Unsolicited E-mail (Spam) Answers
What is "spam?"
The definition of "spam" is sometimes disputed. The most widely accepted definition is any type unsolicited (commercial or not) e-mail. In the past few years, the volume of spam has increased to alarming levels. To make matters worse, spammers are sinking to new levels to get their messages out -- with little or no regard for the resources they consume.
Why is spam so bad?
Spam is a generally bad practice for many reasons. Many people even go so far as to argue that it is a violation of privacy. However, the worst part of spam is the insane amount of resources that is uses. According to a recent study by the European Commission (for the full text, click here), the cost of spam to businesses and consumers has been estimated at $8 billion per year. Another way to look at it is this: If only 1% of the 24 million small businesses in America sends you only one piece of spam per year, you'll be hitting the Delete key an average of 657 times a day.
Where can I learn more?
For more information, you can take a look at:
How did the spammers get my address?
Unfortunately, many web sites sell information about their users to third parties who in turn use those addresses to send spam. SVN will never sell or release your personal information to any third party. In addition to this, many merchants on the web sell their customer information (complete with buying habits and demographic information) to spammers. We recommend never giving out your primary e-mail address unless you are absolutely certain that the party you are giving it to is trustworthy. Spammers also use software that "harvests" e-mail addresses that are listed on web sites, bulletin boards, and newsgroups. Spammers often send spam by bulk methods, choosing random or common names at a common domain.
What should I do when I receive a piece of spam?
The most important thing to remember when you receive a piece of spam is to NEVER reply or send mail to any sort of removal address. You should also never visit any web sites that are listed in the e-mail. These are the most common methods of verifying e-mail addresses. If you reply or request to be removed, the spammer then knows that your e-mail address is valid and can (and will) sell your e-mail address for a higher price because it is definitely valid. Likewise, you should never purchase any products or services advertised in spam. By doing so, you are only supporting the spammer and encouraging more spam.
Optionally, you may forward spam to spam@svn.net. We periodically go through this mailbox to look for patterns that help us refine our anti-spam techniques. When forwarding spam to spam@svn.net, please try to include as many of the original e-mail headers as possible.
Should I reply to the included "remove" address?
NO! As is stated above, the remove address and any web addresses in the spam are either invalid or (more likely) used to confirm that your address is in fact valid. Once your address is confirmed valid, the amount of spam you receive will increase significantly.
What can I do to stop spam?
The first thing to keep in mind is that you should never purchase any products or services advertised in spam. They are usually scams, and by buying into them, you will only be further promoting the use of spam as a means of marketing. If spam never worked, people wouldn't still be using it is a marketing tool. Secondly, avoid giving out your e-mail address whenever possible. This includes when registering for web sites, posting to web bulletin boards, placing orders with untrusted web merchants, etc. We recommend creating a "free" e-mail account with a service such as Yahoo! or Hotmail and using it whenever you need to share an e-mail address with an untrusted source. Spammers often "harvest" e-mail address that are posted on web sites, and many web sites sell the addresses of their registered users to spammers.
What about anti-spam software that bounces mail back to the spammers?
Unfortunately, most software that offers a way to fight back against spammers by bouncing their mail is purely marketing hype. Most spammers send e-mail with forged e-mail addresses that are not even valid. Those spammers that do use valid e-mail addresses have usually had their accounts terminated by the time you could bounce mail back to them. Because of this, virtually all spam contains an invalid return address. As a result, most spam that is "bounced" back to the spammer by SVN users actually ends up getting delivered to SVN's mail server, where we have to read and delete it. The best way to handle spam continues to be to delete the message, forward it to spam@svn.net with the full message headers intact, and/or use a spam reporting service such as SpamCop to report the spam to the spammer's ISP.
Should I purchase "Spam Blocking" software?
Whether or not you want to purchase software to block/filter junk e-mail is up to you, but it probably isn't necessary. SVN has a number of filtering options available (free of charge) for all SVN e-mail accounts. These features can be enabled by using our Mail Manager tool.
What is SVN doing to reduce spam?
We are running a variety of non-intrusive checks on incoming e-mail that filter known spam messages and known spam offenders. We generally err on the side of caution, allowing some spam to get through rather than running the risk of filtering out legitimate e-mail.
For more aggressive and thorough spam filtering on your individual account, we suggest you try our Mail Manager tool. Because it's very powerful, we suggest that you read the associated help document before using the tool.
How did the spammers get my address?
