Spam

Unsolicited Commercial Email (aka Spam)

Most of us have gotten a lot more unwanted stuff in our electronic mail lately than usual, and some of it has been solicitations to go to (presumably) pornographic Web sites. Many staff members are disturbed by this, and the problem was discussed in the last Middle Managers meeting. Lots of people have been asking what can be done.

The conclusion we reached in Middle Managers was that available central remedies have unacceptable side effects. All this leaves is individually deleting things which you don't want to read. If you are repeatedly getting objectionable mail from the same address, Systems can work with your Liaison to create local filters to automatically delete it. If we discover several people being attacked by the same repeat offender, we can filter that address centrally. However, the bulk of this stuff is always going to be a single instance per sending address, and the only effective way to deal with it is to delete it yourself. If you want the gory details of the other possible "solutions" (and why we don't want to use them), continue reading.

What options do we have other than managing our own email? At the moment, the answer is not many. The latest round seems to be coming from several different porn vendors who have all acquired a common mailing list. The list has a massive number of email addresses, including those of Library staff. The vendor mailing programs are working through the list methodically, sending out their invitations in batches of 20-30 addresses at a time. This number of addressees is small enough to escape being filtered by mass-mailing blocker software.

We could block the address from which the mail was issued. This is a purely reactive measure: we can't block it until it is too late, because we don't know what to block until after it arrives. Even after we have the address, it can only stop email from that one source, and these vendors frequently use several different addresses. This only works for repeat offenders who don't have good network resources.

We can ask to be removed from their mailing lists. This sometimes only serves to verify that they have a "live" address, which they then sell to other vendors, making the problem worse. Even if it works, it only stops that particular source, and it can't be done until after the first email has already arrived.

We could complain to their network supplier (ISP). Some ISPs will respond and try to stop the email, some won't. It takes time for the ISP to investigate and verify the complaint, and this can permit a lot of objectionable mail to arrive in the meantime. A new retaliation from some vendors who get cut off has been to list the complainer on a public Web site as a "Porn Scammer", someone who deliberately tries to get pornographic information and then complains. This would be messy to get straightened out, and would result in the complaining address being publicly identified with porn in the interim.

The next two approaches can potentially block spam before it appears in your mailbox, but have other problems of their own. We could try to filter all sites which are listed with one or more of the vigilante spam organizations. These are groups that compile lists of "known email abusers" and make the lists available to mail servers for filtering. The problem with this approach is that the vigilante groups are notorious for listing innocent networks, either because someone has maliciously complained or because one address (out of potentially thousands) in the network has been abusive. Blindly following that kind of list can block all sorts of legitimate mail, and it can take a long time to discover this (since the innocent victim can't send email to tell you). It still won't stop mailings from vendors who aren't on the list.

We could use content filtering software to block all email which contains certain objectionable words. Any word list long enough to be effective will almost always block some legitimate email. This has been the basis for the ALA stance against trying to filter Web access on public library workstations. Stopping mail with the words slut and cum would have blocked the latest two that came in today, but would do nothing to stop "Bare-ly Legal Teens - Do ANYthing you ask them to! - All your dirty fantasies come true! White Hot Lesbian Action!" The latter is more typical of porn solicitations, and hardly less offensive.

All things considered, the Delete key looks relatively good.


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