This is a book about spam — unwanted email messages and inappropriate news articles — and what you can do to prevent it, stop it, and even outlaw it. It's a book for people who have seen their mailboxes fill up with useless messages and unsolicited advertisements, and who are tired of footing the bill for them in their Internet service charges. It's a book for people who are upset that they can't find the on-topic postings in their once-helpful newsgroups, and fear that the community of newsgroup readers will dissolve in disgust.

Stopping Spam looks at the problem of spam and explains ways you can eliminate unwanted messages and news postings. It provides information of use to individual users (who don't want to be bothered by spam) and to system administrators (also news administrators, mail administrators, and network administrators, who are responsible for minimizing spam problems within their organizations or service providers). It covers:

• Introduction to spam: what is it, why is it a problem, who are the spammers and why do they do it, what are the types of spam (spam that sells things, spam that contains political messages, spam that hurts people's reputations), what is its history, what is its impact on the Internet now and in the future?

• Internet messaging: a brief look at the technical underpinnings of Internet messaging to explain how email and spam work.

• User's guides to email and news spam: how to protect your email address, filter email and news articles, and respond to spam.

• Administrator's guide: how to trace spam, make policy choices for your site, block both incoming and outgoing spam, and select the right technical tools.

• Community responses: how to join forces to defeat spam. There are many possible responses to spam: simply delete it, complain to spammers and/or their service providers, share information, trap spammers, litigate, campaign for legislative solutions, use the media.

• Other resources: offline and online documents, tools, mailing lists, and more.

 Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. What's Spam and What's the Problem?
   Slapped in the Face
   What's Wrong with Spam
   A Taxonomy of Spam
Chapter 2. The History of Spam
   Prehistory
   Early Bulk Email
   Usenet and the Spam Cancelers
   In Their Own Words
Chapter 3. Spamming Today
   The Players
   The Technology
   Spamming in the Future
Chapter 4. Internet Basics
   Addresses
   Protocols
   Email
   Usenet News
   Instant Messages
Chapter 5. A User's Guide to Email Spam
   Safeguarding Your Email Address
   Filtering Junk Mail
   Responding to Junk Mail
Chapter 6. A User's Guide to Usenet Spam
   Filtering News
   Responding to Spam
Chapter 7. Spam Stopping for Administrators and ISPs
   Policy Choices
   Blocking Incoming Spam
   Stopping Outgoing Spam
Chapter 8. Community Action
   Sharing Information
   Group Action
   Legal and Legislative Action
   Informing the Public

Appendix A. Tools and Information
Appendix B. Cyber Promotions Timeline

Index