About Spam
Reporting Spam
Prolynx
Internet subscribes to national Spam databases that
track Spam and track Spammers. Our system
cross-references against their databases. If you
would like to report a Spammer, please report it to
these services. Report Spam at:
Spam
Cop
You may also
forward spam emails to
spam@prolynx.com for our review.
Common
questions about Email
We get many
of the same questions about email from our clientele. I
hope this will answer many of your questions.
About SPAM,
email errors and funky email issues
Why is the word “Spam”
referenced to unsolicited
email?
Why do I get SPAM, who sends it and how did they get my
email address?
I get more SPAM these days then I have ever gotten, why
is this?
How does Prolynx help keep down the SPAM?
Somebody is trying to send email to me, but it never
gets to me, why is this?
I get “Undeliverable” email from people that I have
never sent to, why is this?
I get email with no subject, no “To”, no “From” and no
message, how and why is this?
I get “Error 550, not a
gateway” when I try to send email, why is this?
It seems that all of the recipients of this Spam message
are only going to Prolynx email addresses. What
does this mean?
Why is the word “Spam” referenced
to unsolicited email?
SPAM is
unsolicited email. The name comes from a Monte Python
skit where the characters sing repeatedly “Spam Spam
Spam Spam Spam…..” The
reference comes from the constant, annoying repetition,
like unsolicited email.
Why do I get SPAM, who sends it and how did they get
my email address?
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1.
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In order
to get Spam, a Spammer needs to acquire your email
address. There are many ways that this can happen.
Here is a list of some ways that your email address
can be acquired by these Spammers. |
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2.
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You may have made a transaction with a business and
gave them your email address. This reseller may do
one of the following:
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a. |
Use your email
address to send you your receipt and then
discard it (this is the most preferable)
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b. |
And then: keeps
your email address and then sends
you periodic emails to sell you more items
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c. |
And then: sell,
trade or share your email address with their
affiliates who will then send email to you
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d. |
And then: sell your
email address to whom ever will pay for it
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3.
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To expand on item 1-d,
many Spammers will purchase as many lists from any
sources possible. They in turn will sell these
combined lists to whom ever they can, and so on.
Beware of “Privacy Policies.” Many “Privacy
Policies” state that you have no privacy with the
information that you provide, or that your
information may be traded with this companies
affiliates, which could be anybody. At this point,
your address is up for grabs. Always review online
forms for check boxes that are already “checked”
stating that your information may be used to contact
you by the owners of the site and/or their
affiliates. |
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4.
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You sent
an email to an address hosted by a company that
keeps track of all email addresses being sent
through their system. They may collect these
addresses and use them to sell. I have heard rumors
that Juno and Hotmail do, or may have at one time
used this practice. |
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5.
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Your email address was
detected on the Internet while you were sending or
receiving an email; it was then collected and sold.
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6.
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Your email address
resides in the address book of somebody that has
contracted Spy-Ware. The Spy-Ware runs unknowingly
in the back ground of this persons computer and
sends private information back to the developer, who
then collects the information and may sell this
information and/or use it themselves to send Spam.
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7.
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Somebody sent an email
to a group of people and put all of the recipients
email addresses into the “To” or “Cc” field, yours
included. One (most likely several) of the
recipients have Spy-Ware on their computer that
reads all of the addresses from all of the emails
either coming in or going out. The proper way to
send to a group is to use the “Bcc” (Blind Carbon
Copy) which hides all of the other group recipients.
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8.
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An
addendum to item 6 above is people sending a
“Forward” in which the previous group list of email
addresses is imbedded in the body of the original
email. It is very important that everybody respect
and protect the public distribution of other peoples
email addresses. Be aware of what you are doing,
and contact anybody that you find using these poor
emailing techniques. |
These are
just a few of the ways in which your email address can
spread like wild-fire to Spammers. Sometimes the only
way to stop this is to change your address every year or
so, it’s easier than you think. We are working with our
mail software developer to create digests and
permission-based email for individual users. This way,
only addresses that you allow to send to you will make
it through our server to you.
I get more SPAM these days then I have ever gotten, why
is this?
