When you receive spam, you have several options for dealing with it, explained below. Though it won’t affect spam that you are already receiving, you should also take steps to protect your email address from spammers.

Consider the following options for dealing with spam:

  • If you are receiving only a negligible amount of spam, you may want to simply delete the messages and forget about it.
  • UITS provides email filtering services at Indiana University. The spam quarantine service analyzes all mail delivered to IU Cyrus/Webmail and Exchange accounts. Any spam messages you receive are quarantined for five days in a Spam (Cyrus/Webmail) or Junk E-mail (Exchange) folder in your account. After five days, the spam service deletes these messages automatically.
  • You can report it to the correct authorities. Be aware, however, that the authorities may not be able to locate and stop the spammer, or they may be able only to locate and stop the spammer’s use of that particular email account. Also, the spammer will likely move on to a new account and start over again. But constant complaints to their Internet service providers (ISPs) are really the only negative consequences to sending unsolicited mass mailings that spammers have to deal with, so if you would like to add your voice to the protest, follow the appropriate directions below.

Note: Though you can configure filters in some email clients to automatically delete messages from a spam source, this usually is not an effective solution. Client-side filters can be useful when one particular spammer is annoying you, but most spammers use free accounts from ISPs such as AOL, Yahoo!, and Hotmail, which they use to send spam and then abandon, moving on to another account. Since most spammers’ email addresses change so often, filtering on an address is difficult, unless you are able to filter out the whole ISP. You may not be able to do this if you receive email from others who use that ISP legitimately.

Reporting spam

When reporting spam, you must include the full headers of the spam you received, because all the regular header fields can be forged.

You should report spam to different authorities depending on the type:

Spam that appears to come from a valid IU account

Note: At Indiana University, if you are considering mass mailing, be aware that the University Information Policy Office (UIPO) distinguishes between administrative mailings and mail that is for interpersonal communication, and treats the two differently.

Nigerian bank scams or advance fee fraud schemes

These messages usually state that a reputable foreign company or individual is needed for the deposit of an overpayment on a procurement contract. In variations of this scheme, the son or daughter of a murdered official may plead for your assistance in depositing an inheritance in a US bank. Report these directly to the US Secret Service. To do so, forward the message with full headers to  419.fcd@usss.treas.gov . More information on advance fee fraud schemes is available at the Secret Service web site; search for “advance fee fraud”.

Pyramid, Ponzi, or multilevel marketing schemes

These are the messages that often tell you that you can make $30,000 in 30 days. All three schemes are similar in that they are based on the idea that you can receive money by investing money or getting other people to join. Report these types of messages directly to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). To do so, forward the message with full headers to  uce@ftc.gov .

For information on the FTC’s law enforcement actions against spammers, see the FTC Spam page.

Email that makes you feel personally threatened

Sometimes you may have difficulty determining if a message is spam or if it’s targeted directly at you. If you receive email that makes you feel personally threatened, contact your local police department immediately.

All other types of spam

If you wish to pursue action on any other spam you have received, you can send a complaint to the ISP from which the spam originated. More than likely, many others have also complained. If the spammer did not abandon the account immediately after the unsolicited mailing, the flurry of complaints will probably cause the ISP to cancel the account.

Be sure you’re sending it to the proper ISP; often, the message headers will be forged so the message appears to come from somewhere other than its true origin. Reading and understanding full headers to determine the original ISP can be quite complicated. There are several resources available on the web for more information, including stopspam.org.

Below you will find a simplified version that works in many cases, but not all. If you use these simplified directions, be aware that you may occasionally send your message to the wrong ISP. (This is another reason to be very polite when you send your message!) To work with full headers:

  1. Enable your email client to show the full headers for the message you are investigating
  2. In the full header, start at the last “Received” line (just before the “To:”, “From:”, “Subject:”, and “Date:” lines) and move from the bottom up to find the first IP number in square brackets. The IP number will look something like this: [206.69.178.231]
  3. Find the sending ISP name closest to this bracketed IP number. It will look something like: servicename.com
  4. Forward the offending pieces of email, with full headers, to the username abuse at the ISP you have identified: abuse@servicename.comAdd a polite message, such as “Here’s a copy of an unsolicited email message I received. Can you please investigate?” Do not use hostile or rude language, as the person at the other end almost always had nothing to do with sending the spam; he or she is your ally in trying to stop further mailings from that spammer.
  5. If the service does not maintain an abuse account (i.e., your message bounces back to you), forward your spam complaint, with full headers, to the webmaster: webmaster@servicename.comInclude a polite message as described above.

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