Spam - Frequently Asked Questions

The term "spam" is often used to describe unsolicited e-mail, or "junk e-mail", usually commercial in nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple individuals.

For example, if someone sends you an e-mail advertisement, and you have not given that party permission to, then you have received spam. Keep in mind that some advertisements you receive may come from companies you have done business with, and in doing so, you may have agreed to accept email from them. However, even in those legitimate cases, if an advertiser does not give you the ability to stop such email, then they can be considered a "spammer".

Back to top

The reason you receive "spam" is because a "spammer" found your email address. Here are some common ways spammers obtain your address:

• A company you've done business with sells it. Check privacy policies before doing business with any company. tribcsp.com/Casper Star-Tribune/Lee Enterprises never sells or otherwise distributes customer information, including email addresses.
• You or someone you know gives your email address to an untrustworthy party, such as an online contest or e-card website and that party uses or sells your address.
• You or someone you know puts your address on a website, like a personal homepage.
• You or someone you know signs up for a mailing list who shares your information.
• You or someone you know responded to a spam email asking to be removed from the list - in turn, confirming your email address as a live address.
• Spammers use their computer for "dictionary attacks" to automatically generate addresses by the tens of thousands. For example: johna@xxx.com, johnb@xxx.com, johnc@xxx.com, johnd@xxx.com.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), spammers typically use computer programs that search public areas on the Internet to compile, capture, or otherwise "harvest" lists of email addresses from web pages, newsgroups, chat rooms, and other online destinations. The FTC indicates that email address harvesting usually is automated, because spam can hit the addresses soon after they are used publicly the first time; that spam is not targeted; and that some addresses are picked up off web pages even when they aren't visible to the eye.

Spammers use a database of common first names, last names, and English words to generate email addresses and then use those addresses to send to any public ISP domain name. This method and the dictionary attack method generate most of the email addresses that spammers use. In other words, it is possible to receive lots of spam, even if you have never given your email address to anyone.

Back to top

Prevention is the best way to avoid getting spam. The operating principle is to keep your email address as secret as possible. Treat it as you would your home address. Unless you sign up for an email address that was used by someone else at one point, or use a common address like "smith@tribcsp.com," your address is completely unknown until you give it out. tribcsp.com/Casper Star-Tribune/Lee Enterprises never sells or otherwise distributes customer information, including email addresses. The following are tips from the Federal Trade Commission on battling spam:

1. Consider "masking" your email address. Masking involves putting a word or phrase in your email address so that it will trick a harvesting computer program, but not a person. For example, if your email address is "johndoe@tribcsp.com", you could mask it as "johndoe@spamaway.tribcsp.com". Be aware that some newsgroup services or message boards won't allow you to mask your email address and some harvesting programs may be able to pick out common masks.
2. Use a separate screen name for chatting. If you use chat rooms, use a screen name that's not associated with your email address. Consider using the screen name only for online chat.
3. Set up disposable addresses. Decide if you want to use two email addresses - one for personal messages and one for posting in public. Consider using a disposable email address service that creates separate email addresses that forwards to your permanent account. If one of the disposable addresses begins to receive spam, you can shut it off without affecting your permanent address.
4. Use two email accounts. If you work for a business or organization that wants to receive email from the public, consider creating separate accounts or disposable email addresses for that purpose, rather than having an employee's address posted in public.
5. Use a unique email address, containing both letters and numbers. Your choice of email address may affect the amount of spam you receive because some spammers use "dictionary attacks" to email many possible name combinations at large ISPs or email services, hoping to find a valid address. A common name such as “jdoe” may get more spam than something like “jd51x02oe,” though the unique address may be more difficult to remember.
6. Check a web site’s privacy policy before submitting your address. The policy may allow the company to share your address with third parties. Consider opting out of this provision or not submitting your address at all.
7. Use an email filter. Many service providers offer free tools to filter out spam or channel it into a bulk email folder. Others are available for purchase.
8. Report spam to the Federal Trade Commission. Send the entire message, including the full header, to uce@ftc.gov.
9. Be wary. Don’t believe promises from strangers. Be skeptical of money-making opportunities.
10. Never respond to a "spam" message. Spammers also try to trick you into confirming your address is still good. Asking to "Remove me from your list!" only confirms that you received the spam in the first place. Refrain from responding to email requests such as "Hi, is this still John Doe's email address?"

