LINKS toWeb Sites withSPAM-FIGHTING-INFO
(especially EMAIL-spam
|
|
! NOTE !
Like most 'LINKS' pages on the web, there will, no doubt,
be more and more dead links on this page over time.
It may be years at a time before I return to this page to
remove dead links and replace some links with better links.
In the meantime, try 'WEB SEARCH' links provided on this page.
Table of Contents:(links to sections of this page, below)
Aim of this page: The NEWS, BLOG, FORUM, and REPORT-TO sections are provided to give you an idea of the types of concerns being expressed by computer users (and advocates of computer users) ... and NOT by software vendors. Anti-spam software vendors are not un-biased. Their main goal is to sell their software. So an attempt is made here to find spam info from computer users, rather than from people with some monetary gain in mind. By the way, Bayesian filters are not the answer. There are too many ways around that technique. My search for a good spam filtering solution: See the blog post on this site titled I Want an Email Client-program that filters by 'first' 'Received-from' IP address. Also see the blog post on this site titled Spammer IP Addresses - an On-going List. A change in spam occurrences: Around 2010, what was really annoying about the spam I was receiving was that I would almost daily receive the same spam advertising/phishing from the same host or IP-address-range (sometimes several times a day). Around 2010, the amount of spam in the email coming through my ISP (Internet Service Provider) fell off dramatically. Pre-2010, I was getting an average of several spam emails per day --- more than 100 per month. In 2015, I get almost no spam at all --- no unwanted advertisements for drugs, mortgages, watches, earn-money-at-home-schemes, etc. I am not sure what happened to change the filtering capabilities of my ISP. If I ever find out, I plan to post that information here. I suspect that my ISP is using a very 'aggressive' IP-address-range block-list. However, this ISP could be using a combination of techniques. Web sites that explain email-spam-filtering techniques typically 'go dead' within a few years. (A link I had here went dead.) Alternatively, you could try a WEB SEARCH on keywords such as 'email spam filtering explained'. One way of finding stuff on this page: You can use an option like 'Find in This Page ...' of your web browser to find keywords on this page, such as 'filter' or 'report' or 'trace'.
End of Table of Contents.
|
The guy on the left is getting (eating) too much spam.
Chinese spammers? Government subsidized?
Spam (and Anti-Spam) DESCRIPTION pages
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
|
Spam NEWS sites
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
|
Spam BLOG pages
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
|
Spam FORUM sites
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
|
Spam REPORT-TO sites
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
|
Spam FILTER-INFO sites
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
|
Spam IP LOOKUP (WHOIS) sites
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
NOTE: Here is an example 'Received from' header record:
Received: from bb0ea012.schwab.com ([162.93.212.202]) Many addresses in other header lines (such as 'Reply to' and 'Return path' entries) are "spoofed" ... that is, they are not the address from which the spam came. Typically, the return address in spam is the mail address of an innocent bystander. DO NOT reply to such addresses. You are just forwarding the spam to some other poor soul --- OR you are revealing the fact that your email address is a valid address. Some IP-addresses in 'Received from' header lines may also be spoofed. BUT you can usually COUNT ON the 'outside' IP-address that is in the 'Received from' header that also shows the IP-address of your ISP's server. Use that 'outside' IP address in a 'whois' query. Although it will probably not be the actual IP address of the spammer, it is usually the IP address of his/her Internet Service Provider (ISP). The whois lookup will typically show that the spam came from (or through) a country like China (Asia) or Romania (Eastern Europe) or even Chile (Latin America) --- but also the USA. (There are creeps in every country.) If you can find a mail client that allows you to filter on 'Received from' IP addresses (or the prefix of IP addresses), then you can direct suspected spam mail directly into a Spam folder. You can scan that folder occasionally to verify that all the emails are spam --- and not items such as news notices from your ISP provider or notices from your financial institution ... or messages from friends or relatives. Unfortunately, there are hardly any email clients that allow you to filter mail based on 'incoming IP addresses'. On Linux, you might