Unfortunately, many web sites sell information about their users to third parties who in turn use those addresses to send spam. SVN will never sell or release your personal information to any third party. In addition to this, many merchants on the web sell their customer information (complete with buying habits and demographic information) to spammers. We recommend never giving out your primary e-mail address unless you are absolutely certain that the party you are giving it to is trustworthy. Spammers also use software that "harvests" e-mail addresses that are listed on web sites, bulletin boards, and newsgroups. Spammers often send spam by bulk methods, choosing random or common names at a common domain.
Why am I getting messages that don't seem to be addressed to me?
This has become a very common question. The answer is fairly simple. Spammers frequently place the addresses of their recipients in the Bcc: or "Blind carbon copy" field of the e-mail message. This field is not visible to the recipient. Therefore, while it appears that the message is actually addressed to someone else, it is actually addressed to you (usually along with thousands of other people).
At your request, we can implement a filter on your incoming e-mail that will only allow e-mail that contains your address in a visible (To: or Cc:) field. The downside to this (and the reason why we haven't implemented such a filter for all users) is that it can sometimes block legitimate e-mail that contains your address in the Bcc: field, as well as any mailing lists you may be on.
Why am I getting messages that have other @svn.net addresses in the To: or Cc: fields?
In order to conserve their resources, spammers frequently sort their list of target e-mail addresses alphabetically and then send to groups of addresses rather than a single address at a time. By grouping addresses together, spammers reduce the number of connections they must make and therefore reduce the overall amount of time it takes to complete their mailing. For this reason, you may see several other addresses in the To: or Cc: fields that are not your own. In some cases, you may not see your address appear in the To: or Cc: fields at all. (For more information about this, please see the question above.)
If you see your e-mail address listed in the To: or Cc: field along with other, similar addresses, please rest assured that it is not because SVN has shared your information with any third party. We take privacy issues very seriously and do everything we can to prevent spam.
Why am I getting messages that look like you sent them to me?
Recently, a number of worms and viruses have attempted to trick users into opening/running/installing attached files by disguising themselves to be from the operators of your mail server. Some of these messages look quite authentic, but the majority of them are riddled with grammatical and technical errors. Mail you receive from us will always be from our support or billing address. If you receive mail from any other address, it is probably not valid. Sometimes, however, support and billing addresses are also forged by these viruses. In general, we will only contact you regarding your account when: you have a payment due (the format of these messages has not changed since 1996), when a credit card charge was declined, or when we need you to make changes to the settings on your computer. In any of these cases, you can always call our office to be sure the message is from us if you have any doubt.
Lastly, and most importantly, we will NEVER send you a message with a file attached unless you have specifically requested that we do so.
Why am I getting messages that look like things that I didn't send are bouncing?
Again, this is a common spam technique. Spammers send e-mail with forged return addresses, which cause bounced messages to get returned to the address that was forged. In many cases, the forged address is actually the target, and the Spammer gets the target to read the message by making it be an actual bounced e-mail message. These messages can always be deleted.
Unfortunately, there is little that can be done about this problem. It is very much like sending a letter with your neighbor's return address on it to an invalid address -- when the post office returns the letter, it goes back to your neighbor because his return address was on it.
Why am I getting messages that look like they were sent by me?
Most spammers use software that is specifically designed for sending spam. Most of this software includes features for playing "tricks" on spam filters, mail servers, and the intended recipients. This quite often includes a setting that sets the return address on the e-mail message to be the address of the recipient. In almost all cases, you are the only one who received the message with your address as the return address. (Everyone else who got the message likely received it with their own address as the return address)
Will SVN share my e-mail address with third parties?
Absolutely not. The privacy of our customers is extremely important to us. SVN will never disclose any of your personal information (including your e-mail address) to any third party. All of our billing and customer contact information is kept in a secure, offline database that is only accessible from within our office.
Why am I getting messages that contain strings of random words?
This is becoming an increasingly common issue. Messages that contain strings of random words are almost always efforts by spammers to defeat heuristic spam detection software. By sending a message repeatedly that does not appear to be spam (based on its content), spammers are able to trick some e-mail filters into automatically "whitelisting" or accepting their header patterns in the future. These types of messages should be treated the same as all other spam -- do not reply to the message or request to be removed. We have written an extensive set of rules that prevent our spam filters from falling victim to this "attack."
Why am I getting messages that appear to be blank?
As in the above question, spammers frequently attempt to send messages that appear to be non-spam in order to try to fool heuristic test-based "learning" spam filtering software.We have written an extensive set of rules that prevent our spam filters from falling victim to this "attack."
