Not to be confused with the meat product, spam is a term commonly used when describing junk email on the Internet. "Spam", or unsolicited commercial email (UCE) is a huge problem for people who use email. Junk mail is on the rise, and it's an industry-wide problem, as on of the nations largest anti-spam software makers recently reported a 600% increase in spam detected from May 2001 to May 2002. It is estimated that 27% of all email today can be classified as "spam". While we have filters in place, it's an uphill battle. Spam is increasing faster and faster, regardless of who you use to connect to the Internet, and regardless of anti-spam legislation in many states.

Unfortunately, spam is an inevitable part of the way email functions and there are no public email addresses that are not susceptible to it. It creates a hassle for the home user who has to waste time sifting through it for legitimate email and it costs companies money to process this extra email that is irrelevant to the operation of their business.

We have put together this page to help our users deal with this problem and let you know what we do to fight spam. Alternatively, to understand how and why you receive spam, there is a lot of interesting information available in this spam report (03/19/2003 by " The Center for Democracy & Technology").

		About Spam:
		What does Impulse Internet Services do to stop spam from getting to me? Why doesn't Impulse Internet Services just filter all the spam out of my email before I ever get it? How can I filter spam? How can I set up advanced filtering using Spam Assassin? How can I avoid getting spam sent to me? How do I find out where the spam is really coming from and report it?

What does Impulse Internet Services do to stop spam from getting to me?
Impulse Internet Services works hard to keep as much spam as possible away from our customers via the use of organizations that maintain a 'Blacklist' of known servers that allow spam, such as ORDB (Open Relay DataBase); SBL SpamHaus Known Spammer block list; Blitzed.org Open Proxy block list; and Monkeys.com Open Proxy block list (UPL). By subscribing to this service, we stop mail from these spam servers from ever entering your mailbox. This has proven to be very effective, but given the fact that new servers can pop up and spammers are changing their tactics as quickly as they are being blocked from servers, this method alone is not wholly effective today.

Why doesn't Impulse Internet Services just filter all the spam out of my email before I ever get it?
While we support this approach via our webmail interface (see below), we do not generally suggest this method. Do you really want your Internet Service Provider looking at every piece of email that comes to you and making a decision on what to allow you to see? This method is very effective, but there would always be instances where mail would look like spam to our server, but not to our subscribers. For example, if you were shopping for a mortgage, and your friend emailed you about a deal he got on mortgage rates, most spam filtering criteria would say to toss the message as spam along with the hundreds of other pieces of spam touting "the hottest mortgage rates" the server received that day. We do provide some advanced tools for our users to filter their email individually, and most email software allows basic content filtering that will screen the worst of the spam with a few simple steps.

How can I filter spam?
Users are also typically able to set up filters in their own mail software that allow them to automatically trash email from senders they repeatedly get junk mail from, or trash mail with certain text they identify as typical spam text i.e. "best mortgage rates." The "filtering" functions of most email software allow this functionality.

The shortcoming of this approach is that spammers are constantly changing their sending methods to avoid being caught and shut down, so you may wind up with an incredibly complex set of rules over time, and often screen out legitimate email. We recommend using this function to screen and delete mail based on obvious and offensive spam words. Much spam today is very obscene, and setting up a filter to automatically delete messages with common 4 letter obscenities is easy, and will effectively block offensive pornographic email, if not the ones offering "lowest mortgage rates in history." Please read on for more filtering techniques.

How can I set up advanced filtering using Spam Assassin?
Based on the recent escalation in junk mail, Impulse Internet Services has implemented SpamAssassin, a new spam tagging system that scans all mail as it comes into the server, compares it to hundreds of known spam characteristics, and assigns it a probability of being junk mail. Users can then set up a filter on their computer to look at this tag in the email header and automatically divert the email into the trash (or a spam box for review prior to deletion) if it has a high probability of being spam. In tests we have run, the tagging system successfully tags approximately 98% of incoming spam, and has a false-positive rate of less than 1%.

In order to use Spam Assassin, you must be running a mail program that allows filtering on email headers. Microsoft Outlook and Eudora both support this feature. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Outlook Express do not (your best bet with those programs is to set up a basic filter as described on the section above). Any piece of email that is suspected to be spam is now marked with "X-Spam-Flag: YES" in the header. Using your email program you will need to create a new spam filter using the "X-Spam-Flag: YES" header information***. For more detailed help with setting this up, please visit our screen shots section. If you are having difficulties setting this up, please contact us. Because a spam filter can never be perfect, we reccomend that you utilize a "spam" folder rather than filtering directly into the trash. If you choose not to set up filtering, this header will not affect the normal operation of your email.

***Advanced users may choose to filter using the '"X-Spam-Level:" header information that is inserted in the email headers and displays the number of spam characteristic points detected in the email (denoted by *'s). We have set the server to insert the "X-Spam-Flag: YES" header when it detects seven or more spam points (e.g. X-Spam-Level: *******). While this should work best for most of our customers, you may wish to experiment with filtering on more or less points using the 'X-Spam-Level:' section of the header.

Alternatively, you can setup spam filters via http://webmail.impulse.net which amongst other settings allows you to delete emails before they get to your mailbox. Follow these simple steps:

1. Go to http://webmail.impulse.net.
2. Enter your username and password, and click on login.
3. Wait for the page to load and click on the email settings icon at the bottom of the page.
4. Make your choice under Spam Settings about how you would like your spam to be handled.
5. Also adjust your Spam Filter Levels according to your preference.
6. Click on Update Settings.

