Some Tips on Cooking SPAM

I wrote a SPAM article about a year ago and, given new events, I thought it might be a good time for an update...

The Nature of the Beast

SPAM -- it's everybody's favorite canned meat (by) product, right? It's also the Internet term for that most unholy of unholies, the scourge of e-mailboxes worldwide -- the unwanted, unneeded, and downright annoying junk mail. It lands in your Inbox constantly, bloating it faster than a sponge that hit water, and its persistence would make the Terminator break a sweat to keep up.

I'm a computer/teaching professional, and e-mail for me is a vital necessity rather than a convenience. I get around 80-100 messages on a given day, and I'm sorry to say that at least 75% of that is our friendly canned meat product. Of course, being a computer professional puts me on the front lines when it comes to SPAM, but this is an affliction that we all have to one degree or another. I've noticed in the past few weeks that there are some new and devious messages out there with malicious designs, and I thought an article on this would come in handy. Why here? Aside from the fact that hams use tend to use technology more than other segments of the population, I've noticed that much of the SPAM I get is from the ARRL remailer (anyone who has an @arrl.net address uses this forwarding service).

SPAM in its Natural Environment

I get tons of SPAM, and until recently they all fell into several general categories: Pharmaceutical SPAM ("Get yer prescription drugs here folks, and without a doctor's visit!"), Financial SPAM ("Get out of debt without paying a penny!"), Academic SPAM ("We'll print you a diploma from anywhere for $29.95!"), Illegal SPAM ("Get cable for free with our TeraWidget!"), and Pornographic SPAM (needs no elaboration). These types of SPAM are annoyances, but with some good filtering rules entered into your e-mail software -- check with the online help for your software on how to do this -- most of it can get shunted to a "Probable SPAM" folder instead of having it pack your Inbox to the breaking point.

You'll notice I said "until recently" in the previous paragraph. That's because the Scam SPAM category has reared its ugly head. I've seen several different types of this over the past few months. The first one was a mail message from Africa -- the country and background info changes from message to message -- where someone wants your help to launder a few million dollars through your bank account. And (gasp!) you get to keep 20%! What a deal -- that is, until you give them your bank info and find that someone drained you dry. The second scam was the Microsoft e-mail with the "upgrade" attachment -- except that Microsoft updates via a secure HTTP (https) connection directly between their website and the target machine. In other words, the message was fradulent and the "upgrade" was a virus. The third scam I ran across was the one detailed on the BestBuy.com website where someone spoofed a message about credit card information getting compromised. It showed up in my Inbox, looked rather official, and it was a devious scam to get credit card information. The latest one I found just yesterday. I got an e-mail from what looked like Chase (where I have a credit card) talking about security and privacy policies with a number of hyperlinks. On close examination, the hyperlinks pointed to chase.bfi0.com, not chase.com. This was yet another e-mail designed to defraud the unknowing. SPAM is evolving (devolving?) from unwanted garbage to messages designed to harm your data and/or help you unknowingly part with your money.

Taming the Wild SPAM

Obviously, don't answer a SPAM unless you want to get put on a list that is distributed to anyone with the money to buy it for Internet mass marketing. These lists are usually distributed on CDs and, for a modest fee, can put upwards of 500,000 e-mail addresses (or more) in the hands of any idiot with a get-rich-quick scheme. Many times SPAMmers go trolling through these lists for verifiably good e-mail addresses (as people change them due to getting swamped with SPAM), and the "opt-out" or "unsubscribe" hyperlink is their weapon of choice. You click on this, or you reply with a request to unsubscribe, and WHAMMO!, you've just been tagged and bagged. The best thing to do is just delete it.

Also, common sense is invaluable. When you get something that looks "official" and asks you to click on a hyperlink in the message -- or when you're asked to reply with information that is either personal or financial -- a red flag should go up. Be wary! If you get something suspicious (like the Best Buy or Chase scam messages), take a minute and go to their website to look for comments on what you received. Check the domain name (the thing before the .com, .net, or .whatever)! Chase.com and chase.bfi0.com (domain: bfi0.com) are not the same, and you can pick that out if you're careful. If still in doubt, just call them on the phone. It's easier than dealing with the aftermath of simply going with the flow.

The next problem is how to stop it at the source. Unfortunately, that's a problem akin to successfully navigating through a black hole, or perhaps trying to get out of a speeding ticket in Florida. If you know how to decipher SMTP headers then you can complain to webmasters and to system administrators, but this is like sending a message to the IRS about the unfair tax codes -- they're just too busy. Expect a response in 2018. Now you could change your e-mail address, but then you have to let everyone you know that you changed it. And it will eventually find its way on a SPAM address list again -- they always do. It's like death and taxes. So eliminating it at the source isn't going to happen.

Now remailers (servers that offer an "e-mail forwarding" service) pose special problems. You can change your real e-mail address, but if you have the remailer forward messages to it then you just short-circuited the process. The ARRL remailer is a great example. My ARRL address is ks5d@arrl.net and that goes to edwin@cox-internet.com (don't worry, that address is undoubtedly on every SPAM CD in the "Please Harass and Offend as Often as Possible" folder). If I change my address to ed@widget.net and have my ARRL address pointing to the new address then I've gotten nowhere. And I believe that the ARRL remailer is routinely scoured for addresses. Either that, or with the FCC amateur database someone is creating possible addresses without ever getting on the ARRL website. I say this because a lot of SPAM is addressed to my ARRL address as well as a lot of other's ARRL addresses. Solution? Either go the filter route (which I do) or get rid of the remailer address. And remember that this is just one remailer -- you may use more than one.

Is There Hope for the Future?

If you want a SPAM-free environment, your best bet is the filter route and a lot of patience. Congress is considering legislation against SPAM, but remember that the Internet is a global entity and international servers aren't bound by U.S. laws. I started using the Internet back when telnet and ftp were the only ways of maneuvering around, so I've seen a lot of changes in the last 15 years. One thing I can say without a doubt is that the nature of the Internet changes every few years and when it does all bets are off. The Web changed everything, AOL and other proprietary services getting on the Net did it again, and the commercialization of the Net did it too. Now broadband has done it again, and speculating on how SPAM will be affected by future technology is useless. However, I have no doubt that people will find new and inventive ways to dump their sales pitches under our eyes, and I also have no doubt that destructive and hateful people will continue to try and harm your machine/data and steal your money. The problems will remain the same, it's just that the method of delivery will likely be different.

Epilogue

73,
Edwin Alexander, KS5D

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