Spam and junk e-mails

spamAs email becomes more widespread, its usefulness and convenience is increasingly being spoilt by the masses of spam and junk e-mails that invade the system.

When the spammers get to a stage whereby they inhibit your normal use of your e-mail system, users can make a complaint to the domain or the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that the spammers are using. For instance if a lot of spam is coming to you from Hotmail or AOL users then an e-mail using report.spam@hotmail.com or report.spam@aol.com.

The same applies to any of the Internet Service Providers,Yahoo, Gmail, Tiscali etc. This only applies to spam or junk mail, ie the relatively harmless but annoying adverts wanting you to purchase goods etc.

Phishing

In the case of malicious e-mails, those e-mails that claim to come from banks, building societies, PayPal accounts and which are known as Phishing e-mails, can be reported to the ISP using abuse@yahoo.com  or abuse@hotmail.co.uk etc. These are the e-mails that usually want you to hand over personal details. They can be used to commit identity fraud in your name and can inflict unimaginable disruption to your personal life and finances.

When reporting spam or phishing occurrences the ISP would need what is known as a header, which contains the unique IP address of the sender. This can be obtained, for instance in Outlook Express, by selecting the e-mail in question and selecting “File” and then “Properties”. In “Properties” go to “Details” and then to “Message Source”. Then copy and paste this information into an  e-mail and send to the relevant ISP or in the case of a disguised ISP then to your own ISP.

To find headers using other e-mail software, refer to that software’s help section or contact your e-mail provider for assistance.

Alternatively visit a free spam report web site at www.spamcop.net.

Example of an e-mail header 

Lucman Watson <luckman_watson1@hotmail.com> wrote:  
     2007 11:14:23 -0700
     X-Originating-IP: [65.54.246.238]
     Return-Path: <luckman_watson1@hotmail.com>
     Authentication-Results: mta230.mail.re3.yahoo.com  from=hotmail.com; 
     domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
     Received: from 65.54.246.238 (EHLO bay0-omc3-s38.bay0.hotmail.com) 
     (65.54.246.238)
     by mta230.mail.re3.yahoo.com with SMTP; Tue, 04 Sep 2007  11:14:22 -0700
     Received: from BLU110-W45 ([10.6.61.80]) by  bay0-omc3-s38.bay0.hotmail.com 
     with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2668);
     Tue, 4 Sep 2007 11:08:15 -0700
     Message-ID: <BLU110-W45D5C663E0BE1FBEA48D21C2CA0@phx.gbl>
     Return-Path: luckman_watson1@hotmail.com
     Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
     boundary="_bd88bed3-ea0b-4954-9b6b-4c8ed5abd838_"
     X-Originating-IP: [41.223.251.99]
     From: Lucman Watson <luckman_watson1@hotmail.com>
     Subject: Compensation
     Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 19:08:11 +0100
     Importance: Normal
     MIME-Version: 1.0
     Bcc:
     X-OriginalArrivalTime: 04 Sep 2007 18:08:15.0977 (UTC)