the
alt.binaries.warez.* groups.
A fake post:
Path:
...!news.sprintlink.net!in2.uu.net!news.net99.net!news!s46.phxslip4.ind
irect.com!vac
From: XXX@indirect.com(Female User)
Subject: Femdom In Search of Naughty Boys
Message-ID: <DHLMvE.24H@goodnet.com>
Sender: XXX@indirect.com(Female User)
Nntp-Posting-Host: s46.phxslip4.indirect.com
Organization: Internet Direct, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows[Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #1]
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 01:59:38 GMT
Approved: XXX@indirect.com
Lines: 13
This poor lady (Name deleted by suggestion) was abused by someone for a
couple of days in an epic spam. Many messages were gathered. The
message ID was different for several messages. But several anomalies
showed an inept poster.
The headers were screwed up, and when looking at a selection of
messages from several sites, the central site was news.net99.net, where
goodnet.com gets / injects news at. This lead to the conclusion that
either goodnet.com or news.net99.net should be contacted to see who the
original spammer was. I never heard the results of this, but the
spamming eventually stopped.
You can try looking at sites & see if they have that message by :
telnet s46.phxslip4.indirect.com 119
Connected to s46.phxslip4.indirect.com.
200 s46.phxslip4.indirect.com InterNetNews server INN 1.4 22-Dec-93
ready
head <DHLMvE.24H@goodnet.com>
430
Message was not found at that site, so it did not go thru that
computer, or the article has already expired or been deleted off of
that news reader.
If you wish to track a particular phrase, user-id (whatever) take a
look at the URL for getting all the posts pertaining to "X" :
http://www.deja.com/
http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.reference.com/
WWW IP Lookup URL's
=============================
http://www.studio42.com/cgi-spam/nph-traceroute.pl - Traceroute
http://www.studio42.com/cgi-spam/nph-nslookup.pl - NSLookup
http://www.studio42.com/cgi-spam/nph-dig.pl - Dig
Index to Traceroute pages:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Communications_and_Networki
ng/Software/Networking/Utilities/Traceroute/
http://www.traceroute.org/
http://boardwatch.internet.com/traceroute.html - Traceroute Server
Index
Or Yet Another Traceroute :
http://www.net.cmu.edu/bin/traceroute (watch it trace hop to hop)
SWITCH WHOIS Gateway:
http://www.switch.ch/search/whois_form.html
Or
http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois
http://www.ripe.net/db/whois.html - European countries WhoIs
http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl - Asian Pacific WhoIs
http://www.arin.net/whois/arinwhois.html - North / South America WhoIs
IP to Lat - Lon (For those times when only a Tactical Nuke will do ;-))
:
http://cello.cs.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/slamm/ip2ll/
Yet Another IP to name:
http://cello.cs.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/slamm/ip2name
What do those domain names mean :
http://www.alldomains.com/alltlds.html
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/country-codes.txt - Country
Codes for the last characters in a domain name
Converting that IP to a name
=============================
When all you have is a number the looks like "204.183.126.181", and no
computer name, then you have to figure out what the name of that
computer is. Most likely if you complain to "
postmaster@[204.183.126.181] " it will go directly to the spammer
themselves (if it goes anywhere at all).
Marty reminds us that there are some "special" IP's that are allocated
as private networks. These fall within the confines of 0.0.0.0 to
255.255.255.255 but should be ignored. The addresses are :
Class Start Address End Address
A 10.0.0.0 10.255.255.255
B 172.16.0.0 172.31.255.255
C 192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255
See :
http://www.umnet.umich.edu/groups/UMnet-Routing/UAssignedPrivateIP.html
First off try using NSLookup (there is software for PC's or look at the
URL's at the top of this FAQ). If the NSLookup does not give you a
name then try a Traceroute. Somewhere you will get a "name" and at
that point I would complain to the postmaster@<that name>. See below
for complaint addresses.
To convert that decimal number to a "dotted quad octet" :
http://3438189385/yt/rotten1/
You can put this "strange" number in at :
http://samspade.org/classic/
And you get an answer like:
204.238.155.73
Kirk tells us wsftp and the traceroute that comes with wsftp will take
those number and automatically translate them into the IP addresses.
Or under Widows 95 :
start --> Programs --> Accessories --> Calculator
Choose view --> Scientific
Put in the "strange" number (3438189385) and click on HEX. You get:
CCEE9B49
Then type in each of the two characters in HEX and click DEC after each
number:
CC = 204
EE = 238
9B = 155
49 = 73
Viola ... Your IP is 204.238.155.73
For more general funny URLs, like
http://23123443~32:3758493879/www.samspade.org/10.00.0.1/xxxstuff.html,
try http://samspade.org/t/url.cgi?x
If the site is a IP address like "198.41.0.5", you can do a DNS lookup
to backtrack the site. A DNS lookup or a host command (see example
below) uses the info in a Domain Name Server database. This is the
same info that is used for packet routing. The UNIX command is :
nslookup 198.41.0.5
Commands:
nslookup hostname dns_server
or
dig @dns_server hostname
And you get :
Name: RS.INTERNIC.NET
Addresses: 198.41.0.5, 198.41.0.6
If you are having problems with this, Josh suggests you try :
$ nslookup
Default Server: ddi.digital.net
Address: 198.69.104.2
> set type=ptr
> 181.126.183.204.in-addr.arpa
Server: ddi.digital.net
Address: 198.69.104.2
Non-authoritative answer:
181.126.183.204.in-addr.arpa name = kjl.com
Authoritative answers can be found from:
126.183.204.IN-ADDR.ARPA nameserver = escape.com
126.183.204.IN-ADDR.ARPA nameserver = ns.uu.net
escape.com Internet address = 198.6.71.10
ns.uu.net Internet address = 137.39.1.3
InterNIC is your friend. The InterNIC Registration Services Host
contains ONLY Internet Information (Networks, ASN's, Domains, and
POC's). Please use the whois server at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET
Information. Try :
telnet rs.internic.net
whois 198.41.0.5
If that doesn't work, try the following (UNIX) command to tell you who
owns that "block" of addresses :
whois -h whois.arin.net 198.41.0
Dan has said that the NIC technical contact is the address to contact
if there is a technical problem with the name service records for that
domain. Sending spam notifications to the zone tech contact is an
abuse of the NIC whois records. Sending to the admin contact is
marginally more justifiable, but should only be used after postmaster
has been tried.
Thanx to Leslie, whom to contact about domains that have invalid
contact information :
Internic Registration Services should be contacted by email:
hostmaster@rs.internic.net
To see who the upstream provider is, try :
traceroute ip30.abq-dialin.hollyberry.com
You might get :
traceroute to IP30.ABQ-DIALIN.HOLLYBERRY.COM (165.247.201.30), 30 hops
max, 38 byte packets
1 cpe2.Washington.mci.net (192.41.177.181) 190 ms 210 ms 120 ms
2 borderx1-hssi2-0.Washington.mci.net (204.70.74.101) 100 ms 100 ms
60 ms
3 core-fddi-0.Washington.mci.net (204.70.2.1) 180 ms 130 ms 70 ms
4 core1-hssi-4.LosAngeles.mci.net (204.70.1.177) 150 ms 140 ms 150
ms
5 core-hssi-4.Bloomington.mci.net (204.70.1.142) 180 ms 200 ms 180
ms
6 border1-fddi-0.Bloomington.mci.net (204.70.2.130) 170 ms 290 ms
240 ms
7 internet-direct.Bloomington.mci.net (204.70.48.30) 300 ms 210 ms
270 ms
8 165.247.70.1 (165.247.70.1) 180 ms 240 ms 180 ms
9 abq-phx-gw1.indirect.com (165.247.202.253) 290 ms 220 ms 230 ms
10 * * *
The first column is the "hop" that traceroute is working on. The next
is the "computer" (and IP) of the computer at that hop. The last three
numbers are the milliseconds it took to get an answer from that
computer.
You can get "codes" instead of the milliseconds. An example of a
"code" is the "* * *" for hop 10.
Here is a list of the codes:
* The Traceroute Packet timed out (did not return to you).
? Unknown packet type.
H Host unreachable.
N Network unreachable.
P Protocol unreachable.
Q Source quench.
U Port unreachable.
