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Spam FAQ
Where is all this spam coming from?
Spam is sent by businesses, hackers, and others all over the
world. With the recent passing of the CAN-SPAM act by Congress,
many U.S. spammers moved their business out of the country.
In many cases, spammers will take a single email domain (such
as @usconsumernet.org) and generate hundreds of email addresses
that might possibly have email there. Examples may include:
- office names: sales@yourdomain.com, manager@yourdomain.com,
president@yourdomain.com, etc.
- names of people who do not exist: george@yourdomain.com,
paul.winters@yourdomain.com, etc.
- randomly generated names: 1weoi98s@yourdomain.com,
asdldfi@yourdomain.com, etc.
These tactics are used to try to get as many pieces of their
spam through to people as possible.
Spam can also be generated by viruses. Virus-generated spam
occurs when people:
- fail to keep their anti-virus program updated
- use unsafe email practices (such as opening attachments
from others whom they do not know)
- do not keep their email program updated (Microsoft periodically
releases patches to close the holes that allow viruses
in)
Reducing Spam
No email server can protect your e-mail account 100% from spam,
while it lets your wanted messages through. Here are some
things you can do yourself to prevent more spam coming to
your e-mail:
- Set up a special email address. Do not use your
e-mail address when signing up for anything online or
when shopping. Create a separate e-mail address to use
for that purpose.
- Discontinue your global (catch-all) email address.
If you have a catch-all for your domain, e.g. anything@yourdomain.com
gets forwarded to you@yourdomain.com, remove that catch-all.
This will cut down on your spam. However, when you remove
the catch-all be sure to leave any aliases intact that
you are actually using - e.g. if you were giving out sales@yourdomain.com,
be sure that it still goes to you@yourdomain.com. Please
note: if you remove your catch-all address, you will not
be able to retrieve any email that is mis-addressed or
is not specifically addressed to one of your aliases.
- If you are using Outlook or Outlook Express, consider
using a different email program. Outlook has security
holes that may enable spammers to access and read your
outlook address book and send spam to all e-mail addresses
in your address book including yours. If you keep
your software up-to-date and use good security practices,
Outlook's security holes (which are fixed via Office
Update) are not a problem. USCNi recommends
Outlook for email, but we also strongly urge you to keep
your Outlook updated (Office
Update) as well as other anti-spam (Ad-Aware,
SpySweeper,
Zone
Alarm) and anti-virus measures (Norton Anti-virus)
up-to-date.
How can I get rid of spam
Safe email practices
- If you receive attachments from anyone you do not know,
delete them without opening them.
- If you receive attachments from someone you do know, but
they have not previously told you that they were sending
you an attachment, do not open them. Before opening, check
with that person to see if they actually sent it.
- Do not put your email address into forms on the internet
except for sites that have legitimate information that
you want or need.
- Do not post email addresses on your web site. Instead,
have people fill out a form. Use a field on the form to
direct where the message should go. If you are using USCNi's
form processor, and example would be:
<select name="redirect">
<option value="email1@yourdomain.com">Name
1</option>
<option value="email2@yourdomain.com">Name
2 </option>
<option value="email3@yourdomain.com">Name
3 </option>
</select>
While this method is not foolproof, it may help.
Email Rules & Filters
Most email programs now allow you to set up rules (a.k.a.
filters) to perform various functions. Use these rules
to filter your email. Examples of rules may include:
- If the email is received from the address _________________________,
delete it.
- If the email contains the word ________________________,
delete it.
- If the email sender is not on my safe list, delete
it.
In Microsoft email program, the rules/filters can be accessed
under the Tools menu. For other programs, please see the
Help documentation.
Software Filters
The most common method of getting rid of spam is to use
a spam filter. Filters are 3rd party products that intercept
your email before you get it, check to see if it is spam,
and then send non-spam to you while holding spam in a
temporary holding area until you check it. The benefit
is that they catch a lot of spam; however, you have to
watch for false positives -- when a filter identifies
a legitimate email as spam and holds it.
A few spam filters are listed below. USCNi takes no responsibility
for your use of or training for the products below. We
provide this list as a place for you to start looking.
Changing Email Addresses
Most USCNi clients have two parts to their email: (1) the
email box, (2) the email alias. The email box (such
as yourname@usconsumernet.net) is the actual file on the
server that holds your email. The email alias (yourname@yourdomain.com)
is the email that the public sees. When someone sends
email to your alias, it automatically forwards the email
to your box.
If you have an alias, you may choose to change the alias.
Any spam sent to your old alias will go to your domain's
default email box instead of yours. Of course, this method
is not necessarily desirable since you will have to notify
everyone who sends email to you with your new email address.
USCNi's Default Spam Box
USCNi sets up each client with global email forwarding.
This term means that any email sent to your domain will
be forwarded to a particular email box unless it is specifically
addresses to another alias. For example, you may have
3 aliases: joe@yourdomain.com, jane@yourdomain.com, spot@yourdomain.com.
Let's say that Jane handles most of the phone calls and
dealing with the public. Therefore, USCNi sets up Jane's
box is where email should go if it is not addresses specifically
to one of the three aliases above. The setup would look
like this:
- Email addressed to joe@yourdomain.com goes to Joe's
email box.
- Email addressed to jane@yourdomain.com goes to Jane's
email box.
- Email addressed to spot@yourdomain.com goes to Spot's
email box.
- Everything else goes to Jane's email box.
If you prefer, you can have your global email forwarding
set to send all emails to USCNi's default spam box. This
means that unless an email is sent to a specific email
address that you have set up, it will automatically be
sent to a general spam box on the server and deleted without
anyone seeing it. Once sent to the default spam box, the
email CANNOT be retrieved. The setup would look like this:
- Email addressed to joe@yourdomain.com goes to Joe's
email box.
- Email addressed to jane@yourdomain.com goes to Jane's
email box.
- Email addressed to spot@yourdomain.com goes to Spot's
email box.
- Everything else goes to USCNi's default spam box and
is deleted.
Please consider this option carefully. The Pro Side
is that it will eliminate a great deal of spam that you
have been receiving. The Con Side is that if a
person is trying to send you email and misspells your
address by even one character, you will never see that
email.
If you decide that you want to use USCNi's default spam
box, please call us at 865-687-7698 (local in Knoxville,
TN) or toll free 1-888-999-8726. We require you to sign
a release form indicating that you understand that USCNi
takes no responsibility for any emails that you may miss.
Protecting Your Computer from Virus Infection
through Email
Install Norton Antivirus on your computer and be sure you
subscribed to the virus updates. Then enable Automatic
Live Update, which will always keep your computer current
with the latest antivirus definitions. If Live Update doesn't
run (for what ever reason), run it manually right after you
start up your computer.
Enable Norton Antivirus to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail
(usually on by default).
Enable Norton Antivirus to scan any downloaded files from
websites (usually on by default).
Just to protect your stored e-mail, DO NOT leave all messages
in your inbox. In case of an infection, your Inbox may
be deleted by the virus or the Norton Antivirus. Therefore,
periodically move messages from the Inbox to a temporary folder
(you can call it "Inbox_temp" or something like
that) or to other permanent folders in your e-mail program.
In case a potential virus attack, you may want to first
check your e-mail through a web browser (if you have that
possibility), delete any virus infected messages there.
That deletes it directly from your e-mail server and won't
even touch your e-mail program on your computer. Then download
the remaining e-mail with your e-mail program.
Also in case a potential virus attack, run Norton Antivirus
Live Update manually.
In terms of Antivirus software, Norton Antivirus is the
best. In our opinion, other anti-virus software is not
as good..
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