How can I avoid getting spam sent to me?
Avoiding spam entails taking steps to make sure your email address doesn't wind up on a junk mailer's list including:

1. Alter your email address when you're posting messages that are meant for a savvy human to read before sending mail back to you. i.e. in newsgroups or other online discussion forums. For example, instead of posting as johndoe@xyz.net, use johndoeNOspam@xyz.net or write it as "jonedoe no spam at xyz dot net". Most spamming programs won't be able to remove the middle characters and your correct address won't easily be collected. Doing things like spelling out "at" instead of using the symbol "@" also avoids being picked up by some spamming programs.
    
2. If you have a Web site, don't post your personal email address and don't use "mailto." There is software out there crawling through the Internet and "harvesting" email addresses from web sites, so expect to deal with spam to any email address you post on a web site. An alternative is using a web based form that does not reveal your email address when sending you a message. However commercial sites generally list their email addresses anyway, to make it easier for their customers to contact them.
    
3. Don't publicize your email address on the Internet. Pay close attention when filling out web forms or sending email and follow these practices as much as possible:
    
   
   1. When filling out any type of form on the Internet watch carefully for any type of check boxes or radio buttons that by default may be checked for you to receive a newsletter or share your e-mail with a third party. Many websites try to get you to sign up to mailing lists this way.
       
   2. When signing up for any e-mail list see if the company has any type of Spam or e-mail sharing disclaimer. Make sure you will have the option to unsubscribe, and know how to do so before signing up for a service like this. Well known companies are generally less likely to make it difficult to unsubscribe. Look around for a way to unsubscribe before signing up.
       
   3. Be careful who you send your e-mail to. Sites that require you to sign up or request an e-mail for free products, free services, or contests commonly share your e-mail as a method of generating revenue. If you really want to sign up for these services, try using a free web-based email address that you only intend to use for a short period of time (see more on this below, see section 'G').
       
   4. Don't send or recommend a friend's or family members e-mail address unless you are familiar with the service. Ask your family and friends not to give out your email address on the web either! Remember, once your email address is in just one of the spam mailing lists, it will eventually end up in all of them.
       
   5. Never forward an e-mail that claims that it is capable of tracking the e-mail as it is sent or will help generate revenue for a certain cause based on the number of people it is forwarded to. These e-mails are commonly referred to as chain mail and are commonly false and often help individuals get additional e-mail address for Spam. Nobody will end up getting any money for free, instead everyone will end up getting a bunch of spam.
       
   6. Be careful where you post your e-mail address. In chat rooms or news groups for example anyone could quickly grab your e-mail address. We recommend that when you need to post or send your e-mail that you send it to a specific person or setup a public email account as explained in the next section.
       
   7. Use multiple mailboxes to set up a "public" email address for surfing the Net and a private one for family and friends. You can purchase an additional email account from Impulse Internet Services or alternatively subscribe to a free account at places like Hotmail, or Yahoo (for a more complete list of free email providers, visit Google's WebDirectory). Use this as the public mailbox (then you can safely give that address to any website without worrying about it), and just cancel the email account and start a new one when the spam gets too bad.
       
   8. Never send email or reply to an email requesting that you be removed or to unsubscribe unless you are familiar with the company (and trust them to remove you from mailing lists upon request). Some spammers use this reply as a method of verifying the email address is valid and using this information to subscribe you to other mailing lists. If you do not know the individual or company simply delete or ignore the e-mail. Some spammers go so far as to take you to a website of their choice when you click on an 'unsubscribe' link in the email.
       
   9. Choose an uncommon email address. Some spammers use programs that produce millions of potential email addresses. These programs attach combinations of letters and/or words to the domain names of ISPs and large companies (such as @impulse.net) to reach the maximum number of possible email users. Some spammers look for dictionary words and common names, so if your email address is john@domainxyz, or sales@domainxyz the odds are that you'll wind up on a spammer's self-generated list. To make it harder for spammers to generate your account name randomly, mix in numbers and characters when choosing your email address. If you change john@domainxyz to j0hn1@domainxyz you're less likely to have your email address generated randomly. However this also makes your email address difficult to remember for other people and is therefore not a popular method.
       
   Remember that in general it is only matter of time until your email address will be leaked onto the internet or end up in some spam list. However try your best to stick to the above rules, and it should at least keep spam to a manageable level.
    

How do I find out where the spam is really coming from and report it?
Impulse Internet Services and just about every other network service provider have use policies that prohibit sending unsolicited bulk email through their network, and will shut off spammers' accounts if you bring it to their attention. Almost all junk mail now uses bogus "From" and "Reply-to" addresses commonly found in the partial headers displayed by default in most email software. We are also seeing instances where spammers are automatically putting the recipients email address in the "From" field, and have had users conclude their machine has been hijacked and is sending spam without them knowing it. Never rely on a spam's return email address, as it's much to easy to fake. To report spam accurately, you'll need to do a little detective work and dig into the full headers of the message to determine where the mail actually came from.
 
Here is how:
Check out the Help menu in your email program to learn how to view the full headers of your messages and once you're looking at the headers of the message, look for the line that specifies what IP address it was received from by red.impulse.net, which is the Impulse Internet Services primary incoming mail server i.e. something that looks like:

Received: from unknown (HELO linux.getinfo.com.tw) (211.21.85.123) by red.impulse.net with SMTP; 18 Jul 2002 02:47:32 -0000