Humm..... Seems that after abq-phx-gw1.indirect.com we get no response,
so *that* is who I would complain to... or you can just send a message
to postmaster@indirect.com ... If that doesn't work then complain to
MCI.net.
JamBreaker sez : Be sure to let the traceroute go until the traceroute
stops after 30 hops or so. A reply of "* * *" doesn't mean that you've
got the right destination; it just means that either the gateways don't
send ICMP "time exceeded" messages or that they send them with a ttl
(time-to-live) too small to reach you.
Try 'dig' (or one of its derivatives), it is used to search DNS
records :
(For the software :
http://www.rediris.es/ftp/infoiris/red/ip/dns/dig-2.0/ )
yourhost> dig -x 38.11.185.89
; <<>> dig 2.0 <<>> -x
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY , status: NOERROR, id: 6
;; flags: qr aa rd ra ; Ques: 1, Ans: 1, Auth: 3, Addit: 3
;; QUESTIONS:
;; 89.185.11.38.in-addr.arpa, type = ANY, class = IN
;; ANSWERS:
89.185.11.38.in-addr.arpa. 86400 PTR
ip89.albuquerque.nm.interramp.com.
;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
11.38.in-addr.arpa. 86400 NS ns.psi.net.
11.38.in-addr.arpa. 86400 NS ns2.psi.net.
11.38.in-addr.arpa. 86400 NS ns5.psi.net.
;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
ns.psi.net. 86400 A 192.33.4.10
ns2.psi.net. 86400 A 38.8.50.2
ns5.psi.net. 86400 A 38.8.5.2
;; Sent 1 pkts, answer found in time: 64 msec
;; FROM: (yourhostname) to SERVER: default -- (yourDNSip)
;; WHEN: Thu Nov 16 23:30:42 1995
;; MSG SIZE sent: 43 rcvd: 216
A list of Usenet complaint addresses
============================================
O.K... So you have a common site that you can complain to. Good. If
you cannot figure out where the message came from, you can post the
FULL HEADERS (this is *very* important for tracing) to news.admin.net-
abuse.misc, news.admin.net-abuse.email or news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
(see the section entitled Reporting Spam and tracing a posted message).
Usually you can get someone to help with the message.
If you complain (or asked to be removed) to the spammer directly, you
may just be confirming a "real" live e-mail address, which may lead to
even more junk e-mail. I would suggest complaining to the owner of the
site only. You can send e-mail to foo.bar.com@abuse.net (where
foo.bar.com is the provider you are complaining to) and it will get
forwarded to the "best" e-mail address.. See http://www.abuse.net/
There is a list of admins to contact (besides the list contained here):
http://www-fofa.concordia.ca/spam/complaints.shtml
Greg reminds us that if you are complaining to a postmaster about a
week-old post, don't bother. It's not on their server, they can't
verify it. Make sure you use terms correctly. A recent trend is to
call any off-topic post "spam". It's not. I deal with spammers and
off-topic or advertising posters differently. Other providers do also.
Also, try to keep the clutter in your complaints down. I don't need a
copy of the referenced RFC or statute. It doesn't help either of us if
I can't find your complaint in between all the mumbo jumbo.
Send complaint with FULL HEADERS in e-mail to any or all of the below :
abuse@spammer.site.net
postmaster@spammer.site.net
Note : abuse@spammer.site.net is not a "standard" complaint e-mail
address, but I would suggest trying that address first.
Chris tells us :
If you see MMFs or other gross abuses from AOL, MSN, MCI
(_not_internetmci), Primenet, Panix, please do not report them to
news.admin.net-abuse.misc. Just wastes bandwidth. Email your report
directly to the provider:
abuse@aol.com
postmaster@mci.com
postmaster@primenet.com
postmaster@panix.com
abuse@msn.com
By "gross abuses", please try to ensure that it really is likely to be
spam. Not one article cross-posted lots, but lots of articles that you
see yourself.
For the following providers the correct e-mail address is:
1-800-600-0343 # (Some Extension) - abuse@digitcom.net - Digitcom sells
flat rate $19.95 per month services, 100 messages per day. Spammers
love this as it is no muss no fuss flat rate.
1-800-242-0363 # (Some Extension) - abuse@digitcom.net - Digitcom
Nationwide Services
1-800-607-6006 # (Some extension) - webmaster@linkems.com - Associated
with www.linkems.com
1-800-811-2141 Code # (some code number) - anti_spam@topsecrets100.com
A-VIP.com - abuse@netforward.com
ABAC.COM - abuse@ABAC.COM abuse@aplus.net abuse@intercom.net -
http://www.abac.com/use.html
Above.Net - abuse@above.net - http://www.above.net/images/aug.pdf
ABSnet - support@abs.net or abs-admin@abs.net
Access1.net - abuse@access1.net / abuse@mail.access1.net
ACN US Tech - techsupport@acninc.net
AGIS.NET - postmaster@AGIS.NET or abuse@agis.net
AiNET - network-abuse@ai.net - http://www.ai.net/aup.html
Airnet.net - abuse@airnet.net
Alladvantage.com - abuse@alladvantage.com - List of cancelled users
http://www.alladvantage.com/spamlist.asp
Allinfosys.com - abuse@savvis.net - Allinfosys advertises an open SMTP
port at smtp1.allinfosys.com [209.44.59.8]
Aloha.Net - abuse@aloha.net
Alter.net - postmaster@alter.net is forwarded to UUNet
Angelfire.com or angelfire.com - spam@whowhere.com -
http://pages.whowhere.com/internet/nospammers
ANV.NET - abuse@anv.net - http://www.accessnv.com
AOL - abuse@aol.com . Emergency - send complete copies to
atropos@aol.net
APEXMAIL.COM - abuse@APEXMAIL.COM - Mail sent from APEX includes the IP
address in the message header, which appears as X-MAILFROM-IP:
[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
APNIC.net - IP Lookup - whois -h whois.apnic.net <IP address> - APNIC
Does not provide network services. APNIC is the Internet registry for
the Asia and Pacific Rim regions -- we primarily delegate blocks of
addresses to service providers. We do not run a network (other than
our internal network) nor do we have customers or non-staff accounts.
Appliedtheory.net - abuse@appliedtheory.net
Arizonaone.com - abuse@arizonaone.com
AT&T - dial-access.att.net - abuse@att.net
AT&T WorldNet Services - abuse@worldnet.att.net
ATTmail.com - elsaphelp@attmail.com
AudioPhile.com - abuse@netforward.com
Autonet.net - abuse@autonet.net
AXS.net - abuse@axs.net
Bayoucom.net - postmaster@bayoucom.net
BBN.com - abuse@bbnplanet.com
BBNplanet.com - abuse@bbnplanet.com
BCtel.ca Dial-In Users - abuse@bc.sympatico.ca
BCtel.net - abuse@bctel.net - http://www.bctel.net/aup
Bellatlantic.net - abuse@bellatlantic.net
Bellglobal.com - abuse@bellglobal.com
Bellsouth - abuse@bellsouth.net
Best.com - abuse@best.com
BFP.net - abuse@bfp.net
bigfoot.com - postmaster@bigfoot.com
Biglobe.ne.jp - info@biglobe.or.jp / support@bcs.biglobe.ne.jp /
support@biglobe.or.jp
BioGate.com - abuse@netforward.com
Biosys.net - abuse@netforward.com
bitmail.com - abuse@freetradeweb.com
BitSmart.com - abuse@netforward.com
Biznizlist.com - www.biznizlist.com - abuse@psi.com - Spam friendly see
: http://www.biznizlist.com/FAQ/faq.html
Boo.net - abuse@boo.net
BT.net - abuse@bt.net
Businessman.org - support@sitesinternet.com / abuse@sitesinternet.com
(abuse mailbox was full ...)
Cableinet.net - abuse@cableinet.net
Cais.net - noc@cais.com - http://www.cais.com/comp_aup.htm - CAIS
acceptable use
Campus.MCI.Net - postmaster@campus.mci.net
CERF.net - abuse@CERF.net - http://www.ipservices.att.com/policy.html -
AT&T merger - http://www.cerf.net/cerfnet/
Clover.Net - Abuse@Clover.Net - http://www.clover.net
CNX.NET - abuse@cnx.net
coam.net - abuse@coam.net
Codetel.net.do - SysAdmin@auth2.codetel.net.do
Coloradosoft.com - Wrote a mail merge program that used to allow
spamming, has since fixed the code but old versions are still out there
... Please do not complain to them ...
