Don's Anti-Spam Page

Spam basics

Spamfaq.net
Email Abuse FAQ
Net Abuse FAQ
Stopping Spam, published by O'Reilly
The Rules (thanks to Spamedi's)
1. Spammers lie.
2. When in doubt, see Rule #1.
3. Spammers are stupid.

Complain about every spam you get!

Spammers want you to Just Hit Delete if you somehow, inexplicably, aren't interested in their advertisements. Because of course if you complain to their Internet service provider, you can get their access canceled, and they know it (unless the spammers' ISP is a spam haven---see below).

SpamCop is the most convenient tool I've found for sending a spam complaint. Automates many of the techniques described in the SPAM-L FAQ.
How to Track Spammers and Complain to their ISP, also known as the SPAM-L FAQ, this document gives details on how to track the source of spam and file an effective complaint.
Sam Spade provides web-based whois, traceroute, DNS queries, etc.
net.demon software has a set of Windows tools that have gotten great reviews.
The Network Abuse Clearinghouse provides some abuse reporting tools, including Windows programs.
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is not necessarily interested in all spam, but if the spam is part of a fraud scheme (e.g. quick-cash pyramid schemes, or the old envelope-stuffing scam) it can't hurt to loose the federal dogs. Don't expect a fast response.

Filtering out the crap

Not everyone has the time or energy to complain about every spam, particularly the administrators of large networks. If you want to just filter out the spam so you can use your mailbox again, there are several powerful options.

Procmail is the best tool for processing email in general, and for weeding out unwanted email in particular. Available for Unix-like operating systems only.
Blackhole Lists, aka RBL-type services work with most popular mail servers. The mail server can be configured to check all incoming mail against a list of known spammers before they deliver the mail. This would be relevant only to system administrators.
rblcheck is a Unix program which helps you perform lookups in RBL-style services. This can be handy if you don't control your mail server, but you can use procmail on your personal account.
NoCeM-E is a little procmail application of my own device, designed to make up-to-date email filters available by subscription. You subscribe to a mailing list, set up the scripts, then sit back as your email filters are updated automatically by email. Anyone can provide content (i.e. publish their email filters), so you should be able to select a content provider who weeds out undesirable email with the same priorities you would use. I am no longer maintaining it because it requires a huge amount of trust in the technical competence of the content provider(s). I know of one (mighty fine) content provider, Dougal Campbell. NoCeM-E was kindly mentioned in Stopping Spam.

Sabotage the spammers

wpoison is a devious little program designed to "poison" bulk mail lists with invalid addresses. You link to this CGI from your own web site. It creates fake web pages with lots of bogus email addresses, and lots of links to similar bogus pages. Web-crawling programs designed to harvest email addresses from web pages, if they are badly made (as most are), will collect thousands of invalid email addresses from wpoison. Try this harmless demonstration.

Major Spam Havens

These are the people who are making the Internet less usable every day. Be sure you aren't doing business with them; consult the Blacklist of Internet Advertisers.

Pacific Bell Internet

They've been sheltering spammers since November 2000 and there's no end in sight. See PINKbell.net for details.
Bell South
Got a spam complaint? I had one, back in March. BellSouth is still getting around to it.
UUNET
Single biggest source of spam on the Internet for years running. Lately they've returned to their habit of threatening anti-spam activists. As of this writing, they're swiftly approaching their five millionth spam complaint.
UUNET Spam FAQ
The UUNet UDP and S.P.U.T.U.M
Why UUNet Sucks
N.U.K.E.: The Official UUNET Lawyer Parody Site
Other Spamhausen
See Spamhaus Project for a fine list of known spam havens.

UUNET Spam FAQ The UUNet UDP and S.P.U.T.U.M Why UUNet Sucks N.U.K.E.: The Official UUNET Lawyer Parody Site

Don's Anti-Spam Page

Spam basics

Complain about every spam you get!

Filtering out the crap

Sabotage the spammers

Major Spam Havens

Pacific Bell Internet

Bell South

UUNET

Other Spamhausen

Other anti-spam links