Spam is unsolicited email promoting a product or service via email. If you didn't ask for it, didn't sign up on a mailing list related to it, and didn't leave your e-mail address on a web form asking for more information on it, it's Spam!

South Africa's contribution to Spam is minimal, although we are just as vulnerable to Spam as anyone else. Spam is also used as a mechanism to exploit unprotected machines. Many home and business users' computers are sending out Spam because of this. Zombie computers are sending out over 40% of the world's Spam, usually to the complete ignorance of the home user.

Spammers are in it for the money. They send 10 000 000 email messages to get 10 sales. Tomorrow, send another 10 000 000 emails and get another 10 sales...and so on. Some of the most notorious and largest Spammers make more than US$ 1 million per year!

All reputable Internet Service Providers (ISP) will terminate a user’s account immediately if they are identified as a Spammer, so the bad guys will typically get an internet access account from an ISP (using false information) and then push as much Spam through that ISP as possible before their operation is detected and the account is closed, so the Spammer just moves on to the next account. In many cases this process of burn and run is automated by special software.

Why is Spam such a nuisance?

Receiving emails advertising free holidays, free prizes, International banks, pornography, viagra and just about any other product or service from an email recipient you have never heard of is a nuisance for just about everyone with an email address. It's no secret that Spam is an enormous nuisance and productivity killer.

The economic damage caused by Spam (lost productivity and network congestion) was estimated to be between US$58 billion and US$78 billion in the first quarter of 2004 alone. Some users receive 13 Spam emails a day, taking approximately 5 minutes to download - over 365 days it will cost you almost R900.00 per year in telephone costs alone. Then add your unproductive time and stress to that.

How do I prevent Spam from the start?

Only give out your email address to reputable online companies.
Do not post your email address on message boards, newsgroups or guest books.
Read the privacy statement of websites before registering as a user of their site, and make double sure they do not sell email addresses to cover their monthly costs.
A large proportion of online free services sell databases to cover monthly costs (nothing in life is for free).

Basically if you EVER use an email address, you will at some stage get Spam.

How do I report Spam?

- You can report Spam directly to http://www.spamcop.net/ and they will take relevant actions to investigate or blacklist the sender. You need to Register with Spamcop and follow their strict instructions.

- You can report Spam to your ISP i.e. abuse@eject.co.za, we would then contact the correct parties. However we do need the full headers of the email. If you do not send the full headers, we cannot do anything!!

This is the process to get the email headers which need to emailed to us:

Below is an example of retrieving your full email headers from a received email using Outlook Express 4, 5 and 6:

Start by opening the message in it's own window (or when viewing the message in the preview pane).

Then:
With the keyboard:
CTRL-F3 (Message Source Window)
CTRL-A (select all)
CTRL-C (copy)
ALT-F4 (close)
CTRL-V in the email you will send to abuse@eject.co.za

With the mouse:
Click the "File" menu
Click "Properties"
Click the "Details" tab
Click "Message Source"
Highlight, copy and paste everything from this window (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C) CTRL-V in the email you will send to abuse@eject.co.za