by Wallace Eddy

If you have never liked the taste of Spam, you will like it even less now that it also means "unsolicited commercial email." Spam seems to be infiltrating our electronic inboxes on a regular basis and proving to be a general annoyance and time-waster. The underlying tactic behind spam is not a new phenomenon for a capitalist society, but with the ubiquitous use of email it seems ever present. (Remember when you’d get just a few fliers posted under a windshield wiper or in your door at home?)

While there are currently no laws against spam, the content of some messages may make them illegal (e.g., pyramid schemes that utilize the U.S. Postal Service.) Many spam messages are not categorized as "illegal," but still are annoying. Dealing with this common annoyance usually sends people in two directions they simply delete it and ignore it (much like the practice of sifting through your postal mail each night and throwing the "junk mail" into the trash), or they take more formal steps such as complaining about it to the appropriate agency.

Determining the appropriate agency is not always an easy task. Project NEThics may be a resource in determining the best course of action or follow-up.

One complication in determining the source of spam or junk mail is that the address information the user sees is usually forged or altered for purposes of deception. Knowing how to enable "full headers" in the system you use to read your email is important before registering a complaint. Full headers allow you to see the entire route a message took to get to you, including the Internet Protocol (IP) address of origin. Contact the OIT Help Desk (301.405.1500 or http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/contact/) or Project NEThics (301.405.8787 or NEThics@umail.umd.edu) if you need assistance in reading or forwarding the message with its full headers. Another source for understanding how to retrieve full headers may be found at SpamCop (http://spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/19.html), a site hosted by an organization working to eliminate spam.

With the full headers, Project NEThics staff usually can identify the Internet Service Provider (ISP) from which the message was sent or through which it was forwarded. A Project NEThics staff member then writes a notice of complaint to that ISP, alerting them to the behavior of one of their users. We cannot guarantee a reply from the ISP, nor can we guarantee the behavior will stop, but we can be comforted in knowing we have done all that is possible within current laws.

Given the open nature of the Internet and the ease with which junk email can be sent to users within the online community, there is little that can be done in most situations to prevent it or respond to it effectively. There are however, certain measures being taken to minimize the amount of junk mail that you receive and there may be occasions on which filing a complaint and pursuing the source of the unwanted messages is worthwhile. For more information about dealing with spam and understanding how to register a complaint, see the article previously published in Outlook at http://www.umd.edu/Outlook/1998-04-07/click.html.

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