In the
previous section we talked about how Spammers can get
your email address. This is simply a matter of time.
The longer that your address is out their, the faster
that it multiplies exponentially to the lists of
Spammers. Don’t think that it is because you are with a
particular ISP. Spammers are getting more
sophisticated, bandwidth is cheaper and faster, software
is faster and it is much less expensive to send higher
volumes of email. Spam is at an all-time high. More
than 80% of the email that we process here at Prolynx is
Spam. We block about 95% of that Spam but some still
get through.
How does
Prolynx help keep down the SPAM?
We process
rules on our mail server to keep Spam from getting
through. Some of the things that we do include:
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1.
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We cross-reference
against at least 3 of the nations reputable Spammer
database lists. These databases keep track of such
things like Spammers email addresses, domain names
and mail server addresses. If one of these
cross-referenced items try to pass through our
server, it will be stopped and/rejected back to the
sender. |
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2.
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We have our own
phrase-list. There are key phrases or key words on
the email subject, body or HTML that we can block.
Key words like “VIAGRA” or “Buy our widgets.”
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3.
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Our mail software
developer also provides us with a list of addresses
and domain names that are defined as Spammers.
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Somebody is trying to send email to me, but it never
gets to me (alternately, I am trying to send mail, but
it never gets there), why is this?
Most likely
your email was caught by our Spam filters. The email
contains an item as discussed in the previous section.
Either the email address, domain name of the email
address, a key phrase or key word is in the email
address that was caught. This can be a frustrating
issue, and can be resolved on an individual bases. Many
people get quite angry with us about email getting
rejected, which is understandable. However, most of
these emails have been blocked for a reason, later to
find out why, the user thanks us for blocking it. No
email is blocked arbitrarily. If you have an issue with
a blocked email, please call us so we can look at the
code in the rejection/return email so we can fix the
issue, if this would be a reasonable request.
If the issue is that the sender of the email has been
reported to, and is being block by, a national SPAM list
database, then it will be up to the sender to contact
that list administrator to be removed.
I get
“Undeliverable” email from people that I have never sent
to, why is this?
When you
send an email to somebody, and the address that you are
sending to does not exist, you will get an email
delivered back to you with a subject of
“Undeliverable.” But wait one minute, you say that you
are getting “Undeliverable” emails with a “To” address
that you do not recognize. What is most likely
happening is that somebody is sending emails and
pretending to be you. This is often a practice of
Spammers and most prevalent with Spy-Ware. With
Spy-Ware, a person’s computer is infected with
Spy-Ware. The Spy-Ware then gathers email address from
the persons email address book and delivers Spam to all
of the other addresses in the address book. Typically
using one of the addresses from the address book to send
“From.” If the address used as the “From” is yours,
then you will get all of the “Undeliverables” mailed to
you, thus the oh-so-many “Undeliverable” emails that you
are getting.
Be assured, this email is not being
sent through our server. We have no control over issues
beyond our network.
I get email
with no subject, no “To”, no “From” and no message, how
and why is this?
From what we
can tell, this is a virus, but with no harm done. I see
this email myself several time per day. We could block
this, but there is nothing to block against. We could
reject the email based on an empty subject line, but
this would block all other real email in which no
subject was provided. At this point it’s just an
annoyance that we have to deal with.
I get “Error 550, not a gateway” when I try to send
email, why is this?
We require
“Authentication” to send email. Please see our online
support for email
to get the information on making the appropriate
settings to your mail software.
It seems that all of the recipients of this Spam message
are only going to Prolynx email addresses. What
does this mean?
Spamers
sometime will group the recipients from each domain name
and then send their message in groups. This is why
it appears that the Spam is only going to Prolynx email
addresses. Be assured that their message is going
to millions of other addresses at the same time.
We are familiar with these other Prolynx email addresses
too. Many of these Prolynx email addresses have
not been active for several years. These Spamers
simply buy lists of email addresses by the millions and
then send through their DSL or cable Internet access,
hoping for good results. It costs the Spamers very
little to send these messages and they spend very little
for lists of millions of email addresses.
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