Com.BR - Policy - demi@agestado.com.br security violations write the
list cert-br@listas.ansp.br
Combase.COM - abuse@COMBASE.COM
Come.to - abuse@come.to - AUP http://come.to/abuse.html - Complaint
form at http://v3.come.to/webmaster.html
Commtouch.com - spam@commtouch.com
ComPorts.com - abuse@netforward.com
Compuserve - abuse-mail@compuserve.net : Email "spam"/massmail
complaints - abuse-news@compuserve.net : News "spam" complaints
Compuweb.com - abuse@COMPUWEB.COM
Concentric.net - abuse@concentric.net -
http://home.concentric.net/support/tos.html -
http://home.concentric.net/support/faq/general/aup.html
Connect.ab.ca - abuse@connect.ab.ca
CRL.com - abuse@crl.com / support@crl.com - Send to One and ONLY one
address or it will bounce back to you unsent, and a bug in the software
they have will *not* let you send that complaint to only one recipient
after that first e-mail.
Cryogen.com - abuse@netforward.com
CW.net - Spamcomplaints@cwixmail.com - Cable and Wireless - Security -
http://security.cw.net/
CWI.NET - abuse@cwi.net - Cable & Wireless Internet
CWIX.NET - Spamcomplaints@cwixmail.com
CyberJunkie.com - abuse@netforward.com
Cyberlynk.net - abuse@cyberlynk.net -
http://www.cyberlynk.net/policies.html
Cyberthrill.com - abuse@cyberthrill.com -
http://www.cyberthrill.com/antispam.html
DeathsDoor.com - abuse@netforward.com
DejaNews - abuse@deja.com - http://www.deja.com/help/faq.shtml#abuse -
http://www.deja.com/info/postrules.shtml
Demon.net - abuse@demon.net - http://www.demon.net/connect/aup/
Dhs.org - abuse-<full hostname>@dhs.org Example: abuse-
spam123.dhs.org@dhs.org
Dial-access.att.net - abuse@att.net
Dialsprint.net - abuse@earthlink.net
Digex.net - abuse@digex.net (along with your real name) see
http://www.access.digex.net/~policy/digex-aup.html
DigiCron.com - abuse@netforward.com
Digiweb.com - abuse@digiweb.com
Direct.CA - complaints@direct.ca
DittosRush.com - abuse@netforward.com
dN.NET - abuse@dn.net - http://www.dn.net/aup
DRAGG.NET - postmaster@DRAGG.NET
EarthCorp.com - abuse@netforward.com
earthlink.net - abuse@earthlink.net or spam@earthlink.net
http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/aupolicy.html - Acceptable use
Eclipse Internet Services - abuse@eclipse.net /
abuse@annular.eclipse.net
efortress.com - abuse@efortress.com
ELI.net - abuse@eli.net (reports to postmaster@eli.net are NOT
forwarded to abuse@eli.net , they are deleted).
Empirenet.com - abuse@globalcenter.net -
http://www.globalcenter.net/launchpad/util/antispam.html
ENI.net - abuse@eni.net
Epoch Internet - ENI.net - abuse@eni.net -
http://www.eni.net/Our_Network/aup.html
Erols.com - abuse@erols.com
Espire.net - e.spire Communications - abuse@espire.net -
http://www2.espire.net/aup498.cfm
evcom.net - abuse@evcom.net -
http://www.evcom.net/services/access/acceptab.htm
excite.com - abuse.support@excitecorp.com -
http://www.excite.com/terms.html
excitecorp.com - abuse.support@excitecorp.com -
http://www.excite.com/terms.html
Exec-PC Inc. - abuse@execpc.com
Exodus.net - abuse@exodus.net -
http://www.exodus.net/corp/about/antispam.html
Fastresponse.net - NetworkTeam@fastresponse.net
Flashmail.com - abuse@flashmail.com
Flashnet - postmaster@flash.net -
http://www.flash.net/~support/esupport/postmast.html
FLIPS.NET - abuse@flips.net http://www.flips.net/terms.html /
http://www.flips.net/spamnote.htm
Forfree.at - abuse@forfree.at http://forfree.at/registration/
Freei.net - freei@freei.net
Freenet.carleton.ca - abuse@freenet.carleton.ca
Freeservers.com - abuse@freeservers.com -
http://WWW.FREESERVERS.COM/policies/abuse.html
Freeyellow.com - abuse@freeyellow.com - http://home.freeyellow.com/tos/
Funtv.com - webmaster@funtv.com
GalaxyCorp.com - abuse@netforward.com
Gate.net - support@gate.net
Genuity.net - abuse@bbnplanet.com
Geocities.com - abuse@geocities.com
gergs_bane.org (does not exist, it is faked) - See UUNET -
help@uunet.uu.net
Getnet.com - Abuse@neta.com - http://www.neta.com /
http://www.getnet.com
Globalcenter.net - spam@globalcenter.net - Takes 10 complaints to kill
a spammer - http://www.globalcenter.net/launchpad/util/antispam.html
GlobeComm, Inc. - GlobeComm is the parent company of iName -
abuse@Mail.com
Globix.net - abuse@Globix.com
GMX.net - abuse@gmx.net
GNN.Com - For help regarding a problem with a GNN member -
GNNadvisor@gnn.com.
Go2net.com - support@go2net.com
Good.Net - goodnet.com - abuse@goodnet.com
GTE.net - abuse@bbnplanet.com
Gulf.net - postmaster@gulf.net - Spam cleanup charges !!!
HK.Super.NET - abuse@HK.Super.NET - http://www.hk.super.net/email-aup
HKnet.com - abuse@hknet.com - http://www.hknet.com/iPage/policy.html
HKU.HK - Hong Kong University - kty@CC.HKU.HK
Holonet.net - abuse@holonet.net - Complaint must contain e-mail
address, real name, address, and day time telephone number
Home.net / Home.com - postmaster@home.net
http://www.home.com/support/aup/ . You must correctly identify the IP
and send it to the correct postmaster (I don't know how you are
supposed to identify home.com's other customers ...). Home.net does
not forward spam. 24.112 or 24.113 should be sent to
abuse@rogers.home.net , any wave.home.com address that begins with
'CS', 24.64, 24.65, or 24.66 should be sent to Internet.Abuse@shaw.ca
Other home.net customers and their avbuse addresses. TCI:
customer.care@tci.net Comcast: service@comcastpc.com Cablevision:
support@optonline.net Cox: datahelp@cox.com Shaw:
internet.help@shaw.wave.ca Rogers: support@rogers.home.com Marcus:
marcus-support@home.com Intermedia: imediasupport@home.com Insight:
Csr-gatekeeper@home.com Jones: Csr-gatekeeper@home.com Century: Csr-
gatekeeper@home.com
Homepage.com / Homepagecorp.com - abuse@homepagecorp.com
Homestead.com - abuse@homestead.com
Hotbot.com - spam@whowhere.com -
http://pages.whowhere.com/internet/nospammers
Hotmail.com - abuse@hotmail.com - http://wy1lg.hotmail.com/cgi-
bin/dasp/tos.asp - Also look for "X-Originating-IP: [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]"
in the header to see where the e-mail originated from.
HotPOP.com - abuse@hotpop.com
i.am - abuse@easy.to
IBM Net - abuse@ibm.net - http://help.ibm.net/service/abuse.html
IDT.Net - abuse@idt.net - http://www.idt.net/usage
IMSIS.COM - abuse@IMSIS.COM
iName - iname.com - abuse@Mail.com
Infi.net - abuse@infi.net - http://www.infi.net/policy.html
InfoAve.Net - ABUSE@InfoAve.Net
information4u.com - abuse@Mail.com
Inreach.com - postmaster@inreach.com -
http://members.inreach.com/acceptable.html
INS Info Services (netins.net) - abuse@netins.net
Interaccess.com - abuse@interaccess.com
Intercom.net - abuse@ABAC.COM abuse@aplus.net abuse@intercom.net -
http://www.abac.com/use.html
Intergate.bc.ca - abuse@intergate.bc.ca - AUP is
http://www.intergate.ca/personal/icsa.htm
interramp.com - abuse@interramp.com or psinet-domain-admin@PSI.COM
interserve.com.hk - Mr. K H Lee - khlee@interserve.com.hk.