be able to 'roll your own', if you are familiar with script writing and such utilities as the 'fetchmail' utility. Most email filtering today is based on examining text within emails for keywords such as 'viagra' and 'rolex'. But many spammers today use imbedded graphics files rather than text to convey their message. This (and other spammer techniques) makes most of today's email filters ineffective. However, in order for his/her spam to be successful, the spammer usually gives you a way of contacting him/her ... usually by means of a link in the body of the e-mail. The link is (almost always) either an email address or a web site address. You can use the 'ping' command on the hostname in the address (example: xyz-site.com) to get its IP address. Then use one of the following 'whois' sites to get information on the location and ownership of the site hosting that email or web address. This 'pinged-address' can be used as a check on the reliability and validity of the 'Received from' IP address that you found, as indicated above. A great site is www.spamhaus.org. It maintains a list of known spammers. It has a link to the article on the spammer --- ROBERT SOLOWAY, formerly of Oklahoma --- indicted in Seattle, Washington in March 2007. See the bottom of the home page (in mid 2007). Interestingly, Microsoft has taken legal action against some spammers (in the USA and in Europe). --- spamhaus.org also has a page of the 100 (or so) organizations and spammers that reportedly generate about 80% of the global spam (and who have been kicked out of at least 3 ISP services). This is the ROKSO ( Register of Known Spam Operations ) list. See the biographies of some of these people. Many include pictures and addresses. (Unfortunately, it does not have a picture of ROBERT SOLOWAY, but it has a list of about 40 legal cases and other 'news' items about him.) I think that local newpapers should periodically print this ROKSO list --- or, at least, periodically point people to this web page --- and any other reputable lists like this. --- spamhaus.org also has a page of the 'top 10' spammers, with a couple of pictures there. See www.spamhaus.org/statistics/spammers/ I would like to meet some of these people in a public place, say, in their local supermarket --- and point out to anyone nearby (say, as they are checking out) that this person is responsible for millions of spam messages. I would not regret it at all if 'someone' should paint 'SPAMMER' on their car. Nor if 'some people' should stone these creeps --- or at least spit on them --- repeatedly. ------ I am still looking (mid-2007) for a unix-script-based example of implementing at least one of the following:
Ideally, I would like to find an email client that supports this kind of filtering in an easy-to-use GUI. I found one (closed source) package called 'Repel' --- for Microsoft Outlook --- that is no longer sold/maintained that seems to have been in that vein. 'SpamAssassin' is popular on Unix machines, but I am hoping to find something simpler and easier to install --- and easier to determine how to set the ip-address-based filtering --- on Linux/Unix, and, if available, on MS Windows. 'SpamAssasin' is used by some ISPs (on their mail servers), to mark probable spam by inserting a keystring (such as '*** SPAM ***') in the subject line of incoming mail of their customers. I have started collecting (mid-2007) the IP addresses in most spam that I have received. I am also collecting 'friendly' IP addresses from emails sent by friends, relatives, ISP providers, and financial institutions. I hope to use this IP address information in an email reader that can take advantage of this data, someday --- via a so-called 'white-list' and 'black-list' facility. IP Lookup (WhoIs) Sites:
|
Some 'WEB DIRECTORY' Spam-Info pages
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
It seems that 'web directories' are dying out. Google and Yahoo closed theirs down around 2014. Then around 2017, the directory from which the Google and Yahoo web-directories were spawned --- the DMOZ "Open Directory Project" closed down. It seems that it is just not feasible for a team of people to keep up with all the sites that are going dead and the new sites that appear. About a year after the dmoz.org site closed down, it appears that a new web-directory site --- curlie.org --- arose from the ashes of 'dmoz.org'. It remains to be seen how long that web-directory lasts. Following are a few links related to 'web directory' sites.
|
|
Bottom of this
To return to a previously visited web page location, click on
the Back button of your web browser, a sufficient number of times.
OR, use the History-list option of your web browser.
< Go to Table of Contents, above. >
Or you can scroll up toward the top of this page. Page history:
Page was created 2006 Apr.
|