Hoaxes & Urban Legends, Scams, and Spam Help & How-To Info
Hoaxes & Urban Legends
These sites are a MUST READ! Seriously, check out these sites before you Forward, Reply to, or React to anything sent to you by e-mail, even if it was from Mom! Just because you read it in an e-mail or saw it on the 'Net doesn't mean it's true! ;-)
HoaxBusters.ciac.org - A public service of the CIAC Team and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Hoax-Slayer - They have a list of Latest E-mail Hoaxes & Internet Scams, E-mail Hoax Archive, Internet Scam Archive, the Current Hoax-Slayer Newsletter Online, and an Internet Resources Directory. You can sign-up for the Hoax-Slayer Newsletter on the homepage.04/29/2004
Snopes.com - Urban Legends, Common Fallacies, Misinformation, Old Wives' Tales, Strange News Stories, Rumors, Celebrity Gossip, and similar items.*
Sophos.com - An Anti-Virus Software company. They also have a Hoaxes page. Sophos.com has live feeds for the Top Ten Virus Hoaxes and Latest Virus Alerts as well.
Urban Legends and Folklore as provided by David Emery.
Vmyths.com - Learn about computer virus myths, hoaxes, urban legends, hysteria, and the implications if you believe in them. You can also search a list of computer virus hoaxes & virus hysteria from A to Z.*
Even Priests aren't immune from retribution when guilty of spamming. UserFriendly Comic Strip by Illiad. ;-)
As Fred Langa recently said in his 2004-04-26 newsletter,
"Over the long term, educating consumers not to respond to spam--- never, ever buy any spamvertised product or service--- is the best approach: If spammers don't make any money by spamming, they'll stop, simple as that."
Here is a site dedicated to fighting the Nigerian E-mail Scam called the 419 Coalition. They have some useful information about the scam itself, where to report any e-mail you may have received regarding the scam and a Links Page to other sites regarding the scam as well. It's a must see if you or anyone you know has come across this scam. I just received my first Nigerian E-mail Scam e-mail July 4, 2002, promising me a part of $50 million dollars, and forwarded it to the Task Force Main in D.C. as instructed. Please read the instructions BEFORE sending an e-mail to the Treasury Department so they'll know whether you were affected by the scam or not!
BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times).* 10/16/2004
CAUCE, The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email is an ad hoc, all volunteer organization, created by Netizens to advocate for a legislative solution to the problem of UCE (a/k/a "spam").
UCE is the leading complaint of Internet users. But junk e-mail is more than just annoying, it costs Internet users and Internet-based businesses millions, even billions, per year. Junk e-mail is "postage due" marketing; it's like a telemarketer calling you collect. The economics of junk e-mail encourages massive abuse and because junk e-mailers can get into the business very cheaply, the volume of junk e-mail is increasing every day.
CAUCE was founded by Netizens who realized that technology alone can't stop junk e-mail. As long as there is an economic incentive to send junk e-mail, users and Internet Service Providers will need some legal recourse to stop the growing flood. That's why in 1997 CAUCE proposed an amendment to the Federal statute which outlaws junk "faxes" (47 USC 227) to also prohibit junk e-mail. Since then CAUCE has become the preeminent voice for the anti-spam community.
This site is designed to provide information about the problems of junk email, some proposed solutions, and to provide resources for the Net Community to make informed choices about the issues surrounding junk e-mail.* 04/29/2004
Center for Democracy & Technology - Why Am I Getting All This Spam? - Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research Six Month Report*05/08/2005
Cloudmark is a company that stops spam before it costs you money. Cloudmark's groundbreaking, peer-to-peer (P2P) solution (initially Vipul's Razor) proven effective at fighting spam since 1998 and now called SpamNet, already delivers immediate spam relief to hundreds of thousands of people. SpamNet is the first and largest spamfighting community in the world.* They are charging for use of SpamNet now. I had been using SpamNet for a little over a year, but have now switched to SpamBayes in order to try another product. 10/11/2003
Counterexploitation - Adware, Scams, Spam, Spyware and all sorts of info!
DNSStuff.com - There is currently no cost for the DNS report or the other tests, and it is ad-free. You are free to link directly to this site. The 3,000,000+ hits a month are all sponsored by Computerized Horizons. If you use these tools and need anti-spam or anti-virus software for your mail server, please consider looking at their Declude products. If you want your email filtered for you, consider Spam Soap. Thanks!
Comments? Suggestions for new features? Problems? E-mail us at
info@DNSstuff.com. For more tools, see the expert or testbed pages. You may also be interested in our Canadian mirror or backup site. FAQ, media information, linking, and more can be found here.* I Have never used Computerized Horizons' Declude nor have I used Spam Soap, but considering they're supporting DNSStuff.com, who's offering their services for free, the products are worth checking out.
Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, email and phone calls - A free guide to reducing unwanted or intrusive advertising - Junk mail may seem as inevitable as death and taxes, but with a little patience there are effective ways to tackle the problem. This guide provides clear, simple and proven reduction techniques. About 20 minutes investment now will clear the junk for between two and five years.* 04/18/2004
The FTC is a good place to start for some basic information on SPAM on how your e-mail address is "harvested," sold to lists, and what to do about it. They even have instructions on how to File a Complaint about SPAM (and they're using a secure server for this). They have a "Top Ten Dot Con" listing that's a MUST READ!!
GetNetWise - Do you feel like you are getting more and more e-mail from unwanted sources everyday? Unwanted commercial e-mail (UCE), otherwise know as spam, can be a timely, costly and annoying problem for many consumers. Follow the below Tips, use the Tools and, when necessary, Take Action to help alleviate unwanted e-mails in your inbox.* 05/14/2003
- JunkBusters.com - List of software for filtering and blocking spam - Junkbusters Corp. is a privacy advocacy firm that helps people get rid of junk messages of all kinds: spam, telemarketing calls, unwanted junk mail, junk faxes, and more. Its web site, junkbusters.com, is a leading consumer resource on the control of junk communications and the protection of privacy. Founded in April 1996 in Green Brook, New Jersey, Junkbusters Corp. is a small, privately-held for-profit corporation. The company works with governments, corporations, trade associations and public interest groups to further the goals of better privacy protection and stronger rights for individuals to control information about them and messages sent to them.* 05/14/2003
K9 - A Bayesian Pop3 E-mail Filtering Program - K9 is an email filtering application that works in conjunction with your regular POP3 email program and automatically classifies incoming emails as spam (junk email) or non-spam without the need for maintaining dozens of rules or constant updates to be downloaded. It uses intelligent statistical analysis that can result in extremely high accuracy over time.* 09/13/2004
Introducing MailWasher, the easiest way to check and manage your e-mails before you download them. MailWasher is a powerful email checker with effective spam elimination. Discover the safe way to stop unwanted viruses and e-mails before they get to your computer. No gimmicks here, it is so easy to set up and use that you'll be managing your email like a pro in seconds. It can even be used as an effective privacy tool. I think you will find this to be the easiest, most effective way to manage your incoming e-mails. You will be amazed at how quickly you will like using MailWasher. Best regards Nick Bolton - MailWasher.net.* The free version only allows use with one e-mail account, but the Pro version ($29.95) allows unlimited accounts and HotMail access and Tech Support. 05/14/2003
NONAGS.com - Freeware Anti-Spam Tools - Freeware Software that won't NAG you. 05/14/2003
POPFile - is an automatic mail classification tool. Once properly set up and trained, it will work in the background of your computer, scanning mail as it arrives and filing it however you wish. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one - like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox. Created by John Graham-Cumming who also wrote The Spammers' Compendium - Being a public exposition of tricks, secret ploys, ruses and techniques employed by those that send many scurrilous messages through the ether using the mysteries of electronics and other modern marvels to dazzle the eye, lighten the wallet and clog the recipient.* 05/20/2003
Outclass provides POPFile's functionality natively to Outlook. What does this mean? It means that you can use the power of POPFile to classify any email you receive using Microsoft Outlook. This includes IMAP-based email and Exchange-based email as well as any other types that may be supported via Office add-ins (theoretically, anyway).
Outclass has been tested with Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002 using Exchange, POP3, and IMAP mail, on Windows 2000 and Windows XP and with POPFile v0.18.0 through v0.19.0. Outclass can manually handle Hotmail accounts in Outlook 2002, but does not automatically classify Hotmail email at this time. If you have tested on other platforms or with other types of mail systems, please let me know and I'll update this document. Just send me an email at vargon@vargon.com or visit http://www.vargonsoft.com/.
Outclass is free software and is released under the GPL (GNU Public License). The source code for Outclass is available and you may download and modify it in accordance to the GPL license.* 06/17/2003
- There are many useful tools available at SamSpade.org to allow you to find more information about a specific IP address. Please check the Sam Spade FAQ page for more info and the Sam Spade Tool page for instructions on what the tools do.
Spam.Abuse.net - Fight Spam on the Internet! - You have probably seen an increase in the amount of "junk mail" which shows up in your email box, or on your favorite newsgroup. The activities of a small number of people are becoming a bigger problem for the Internet. We have been actively engaged in fighting spam for years. Since we presented this site to the public in 1996, we have been pleased to be referenced as one of the best anti-spam sites on the net. Help fight spam to keep the Internet useful for everyone. Take advantage of the information we've gathered to make your own experience on the Internet better.