ISPchannel.com - abuse@mediacity.com
iSTAR Canada (istar.ca, inforamp.net, hotstar.net, magi.com, or
nstn.ca) - abuse@iSTAR.ca
JPS.net - abuse@jps.net - http://www.jps.net/support/spam
Juno.com - postmaster@juno.com
LAKER.NET admin@laker.net or VOICE 1-954-359-3670 FAX 1-954-359-2741
LD.net - webmaster@ld.net / webmaster@cognigen.com for spamming
incidents - http://LD.NET/bizop/bizop.html#nospam -
http://ld.net/6.9/LD1999 - Spammer Canceled
Level3.com - Abuse@level3.com -
http://www.level3.com/services/inter_acc_acceptableuse.html
LI.net - Owned by longisland.verio.net - abuse@longisland.verio.net or
questions@longisland.verio.net
Listbot.com - lbabuse@linkexchange.com
LN.NET - abuse@LN.NET
looksmart.com - spam@commtouch.com
Loop.Com or Loop.net - greg@loop.com
Lycosmail.com - abuse@Mail.com
Mail.com - abuse@Mail.com
Mailcity.com - spam@whowhere.com -
http://pages.whowhere.com/internet/nospammers
Mailexcite.com - spam@whowhere.com -
http://pages.whowhere.com/internet/nospammers
MailMe.net - support@sitesinternet.com / abuse@sitesinternet.com (abuse
mailbox was full ...)
MALIBU - postmaster@pbi.net
Maverick.NET - postmaster@MAVERICK.NET
MCI Net - Spamcomplaints@cwixmail.com - Security
http://security.cw.net/
mckinley.com - abuse.support@excitecorp.com -
http://www.excite.com/terms.html
MCSNet - support@mcs.net
Mediacity.com - abuse@mediacity.com
Members.xoom.com - abuse@xoom.com
MHI Network - abuse@milehigh.net
MicroServe.net - abuse@microserve.net - http://www.microserve.net/aup /
http://www.naispa.org/aup
Mindspring.com - abuse@mindspring.com -
http://www.mindspring.com/~nomorespam
ML.org - abuse@ml.org
money.com or money.now - postmaster@cam.org
Monisys.ca - abuse@monisys.ca
MS.UU.Net - Example CustXX.MaxXX.city.ST.MS.UU.NET and does not have
@msn.com - fraud@uu.net
MS.UU.Net - Example CustXX.MaxXX.city.ST.MS.UU.NET and explicitly
contains an MSN e-mail address (@msn.com) - abuse@msn.com
MSN.com - Abuse@msn.com - http://www.msn.com/aup.htm
MWIS.net - root@mwis.net
myfreeoffice.com - support@myfreeoffice.com /
naispa.org - abuse@microserve.net - http://www.microserve.net/aup /
http://www.naispa.org/aup
Nap.net - abuse@bbnplanet.com
neta.com - Abuse@neta.com - http://www.neta.com / http://www.getnet.com
Netcom.ca - abuse@netcom.ca
Netcom.com or @ix.netcom.com - Put "E-Mail" or "News" in Subject -
abuse@netcom.com - http://www.netcom.com/netcom/aug.html - $200
cleanup fee!!!
Netforward.com - abuse@netforward.com / Postmaster@Netforward.com
Netins.net - abuse@netins.net
NETSCAPE.NET - abuse@netscape.net
Nextel.no - abuse@nextel.no
http://www.nextel.no/kundesenter/hjelp/obs/abuse.html (Norwegian only)
NFmail.com - postmaster@nfmail.com "Any use or exploiting of the
Project Netfraternity (registered) for profit or commercial aims, by
any person or organization, will be pursued by law."
NKN.NET - postmaster@veriotexas.net
NL.net / NL.uu.net - postmaster@nl.net or support@nl.uu.net
Nodewarrior.net - abuse@nodewarrior.net
OnRamp - postmaster@veriotexas.net
Optilinkcomm.net - postmaster@optilinkcomm.net
Orbita.Starmedia.com - postmaster@starmedia.com
OZemail.com.au - abuse@ozemail.com.au
pacbell.net / pbi.net - abuse@pacbell.net -
http://public.pacbell.net/dialup/usepolicy.html : Forged headers =
Automatic account cancellation.
Pagepark.com - abuse@pagepark.com
Pair.com - abuse@pair.com - http://www.pair.com/abuse/
Pipeline.com - postmaster@pipeline.com
PIPEX- postmaster@dial.pipex.com , International - int-sup@pipex.net ,
Unipalm PIPEX - postmaster@unipalm.pipex.com
POBoxes.com - abuse@netforward.com
POBoxes.com - abuse@Netforward.com -
http://www.netforward.com/rules.shtml
popsite.net - postmaster@starnetinc.com - Killed users -
http://www.popsite.net/kill.html
popsite.net - postmaster@starnetusa.net - http://www.megapop.net/
portal.com - support@portal.com
Power-tech.net -abuse@power-tech.net
Powernet.net - abuse@powernet.net
Primenet.com - spam@globalcenter.net
Prodigy - abuse@prodigy.net
PSI Net - abuse@psi.com , net-abuse@psi.com PSI Net policies -
http://www.psi.net/legalinfo/netabusepolicy.html
Psynet.net - abuse@netforward.com
pwrnet - abuse@pwrnet.com
QWest.net - uce@qwest.net
RadioLink.net - abuse@netforward.com
Rain.net - abuse@rain.net
RocketMail - abuse@rocketmail.com -
http://www.rocketmail.com/py/RMailTermsText.py
Savvis.net - abuse@savvis.net
Seanet.com - abuse@seanet.com -
http://www.seanet.com/help/abuse.FAQ.html
Shore.net - support@shore.net
Sitesinternet.com - support@sitesinternet.com / abuse@sitesinternet.com
(abuse mailbox was full ...)