Back to top

SpamAssassin is designed to scan all inbound e-mail for likeliness of spam. This is done by using a tagging process based on a heuristic system that runs various tests. The test returns a numeric value, or score. The higher the score, the more likely it is spam. The score each message receives is placed in the header of the message, which is typically hidden in most e-mail applications. Because a tag is placed on each message, any server or e-mail program can filter the messages based on rules created by your score preferences. This allows us to tag e-mail messages for domains that we host as well other domains.

Back to top

This service is already at work for tribcsp.com subscribers.

Back to top

Please be advised that while the SpamAssassin service endeavors to catch and tag all spam, but we cannot stop spam completely. Keep in mind, you may regard certain messages as spam that our system does not. In addition, the tribcsp.com VirusScanner service endeavors to catch all e-mail sourced viruses, but cannot guarantee detection and removal of unknown viruses. tribcsp.com still recommends that you have anti-virus software installed on your computer for the purpose of detection, scanning and removal of known/unknown system viruses either pre-existing on your hard drive or ported to your hard drive from a non-email source. Circumstances where viruses can get through the VirusScanner system include, but are not limited too, new viruses where software manufacturers have not yet issued signatures, as well as all situations of encrypted e-mails, which by their nature cannot be scanned.

Back to top

VirusScanner, a service included with tribcsp.com subscriber e-mail accounts, is a great addition to this filtration system. A separate system will scan all inbound e-mail for viruses. If the message has a virus, the VirusScanner deletes the virus and sends a notice back to the sender ( <Return-Path> header ) of the message alerting them that the message was infected.

Back to top

tribcsp.com has joining the quest to stop spam by cracking down on spammers, people who send unsolicited e-mails using tribcsp.com network resources. Like AOL and others, we plan to do our part to help weed out the over 2/3 of all unwanted e-mail right at the root by going after those who are sending this unsolicited e-mail.

Back to top

The SpamAssassin program analyzes each incoming email for a wide variety of characteristics that are common to spam messages. Things like keywords (Viagra, Mortgage, Enlargement, etc), graphical images, computer code, and invalid header information are each assigned a point value. SpamAssassin takes the point values for all the associated attributes and adds them for a composite "spaminess" rating. If that rating exceeds a given threshold, the message is marked as spam.

Back to top

tribcsp.com stores all of the messages being filtered from your account in a special folder on our server. These messages are stored for seven days before being deleted. If you would like to check your spam folder, follow these steps:

1. Go to http://mail.tribcsp.com
2. Enter your email account username and password.
3. Click on Mailboxes at the top.
4. Click on the Junk mailbox.

Back to top

To disable the SpamAssassin email filter entirely, follow these steps:

1. Go to http://mail.tribcsp.com
2. Enter your email account username and password.
3. Click on Rules at the top.
4. Click on Edit to the right of the Junk Mail Filter.
5. In the large white box, replace the word Junk with INBOX.

All mail will be sent directly to your Inbox. If you change your mind, you can reactivate the filter at any time simply by changing the INBOX back to Junk.

Back to top

If some of your messages are being incorrectly identified as spam and misdelivered to the Junk mailbox, you can add a whitelist filter that will filter wanted messages directly to your Inbox. You can simply send a list of email addresses to techs@trib.com, or you can follow these instructions:

1. Go to http://mail.tribcsp.com
2. Enter your email username and password.
3. Click on the Rules link at the top.
4. Add a new rule called Accept.
5. Click on the Edit link to the right of Accept.
6. In the first drop-down box, select Return Path.
7. In the second drop-down box, select Contained-In.
8. In the third box, type the email addresses you want in the following form: *someone@somedomain.com*
*@somedomain.com*
*person1@domain1.com*, *person2@domain2.com*, *@massmaildomain.com*
You can enter as many addresses as you'd like, or you can filter an entire domain at once. (Like @aol.com or @yahoo.com, which tend to be heavily recognized as spam due to extra advertising information those companies add to outgoing email).
9. On the next line in the first drop-down box, select Store In.
10. In the large white box, type INBOX.
11. Click on the Update button at the bottom, which will add a new row of options.
12. In the first drop-down of the new row, select Discard.
13. Click on the Update button again, completing the filter.

You can add more addresses later by going back to the Rules section and adding the additional email addresses into the Parameter box. If you add a very large number of e-mail addresses, you might reach a character limit in that box, in which case you can simply add another rule (Accept2 for example) and repeat this process.

Back to top

You can forward the suspected spam message to uce@ftc.gov. The message must be complete and unmodified. If your email program does not provide a complete, unmodified message, we cannot process the message. If you continue to send incomplete messages, they will be discarded.

Back to top

Spamcop has a page with instructions for various email clients.

Back to top

If at anytime you need help with any of the instructions of features, please contact us.

Back to top