Our aim with spam.abuse.net is to provide the best collection of anti-spam links and resources to be found anywhere on the Internet. If you know of a page or site or story that would be of interest to the anti-spam community, don't hesitate to bring it to our attention. We also gladly accept new writeups, images and icons from the original creator(s) or with their permission.* 04/25/2004
SpamBayes - The SpamBayes project is working on developing a Bayesian anti-spam filter, initially based on the work of Paul Graham. The major difference between this and other, similar projects is the emphasis on testing newer approaches to scoring messages. While most anti-spam projects are still working with the original graham algorithm, we found that a number of alternate methods yielded a more useful response. This is documented on the background page. SpamBayes will attempt to classify incoming email messages as 'spam', 'ham' (good, non-spam email) or 'unsure'. This means you can have spam or unsure messages automatically filed away in a different mail folder, where it won't interrupt your email reading. First SpamBayes must be trained by each user to identify spam and ham. Essentially, you show SpamBayes a pile of email that you like (ham) and a pile you don't like (spam). SpamBayes will then analyze the piles for clues as to what makes the spam and ham different. For example; different words, differences in the mailer headers and content style. The system then uses these clues to examine new messages.* I am currently using SpamBayes with the Outlook Plug-In. Please note that the Outlook Plug-In only works with Outlook 2000 and XP, but NOT with Outlook Express. 10/11/2003
SpamCon Foundation - About SpamCon Foundation -- Summary -- Download a printable PDF version of this document
Mission:
Unsolicited email ("spam") forces unwanted and objectionable materials into our mailboxes, impairs our ability to communicate freely, and costs Internet users billions of dollars annually.
The SpamCon Foundation protects email as a viable communication and commerce medium by supporting measures to reduce the amount of unsolicited email that crosses private networks, while ensuring that valid email reaches its destination.
Justification:
For the general public, the costs of receiving spam include:
diversion of time
loss of productivity
loss of control over their online privacy, computer and Internet connection
In addition, spam can dampen free speech on the Internet, as reported by The Center for Democracy and Technology's Ad Hoc Working Group on Unsolicited Commercial Email (http://www.cdt.org/): "The most dangerous, if least easily quantified cost, is the damage that unsolicited commercial email (UCE) can cause to the reputation of email... UCE can have a chilling effect on individuals' speech in that individuals may be reluctant to participate in online forums and Usenet groups, or may remove their email addresses from home pages for fear of getting their email addresses placed on mailing lists for UCE."
The SpamCon Foundation is a public benefit corporation that advocates for the mitigation of spam. Through its programming, it provides a forum for Internet users, administrators, marketers, anti-spam businesses and activists to collaborate and develop strategies that encourage responsible email marketing. SpamCon Foundation's goal is to allow email users optimal control over the mail they receive.* 06/14/2003
Spamihilator is a program, that examines your Emails while downloading from the server and deletes unwanted advertising messages. Spamihilator works between your Email-Client-Software and the Internet. Every time you receive messages, they will be checked by Spamihilator. Useless spam mails will be filtered out. This process works completely in the background. The program runs with almost every Email-Software, such as Outlook 2000/XP/Express, Eudora, Pegasus Mail, Phoenix Mail, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, etc...* 05/14/2003
SPAM-L FAQ - This is the SPAM-L FAQ, a document dealing primarily with how to post to the SPAM-L mailing list, what to post, and what not to post. It also includes technical information on how to track down spammers, decipher message headers, perform traceroutes, etc.
If you are a newbie and these terms confuse you, don't worry. Everything you need to know is explained here, though it may take some time to understand it all. If there's something you don't understand, feel free to ask me directly or ask in SPAM-L. We'll be happy to help, that's what we're here for.* Updated: 09/04/2006
SPAMNEWS - Apart from whois, there are searches you can use to track down Spammers. Reach out and touch somebody! *
SpamPal - SpamPal is a mail classification program that can help separate your spam from the mail you really want to read.* 02/13/2006
SpamSoap Resources - Great articles here - Internet Tools, Minimize the Junk in Your Life, SMTP Protocol Information, Getting Internet Headers, Your Mailbox, and Email Security. * 05/08/2005
SpamSubtract - SpamSubtract keeps unwanted email out of your Inbox, allowing you to deal with spam on your own time. It's a simple, yet powerful tool to make your daily life more productive. You will only get the email you want to get - SpamSubtract will never filter mail from your friends and family. Designed for the typical computer user, SpamSubtract is simple to use, requiring no complicated setup process.* There is a charge for this program and I have not personally used it myself, but it has gotten good reviews. 05/03/2003
WebAttack.com - Freeware List of E-mail Tools - Mostly Internet Tools 05/14/2003
*These sites have been quoted directly as I believe what they say about their sites or they already know what to say, better than I do.
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