Slip Net - abuse@slip.net - Tech Support
Softaware.com - abuse@softaware.com - http://www.softaware.com/aup.html
Southwindent.com - dave@vcity.net
Splitinfinity.net - abuse@SPLITINFINITY.NET
Splitrock.net - abuse@Splitrock.net (Prodigy uses some Splitrock.net
dialups)
Sprint - abuse@sprint.net
Sprintlink - 800-669-8303 abuse@sprint.net , noc@sprintlink.net . For
sprintmail.com abuse reports send to abuse@sprintmail.com . You can
view Sprint's Policy at http://www.sprintbiz.com/ip/policy.html
Sprintmail.com - abuse@sprintmail.com
Sprynet - abuse@mindspring.net - Now MindSpring
http://www.mindspring.com/~nomorespam
Stargate.net - abuse@stargate.net -
http://www.stargate.net/stargate/policies-terms.html
Starmedia.com - postmaster@starmedia.com
Starnetusa.net - postmaster@starnetusa.net -
http://www.starnetinc.com/support/tos.html
State.net - abuse@state.net -
http://www.state.net/MNonline/Admin/aup.html
State.tx.us - abuse@capnet.state.tx.us
SUMMITPOINT.COM - abuse@state.net - (Merged with State.net) -
http://www.state.net/MNonline/Admin/aup.html
SWBell.net - postmaster@swbell.net -
http://public.swbell.net/faq/spam.html
Tande.com - abuse@netforward.com
TeenWorld.POBoxes.com - abuse@netforward.com
Teleport System Administration - teleport.com - admin@teleport.com
TerraNova.net - abuse@terranova.net -
http://www.terranova.net/policy.html
The18thHole.com - abuse@netforward.com
Thedoghousemail.com - abuse@thedoghousemail.com
Theglobe.com - abuse@corp.theglobe.com
TheGrid - postmaster@thegrid.net
TheGym.net - abuse@netforward.com
TheOffice.net - abuse@netforward.com
Theoffice.net - Postmaster@netforward.com
ThePentagon.com - abuse@netforward.com
Theplanet.net - abuse@theplanet.net
TheWaterCooler.com - abuse@netforward.com
TIAC.net - abuse@tiac.net
tip.net - postmaster@tip.net hh@tip.net
Together.net - abuse@together.net
Topsecrets100.com - webmaster@topsecrets100.com
Total.net - abuse@total.net -
http://central.total.net/centrale/totalnet/usepolicy.shtml (French) -
http://central.total.net/central/totalnet/usepolicy.shtml (English)
Tripod.com - abuse@tripod.com
TSEinc.com - postmaster@tseinc.com
U S West - abuse@uswest.net
UK.uu.net - E-Mail problems - mail@support.uk.uu.net , News problems -
news@support.uk.uu.net , Security problems - security@support.uk.uu.net
ULINK.NET - abuse@ULINK.NET
Ultra.net - abuse@rcn.com
Unbounded.net - abuse@unbounded.net
University of Alberta Canada - abuse@ualberta.ca
University of Pennsylvania - millar@pobox.upenn.edu - For security
matters : security@isc.upenn.edu
USA.Net - abuse@usa.net -
http://netaddress.usa.net/tpl/Info/General?AdInfo=&Referer=&InfoTitle=A
nti-Spamming+Policy&InfoFile=info_spam_body.html -
http://netaddress.usa.net/tpl/Info/SubAgreement
usol.com - postmaster@usol.com
UUNET - E-Mail Spams - abuse-mail@uu.net (just the e-mail and headers,
nothing else), Newsgroup Spams - abuse-news@uu.net . help@uunet.uu.net
- http://www.us.uu.net/support/usepolicy - See Also MS.UU.Net - For
abuse of the open UUNET NNTP port, UUNET will block the site if you
complain. See Gergsbane.org
uunet.ca - abuse@uunet.ca - http://www.uunet.ca/aup.html
UWO.CA - postmaster@julian.uwo.ca -
http://publish.uwo.ca/~reggers/spammers
Valueweb.net - abuse@valueweb.net
VCnet.com -abuse@vcnet.com
Verio.net - abuse@verio.net
WCom.Net - MCI WorldCom Advanced Networks - abuse@wcom.net
Webbernet.net - abuse@webbernet.net - abuse@cartman.webbernet.net
webcrawler.com - abuse.support@excitecorp.com -
http://www.excite.com/terms.html
Webjump.com - abuse@webjump.com
Webmaster.se - postmaster@webmaster.se
Webtv.net - abuse@webtv.net - http://webtv.net/tos.html
Whowhere.com - spam@whowhere.com -
http://pages.whowhere.com/internet/nospammers
Wild.net - abuse@wild.net
WOWmail.com - postmaster@wowmail.com
Writeme.com - Iname.com - abuse@Mail.com
www.idirect.com - spammer@idirect.com
www.tucows.com - spammer@idirect.com
xoom.com - abuse@xoom.com
Yahoo Mail - abuse@yahoo.com -
http://edit.my.yahoo.com/config/form?.form=yahoomail_agree
Zebra.net - abuse@zebra.net
Zippp.com - mike@zippp.com
From : David Jackson (djackson@aol.net) (and this applies to *any*
abuse) :
To report an instance of USENET abuse send mail to postmaster@aol.com -
please remember to include a complete copy of the USENET article,
including all headers, to help us quickly quash the abuse.
Scott reminds us :
It might also be a good idea to remind people that sometimes the
postmaster _is_ the spammer. Joe Spam might have his own domain (since
they _used_ to be free) inside of which they are the postmaster. This
is terrifyingly common with net.twits (kooks, etc.) but seems rare for
spam. A quick note that if the spammer is the admin contact in whois,
notifying the postmaster will surely generate laughs on their end.
In the letter to the postmaster, you might wish to mention Joel's very
good FAQ about advertising on the Internet :
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/usenet/advertising/how-
to/part1.html
http://www.cis.ohio-
state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1/faq.html
One company that was suckered in by a bulk e-mail company received 35
responses to the addresses in the body of the message, and 100% of them
were negative. Additionally the ISP that hosted them received 15
complaints asking for them to terminate their service. UUNet received
50+ complaints about this UCE.
And where they *should* advertise :
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/finding-groups/general.html
Additional business links:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmm/papers.html#efi - Economic FAQ about
the Internet
http://www.si.umich.edu/Classes/555/resources/si555syllabus.html -
Electronic Commerce
http://www.si.umich.edu/Classes/555/resources/addition.html -
Additional Resources
If you don't get a proper response from the postmaster, remember, Whois
- rs.internic.net is your friend. See the section labeled "Converting
that IP to a name" for more information on Internic.
This *should* get you a person to talk to & their personal e-mail
address. If you don't get any response from that postmaster, then you
should try the provider to that site. This gets a little trickier, but
a traceroute should show you the upstream provider, and from there you
can try contacting the postmasters of *that* site.
Any non-profit organization (like a University) should be very happy to
help get rid of a spammer if the non-profit organizations resources are
being used to spam a for-profit business. The IRS can take their non-
profit status away for such things. Talk to the legal council at the
non-profit organization if you don't get a positive response from the
postmaster.
Worst case, a site can be UDP (Usenet Death Penalty) out so that other
sites stop accepting news or even e-mail from that site. They are cut
off from the net. Decisions like this are discussed in the news group
news.admin.net-abuse.misc .
If the spammer site has problems trying to figure out where the spam
came from, they can *always* get help from the denizens of
news.admin.net-abuse.misc, but have them take a look at their logs
first and see if they see something like (Thanks to help from Michael):
My news logs (for INND) are:
$ cd /usr/log/news
$ ls
OLD expire.log news.err unwanted.log
errlog news news.notice
expire.list news.crit nntpsend.log
and here is my syslog.conf:
## news stuff
news.crit /usr/log/news/news.crit
news.err /usr/log/news/news.err
news.notice /usr/log/news/news.notice
news.info /usr/log/news/news
news.debug /usr/log/news/news.debug
but, what they need to remember, is they HAVE TO LOOK QUICK!. INND
expire puts all these logs in OLD, and recycles them, and expires them
at the 7th day (and gzips them), i.e., OLD/:
ls -l news.?.*
-r--r----- 1 news news 181098 May 23 06:26 news.1.gz
...
-r--r----- 1 news news 319343 May 17 06:29 news.7.gz
so... to grep an old log looking for sfa.ufl.edu:
(the {nn} is how many days ago, 1 is yesterday, 2 is 2 days ago, etc)
cd {log/OLD}
gunzip -c news.1.gz | grep sfa.ufl.edu | more
Fraud on the Internet and The MMF (Make Money Fast) Posts
================================================================
A partnership of the National Association of Attorneys General, the
Federal Trade Commission and The National Consumers League :
http://www.fraud.org/
Call 1-800-876-7060 or fill out an on-line scam sheet:
http://www.fraud.org/info/repoform.htm
http://www.junkemail.org/scamspam/ - FTC ScamSpam
The Better Business Bureau has a web site at:
http://www.bbb.org
Hoaxes and scams :
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
http://www.abraxis.com/fans/PAGE_7.htm
http://www.scambusters.com/
In the United States :
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission web page (stock
solicitations, stock manipulation by sending out spam after buying a
stock to get others to buy the stock and increase the price)
http://www.sec.gov/enforce/comctr.htm or Email:
enforcement@sec.gov
http://www.sec.gov/news/netfraud.htm - SEC prosecutions
Net Securities scam: Report to cyberfraud@nasaa.org
http://www.nasaa.org/whoweare/media/Cyberfraud%20email%20release.htm
The Food and Drug Administration :
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/problem.html
Medical Items:
US Federal Drug Administration - MedWatch - Medwatch@OC.FDA.GOV
Make Money Fast is a pyramid (or Ponzi) scheme where you are in a chain
of people wherein you send money to a few people and try to recruit
others to send money to you. Basically if it even remotely smells like
a MMF scheme it is illegal (even tho' many of the MMF schemes "claim"
to have been looked at by a lawyer or checked by the United States
Postal Authorities).
For a list of countries where Make Money Fast is illegal see :
http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/mmf/mmf_table.html
http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/mmf/
http://ga.to/mmf/
Scams can be found at places like :
http://ga.to/mmf/currency.html
Please, only report MMFs in news.admin.net-abuse.misc if they're spam
and you've seen it in lots of groups and / or the postmaster/user are
defiantly stupid.
