I should state here once again that I am not referring to the meat product from Hormel (Copyright), but rather the unsolicited email that gets dumped on us every day. It is a real problem that is costing you much more than you may realize.

The people who SPAM use a variety of techniques to keep you or your ISP from blocking their garbage. This includes forging headers (the routing taken from the thief to you), hijacking email servers, and hacking systems. Considering the type of garbage most spammers are peddling, is it any wonder they resort to dishonest means to insert their garbage into your e-mail box?

“What does it mean to “forge headers” and what the heck are headers anyway?” you ask. Glad you asked that.

From the SPAM-L FAQ comes the following explanation:

“An e-mail message is divided into two parts, the headers and the body. The headers contain all the technical information, such as who the sender and recipient are, and what systems it has passed through. The body contains the actual message text. The headers and body are separated by a blank line. In some mail programs, the headers are shown separately. “

“How can I view the headers with my email program?” you ask. What follows are instructions for viewing headers with some of the more popular mail clients:

• Eudora: Open the message. Under the title bar are four options. The second from the left is a box which says “Blah, Blah, Blah.” Click on that to display the full headers.

• Hotmail: Go into “Options”, “Preferences”, and choose “Message headers”. You’ll want to choose the “Full” option to display Received: headers. “Advanced” will display that as well as MIME headers. Do note, however, that sometimes Hotmail has to press some previous generation mail servers into service, and messages sent through those mail servers won’t show any headers no matter what.

• Lotus Notes 4.6.x: Open the offending mail. Click on “Actions”, then “Delivery information”. Cut and paste the text from the bottom box, marked “Delivery information:”.

• Netscape Mail: Choose “OPTIONS” from the options menu bar. Listed as an option is “Show Headers”. Choose full headers.

• Outlook Express: Open the message. Choose “File” from the options menu bar. Listed as an option is “properties”. Another window will open, showing two tabs. You want to choose the one titled “Details”. Then cut and paste the headers into the message you want to forward.

• Outlook 2000: Double click on the message to open it up, click on “View – Options”, and you will see the message headers in a box at the bottom of the window. You can copy/paste them from that window.

• Pegasus : Choose “READER” from the options menu bar. Listed as an option is: “Show all Headers”.

OK, great. Now you have all that gobbledygook. What does it mean? Well, we just don’t have space here so here are some internet resources for you to go to.
Probably the best place to start is with the SPAM-L FAQ at www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/. Go to the section on tracking spam. Learn enough to show headers, then forward the email to your ISP after you have cut-and-paste the headers into the message. If you do not cut and paste the headers into the message before you forward it, the message your ISP receives will only have the headers for the transmission between you and your ISP, and your ISP will be unable to do anything for you.

Other resources for learning about SPAM and how to fight it are:
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) www.cauce.org/

The Federal Trade Commission www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/mailbox/index.html
The Stop Spam FAQ is at www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/mailbox/index.html

Each of the sites have links to other sites. The bottom line is that you must do some work on your own if we are to clean up this mess.

Next time: Spammers hacking YOUR systems — how and why?

(Editor’s Note: Jim Kendall is the owner of Telebyte NW, and a board member of the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers. He may be reached at (360) 613-5220.)