MMFs should be reported to the user and their postmaster and the
following :
The law in Australia and where to send complaints to :
http://www.wa.gov.au/gov/mft/pages/mftbn10.html
Ministry of Fair Trading
P O Box 6355
EAST PERTH 6536
In Canada I believe that the applicable Canadian description can be
found at :
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/html/commerc.htm
And from the Canadian Department of Justice server (
http://canada.justice.gc.ca/ ):
STATUTES OF CANADA, C, Competition - PART VI OFFENSES IN RELATION TO
COMPETITION - Definition of "scheme of pyramid selling" - Section 55.1
EXTRACT FROM THE CANADIAN CRIMINAL CODE
Chain-letters
206. (1) Every one is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years who . . .
Pyramid Schemes
55.1 (1) For the purposes of this section, "scheme of pyramid selling"
means a multi-level marketing plan whereby ...
United Kingdoms:
Consumer Affairs and Competition Policy Directorate 2
Department of Trade and Industry, 1 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0ET
Tel: 0171 215 0344
Have a booklet called 'The Trading Schemes Guide' which is very useful
indeed and explains the UK legal details on these things,
In the United States, you should write the Federal Trade Commission Ms.
Broder
( bbroder@ftc.gov ). For more info on pyramid schemes use
pyramid@ftc.gov
To find your nearest postal inspector in the USA, see URL
http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/locators/find-is.html
To forward the MMF to the IRS, send it to:
net-abuse@nocs.insp.irs.gov
California MMF law :
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-
bin/calawquery?codesection=pen&codebody=endless
DOES ANYBODY HAVE POSTAL INSPECTOR ADDRESSES FOR OTHER COUNTRIES THAT
PONZI / MMF SCHEMES ARE ILLEGAL IN?
Trying to catch the suspect still logged on
==================================================
If you think you know a machine close to the spammer, you can change
your default DNS lookup server (and get *lots* more info ;-)) by :
$ nslookup
> server wb3ffv.abs.net
Default Server: wb3ffv.abs.net
Address: 206.42.80.130
> ls -d kjl.com
[wb3ffv.abs.net]
kjl.com. SOA kjl.com dns-admin.abs.net. (10
21600 3600604800 86400)
kjl.com. NS ns1.abs.net
kjl.com. NS ns2.abs.net
kjl.com. MX 10 abs.net
kjl.com. SOA kjl.com dns-admin.abs.net. (10
21600 3600604800 86400)
If you are quick enough, you can see if the spammer is still on by :
rusers rust.nmt.edu
And you might get :
kuller ray timbers jweinman timbers john timbers rayzer
Assuming that the spammer is from ingress.com you can expand the
Spammers UserID (some sites have expn / vrfy turned off) by:
> telnet ingress.com smtp
Trying 199.171.57.2 ...
Connected to ingress.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 ingress.com Sendmail 4.1/SMI-4.1 ready at Sun, 22 Oct 95 15:13:39
EDT
expn krazykev
250 Lipsitz Kevin <krazykev@kjl.com>
We connect to port 25 (smtp) and issues an expn command. Looks like
krazykev@kjl.com is being used as a maildrop for this user. I'll would
send my complaint to postmaster@kjl.com as well (not that it would do
any good in Krazy Kevin's case... but the reply to your e-mail might
be amusing).
To find out the Mail Exchange records, do a nslookup for the MX records
only. You can then look up the expansion of the postmaster or root to
see who they really are. For example :
% nslookup
> set type=mx
> gnn.com
gnn.com preference = 20, mail exchanger = mail-e1a.gnn.com
gnn.com preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail-e1b.gnn.com
% telnet mail-e1a.gnn.com smtp
220 mail-e1a.gnn.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.7.1/8.6.9 ready at Thu, 11 Jan
1996 12:54:26 -0500 (EST)
expn postmaster
250-<wross@ans.net>
250 <gnnadvisor@mail-e1a.gnn.com>
expn root
250-<mitch@ans.net>
250 <gnn-monitor@ans.net>
You can use the 'host' command. It's really simple:
% host -t any domain.name
This will give you anything your name server can find out.
% host -t ns domain.name
This tells you the name servers. Not all systems have host, but it's a
small program which should be easy to compile (like whois).
The command "last" will tell where the spammer logged on from last, but
it has to be done by a user from that site. For example :
last imrket4u
Would produce :
imrket4u ttypf ip30.abq-dialin.hollyberry.com Fri Sep 15 00:27 -
00:34 (00:06)
imrket4u ttyq8 ip30.abq-dialin.hollyberry.com Fri Sep 15 00:19 -
00:20 (00:01)
imrket4u ttyqc abq-ts1 Thu Sep 14 20:42 - 22:21
(01:39)
imrket4u ttyqc rust.nmt.edu Thu Sep 14 18:39 - 18:41
(00:01)
imrket4u ttypb abq-ts1 Thu Sep 14 17:55 - 17:57
(00:02)
Filtering E-Mail BlackMail, procmail or News with Gnus
=======================================================
Filtering with BlackMail. This is free software that works with
Mailers Smail, Sendmail, Qmail or Fetchmail under the OSes: Aix,
various BSD, Irix, Linux, NeXTStep 3.x, Solaris, SunOs, SVR4:
http://bitgate.com/spam/ - By Ken Hollis (Not me ...)
Or
http://www.jsm-net.demon.co.uk/blackmail/source
Get the procmail FAQ :
http://www.ii.com/internet/faqs/launchers/mail/filtering-faq/
or
http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/faqs/launchers/mail/filtering-faq/
http://www.ii.com/internet/robots/
or
http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/robots/
Procmail ruleset :
http://sepwww.stanford.edu/oldsep/joe/AntiJunkEmail.html
Or read about it when it is posted to :
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc , comp.mail.elm , comp.mail.pine ,
comp.answers , news.answers
Subject: Filtering Mail FAQ
Bob tells me that Eudora Pro has a good filtering capability. You can
filer based on who you send e-mail to, known spammers, etc. Enough
filters and you may see hardly any Spam. Claris E-Mailer, likewise,
has a filter option.
Brian has a Gnus scorefile from the Internet blacklist :
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/usenet/gnus/BLACKLIST
Or his example global scorefile :
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/usenet/gnus/SCORE
Many news readers have a "kill" file that will filter out the posts
from either a certain user-id, or posts with certain titles. Each news
reader is unique. You might wish to read the help file on the subject
of kill files.
Rejecting E-Mail from domains that continue to Spam
====================================================
Spamfilters can be found at:
http://www.io.com/~johnbob/jm/index.html
http://www.samiam.org/spam/index.html
http://www-new.hrweb.org/spambouncer/
List of spammers:
http://www.samiam.org/spam/spammers.txt
http://www.idot.aol.com/preferredmail/
Or look at a page on how to block e-mail :
http://www.nepean.uws.edu.au/users/david/pe/blockmail.html
Also how to stop your mail server from being a Spam Relay :
http://maps.vix.com/tsi/
Sendmail patch that permits filtering by envelope sender and recipient
as well as by Received: lines, header recipient (To: friends@public..)
and enables refusing of relaying _before_ transmission of the message:
ftp://ftp.hiss.org/pub/sendmail/
Ask your admin to add the following to their sendmail.cf. This will
reject all mail that continues to come in from domains that only send
out spam. This is a group effort from many admins :
Modify your sendmail.cf in the following way.
1. Setup a hash table with the domains you wish to block:
# Bad domains (spam kings)
FK/etc/mailspamdomains
2. Add the following rules to S98 (be sure that there are three lines
(i.e. the lines are not split up) and be sure to put a TAB character
between the $* and the $#error, not a space) :
### Spam blockage
R$* < @$*$=K . > $*$#error $@ 5.1.3 $: "Your domain has been
blocked due to spam problems. Contact your administrator."
R$* < @$*$=K > $*$#error $@ 5.1.3 $: "Your domain has been blocked due
to spam problems. Contact your administrator."
3. Make your hash table. Here is a very small example :
moneyworld.com
globalfn.com
Mail that comes in from any of these domains will be returned to sender
with the error. If the sender is bogus, it will bother the postmaster
at the bad domain in an appropriate manner.
Keep in mind that *ALL* email from these domains will be blocked. This
is really only a good solution for domains that are setup by spammers
for spamming. Blocking something like aol.com, although it may seem
initially attractive, would cause problems for legitimate users of
email in that domain. Compile your list after careful verification
that these domains fit the above description.
Misc.
=================================
Origins of Spam
======================
The history of calling inappropriate postings in great numbers "Spam"
is from a Monty Python skit (yes, it is very silly... see
http://www.ironworks.com/comedy/python/spam.htm ) where a couple go
into a restaurant, and the wife tries to get something other than Spam.
In the background are a bunch of Vikings that sing the praises of Spam.
Pretty soon the only thing you can hear in the skit is the word "Spam".
That same idea would happen to the Internet if large scale
inappropriate postings were allowed. You couldn't pick the real
postings out from the Spam. See:
http://www.geocities.com/~hkentcraig/HowInternetSpamGotItsName.html
To join a discussion list for Spams, send a message to
listserv@internet.com
In the body of the message type :
subscribe spamad your_name your_affiliation
Or a real mailing list for the discussion on spamming and about what
is and/or isn't possible in dealing with this problem. If you would
like to join the mailing list send mail to majordomo@psc.edu with the
following message in the body :
subscribe spam-list [preferred address]
Black listed Internet Advertisers :
http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/ (Europe)
Oldmilk tells us the alt.spam Commandments :
1) Thou shalt not post binaries to a non binary group.
2) Thou shalt not post "sPaM this l00zer" to alt.spam
3) Thou shalt not post to inform us for the thousandth time that this
group was started to discuss the fine spiced ham product from Hormel.
4) Thou shalt not spam this newsgroup.
5) Thou shalt not post on a topic that has nothing to do with spam
fighting.
6) Thou shalt not harass any regular poster here, lest your ass be
spanked to rosy hue.
7) Thou shalt not attempt to make any straw man arguments that spam is
good.
8) Thou shalt read the newsgroup before posting.
First off, the only CORRECT way to "SPAM" the net :
http://www.spam.com/
http://www.spam.com/fc.htm - SPAM Fan Club
http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm - Spam, SPAM and the Internet ... Use
"Spam" when referring to Internet Unsolicited E-Mail, ONLY use "SPAM"
(all CAPS) when referring to the Hormel Product.
Show SPAM Gifts http://coyote.co.net/spamgift/
Or for the free SPAM recipe Book ($1.00 postage and handling) :
SPAM recipe Book, P.O. Box 5000, Austin, MN 55912
Or for SPAM merchandise and apparel call 1-800-LUV-SPAM
SPAM Sites (the food) / The Church of Spam :
http://pemtropics.mit.edu/~jcho/spam/ - SPAM Haiku
http://www.go2net.com/internet/useless/useless/spam.html
http://www.iconnect.net/home/jstrong/spam.html
http://www.rsi.com/spam/
http://www.rsi.com/spam/spam-recipes.html - SPAM Recipes
http://www.spam69.demon.co.uk/spam.htm
http://www.stampo.com/spam.html
There is also a letter circulating about "dying boy wants postcards"
(Craig Shergold) which is no longer true. Same as with the Blue Star
LSD addicting children hoax. See Urban Folklore FAQ at :
http://www.urbanlegends.com/classic/craig.shergold/craig_nyt.html
http://www.urbanlegends.com/classic/blue.star.tattoos/blue_star_lsd_faq
.html
A complete Urban Legends listings (It is big) :
http://www.urbanlegends.com/afu.faq/index.html
PLEASE read about the Gullibility Virus. This is a very funny
editorial to be passed along to your friends who send you all those
hoaxes :
http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/warning.htm
And why Disney is *not* giving away 13,000 free trips, why Bill Gates
is not collecting e-mail addresses (and many other hoaxes):
http://www.deja.com/article/406150013
There has been some discussion that such things should be canceled
because they exceed the BI 20 index. They are untrue and they waste
bandwidth.
A conversation with a spammer. I was amused. First time I had ever
spoken with one. I also forgot to mention (in our very short
conversation) that his World Wide Web service would be deleted (which
it was) :
Me (7:04 PM):I got your spam. By Monday morning all your accounts
should be canceled. That would be your AT&T account, your Hotmail
account and this AOL account. You are welcome. Bye.
GS711 (7:05 PM):<snip - Expletive Deleted>
Me (7:05 PM):Thank you very much. You should learn how to
advertise correctly on the Internet.
Me (7:06 PM):If you do it correctly than you won't have to run and
hide.
GS711 (7:06 PM):thanks for letting me know who you are
Me (7:06 PM):Who am I? :-) ...
Me (7:06 PM):BTW, all your Spams will be reported by many other
people other than myself ...
(He signed off)
How *did* I get this unsolicited e-mail anyway?
==================================================
Unfortunately just posting a message to a news group can get
unsolicited e-mail. Some spammers "harvest" e-mail addresses by
stripping e-mail return addresses out of messages people post. Try
posting to alt.test a few times. You will get not only a few
autoresponder messages (that is how it is *supposed* to work) but also
a few unsolicited pieces of e-mail. The solution to this is to "mung"
your address when you post by adding in extra characters (like "Spam")
in your return address. You then put in your signature something like
"Remove the word Spam from my e-mail to contact me". See:
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.html - Address Munging
Another way to get e-mail is to have a World Wide Web page. Some
spammers just start a web spider (a piece of software that just
traverses World Wide Web pages and collects information) going and
collect e-mail that way. To prevent your e-mail from being harvested,
you can "mung" your web e-mail. See:
http://www.powerup.com.au/~mfleming/antispam/webmung.html
A suggestion of some nasty little HTML items to have in your WWW page
(invisible, of course) are :
<A HREF="mailto:root@[127.0.0.1]"></a>
or if your server allows "server-side includes" (and .shtml) :
<a href="mailto:abuse@<!--#echo var="REMOTE_ADDR"--> ">anti spambot</a>
Also you might include a mail to news gateway like the following so
that the Spam is posted to Usenet :
See http://www.sabotage.org/~don/mail2news.html for mail to news
gateways.
<A HREF="mailto:news.admin.net-abuse.email@myriad.alias.net"></a>
Or
<A HREF="mailto:news.admin.net-abuse.misc@myriad.alias.net"></a>
Or
<A HREF="mailto:news.admin.net-abuse.usenet@myriad.alias.net"></a>
Note : You should note on your World Wide Web page that these links
should *not* be followed by Lynx users, as they will see them no matter
how you choose not to display them on a graphical interface. The last
few in the below list are particularly not nice as they execute
commands on a UNIX host. Substitute root@[127.0.0.1] with any of the
following :
postmaster abuse root admin postmaster@localhost abuse@localhost
root@localhost admin@localhost postmaster@loopback abuse@loopback
root@loopback admin@loopback
`cat /dev/zero > /tmp/...`@localhost
;cat /dev/zero > /tmp/...;@localhost
`umount /tmp`@localhost
;umount /tmp;@localhost
`halt`@localhost
;halt;@localhost
1-900, 1-800, 888, 877 and 1-### may be expensive long distance phone
calls
=======================================================================
====
Be very careful when dialing a 1-800 or any "toll free" number you are
not familiar with. It may end up being a very expensive mistake.
Remember to dial these numbers from a phone booth so that your home
phone will never be charged. Another reason to call from a pay phone
is so that the spammer cannot get your home phone number. Even if you
are "Unlisted" when you call a toll free number the spammer gets your
phone number.
All 1-800, 888 or 877 numbers are *not* free. You may be charged for
the phone call. You can tell if the number charges by calling from a
phone booth. If you cannot get through then it charges. See below.
Likewise, numbers that may "look" like they are United States long
distance phone numbers may in fact be out of country and may cost you
$25 or more for a couple of minutes call. These calls are not
refundable. A scam artist trying to get money from the phone calls (he
gets a skim off the top) was dialing random beepers with an out of
country number.
A phone scam can be read at http://webcrawler-
news.excite.com/news/r/990519/07/odd-scam
Some area codes to look for (some may not be active for another year or
two):
(Also see http://www.nanpa.com/number_resource_info/assignments.html )
242 Bahamas
246 Barbados
264 Anguilla
268 Antigua
284 British Virgin Islands
340 U.S. Virgin Islands
345 Cayman Islands
441 Bermuda
473 Grenada
649 Turks and Caicos
664 Monserrat
670 CNMI (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands?)
671 Guam
758 St. Lucia
767 Dominica
784 St. Vincent and Grenadines
787 Puerto Rico
868 Trinidad and Tobago
869 St. Kitts and Nevis
876 Jamaica
If the ad says "Procall", it is a large service bureau for 1-900
numbers in Arizona. When you call a pay-per-call number, there should
be a recorded intro that will give a customer service number. That
*should* connect with a live person.
I would like to thank Eileen at the FTC for kindly answering my
questions about 1-900 & 1-800 phone numbers.
Paraphrasing what she e-mailed me :
When a 1-900 number is advertised, the price must also be disclosed
(this may be found at 16 CFR Part 308).
When calling a 1-800 number that charges, there must be an existing
subscription agreement between the buyer and the seller
http://www.ftc.gov/ Federal Trade Commission Home Page
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/telemark/rule.htm Telemarketing Sales Rule
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/telemarketing/index.html -
Telemarketing informations / scams
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/fraud.htm Reporting fraud
(from the "Online Scams page)
How To Respond to Spam
===========================
Howard reminds us :
Note to all: NEVER followup to a spam. NEVER. Express your
indignation in mail to the poster and/or the postmaster@offending.site,
but NEVER in the newsgroups!
Karen asks:
But what about the newbies who look at a group, see lots of spam and
ads, see NO posts decrying them, and conclude that ads are therefore
OK?
Ran replies :
When it gets bad, you'll usually see some "What can we do about this?"
threads. That's a good place to attach a reply that tells people why
it's bad, and what they can, in fact, do.
Austin Suggests:
At the risk of attracting flames, let me suggest an exception to
Howard's law. A followup is allowed if the following 3 conditions
hold.
1) The offending article is clearly a SCAM (for instance, the
*Canada* calls with the Seychelles Islands phone # scam)
2) No one else has followed-up with a posting identifying it as a
scam (in other words, no 'Me too' warnings)
3) It is unlikely to be canceled soon, either because it seems to be
below the thresholds, or it is in a local hierarchy that doesn't get
cancels, or Chris Lewis is on vacation in the Seychelles Islands. If
all three conditions are met, a followup that X's out the contact
information , severely trims the contents and identifies the post as a
scam is exempt from Howard's law.
Bill's and Wolfgang's addition :
4) Follow-ups should be cross posted to news.admin.net-abuse.misc
_and_ the groups of the spam, but Followup-To: *MUST* be set to
news.admin.net-abuse.misc *ONLY*
_or_
post a follow-up and *SET* Followup-To: alt.dev.null.
In the first case change
Subject: Important FREE $$$
to
Subject: Spam (was Re: Important FREE $$$)
and include the original Newsgroups and Message-ID line, so the
professional despammers will immediately find what you're talking
about. Do not post unless you're absolutely sure that you can do all
that properly. Also 1) - 3) do apply.
If you see the same article with different Message-IDs in several
groups, collect the _complete_ headers of each article and check
news.admin.net-abuse.misc if it's already been reported. If not, start
a thread with Subject: Spam (was Re: <original Subject>) in
news.admin.net-abuse.misc or news.admin.net-abuse.usenet . Include all
of the headers and as much of the body of one article as you see fit.
Revenge - What to do & not to do
========================================
No matter how much we hate Spam and how much we dislike what the
spammers to our quiet little corner of the Universe known as the
Internet, Spam is not illegal (yet). If you try anything against the
spammers, please * do not * put yourself in risk of breaking the law.
It only makes them happy if you get in trouble because you were trying
to get back at them.
The reason why spammers use "throwaway" accounts is because they know
the e-mail account will be deleted. They usually provide either
another e-mail address or a name / phone number or postal address so
that prospective "customers" can be contacted. Be sure to complain to
the postmaster of all e-mail names provided to make sure that this
route is inhibited.
Telephoning someone
======================
Calling someone once is fine. If enough people are irritated at the
spammer and they all call the 1-800 number the spammer provides, the
spammer will get the idea (sooner or later) that it is costing them
more in irate people (and most especially loss of business) and it is
not worth it to spam.
Do not dial any phone numbers more than once from your home. Phone
harassment is * illegal * and you * can * be prosecuted in court for
this. Even tho' the caller id blocking code (may be *67 or *71 or some
other code) prevents your number from being displayed on their
telephone at home if they have caller ID, *57 will give the phone
company the number, *69 will dial back the phone number via automatic
call back. If it is a 1-800 number there are two problems. First they
can *always* get your phone number, and secondly it may *not* be a toll
free number. You may be charged for calling a 1-800 number.
Likewise, do not call collect using 1-800-COLLECT or 1-800-CALL-ATT
from home, once again this can be traced.
Austin comments : I would say that calling a listed non-800 number
*once* collect to voice a complaint is not harassment, but justified.
They sent you a postage due message, didn't they? If they don't want
to accept collect calls, they should say so - and if they do, you
should be a responsible person and not do it again.
AT&T Information for 1-800 numbers is 1-800-555-1212, but that only
helps if you know the company name you are trying to call. Also, you
can try searching for a 1-800 number (you do not have to know the
company name) at :
http://www.anywho.com/tf.html
Other telephone search mechanisms:
http://expertx.com/Free/xPhone/Locate.htm - Where that phone number is
located
http://www.zip2.com/
http://www.bigbook.com/
http://www.switchboard.com/
http://www.555-1212.com/
Snail Mailing someone
=======================
Likewise, one well thought out letter sent to the spammer might help
convince the spammer not to do this again. Especially if the spammer
was part of a corporation that didn't realize the detrimental effects
of spamming the Internet.
If you decide to deluge the spammers postal address by filling out one
or two "bingo" (popcorn) postage paid cards in the technical magazines
(by circling a few dozen "product info" requests per card & putting on
printed out self sticking labels with the spammers address), or by
putting preprinted labels on postage paid cards that come in the mail
in the little plastic packages, don't organize a public campaign (that
they can point to) against the spammer in the newsgroup.
Scott also reminds us :
Since this is the "Spam FAQ", I'd like to point this out: You're
basically Spamming the company offering information in a magazine. It
costs companies money, not the one you're spamming. They get a free
pile of junk which is easy to throw out. In other words, this may be
harming third parties more than the intended target. I'm not trying to
be Mr. Nice Guy, just trying to point out an important technicality.
Junk Mail - The Law :
http://www.vtwctr.org/casewatch/
http://192.41.4.29/index.html - 'Lectric Law Library
You should also read Title 47 of the United States Code, Section 227.
There is a FAQ at cornell.law.edu for the text of the law (gopher or
ftp or http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/227.html ), and you can use
DejaNews to read the USC 47 thread on news.admin.net-abuse.misc to make
up your own mind (it invariably comes up) or you can look at :
http://www.cybernothing.org/docs/code47.5.II.txt
In Washington (State) (for example) fax laws (RCW 80.36.540 -
Telefacsimile messages) define "telefacsimile message" in such a way
that could be interpreted to include E-mail. It was not originally
written to cover E-Mail, but that is for the courts to decide :-).
California regulates it thru Section 17538(d) of the Business and
Professions Code.
A spammer has actually been prosecuted. See:
http://www.oneworld-design.com/nospam.html
In California (Quoted from http://Spam.abuse.net ): Spamming to or from
California e-mail service providers against their policy is now a civil
offense under California Business and Professions Code Section
17538.45. If you run a California-based e-mail service provider, you
need to notify your customers of the law and your anti-spam policy in
order to be eligible to collect damages of $50 per message.
Organizing a campaign against the spammer in a news group could lead to
the spammer trying to get a cease & desist police order against the
organizers.
Disclaimer : I am not a lawyer, 80% of the Internet is bull, free
advice is worth every penny you paid for it :-). Brought to you via
News since November 1995.
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Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards for they are subtle and
quick to anger.
Ken Hollis - Gandalf The White - gandalf@digital.net - O- TINLC
WWW Page - http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/
Trace E-Mail forgery - http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html
Trolls crossposts - http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html