An Electronic Nightmare - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

Wasting time on scams, spams and fraud

End users don't like it. System administrators waste increasing amounts of time figuring out ways to stem the tide. Spam is taking over the Internet. But spam isn't the only problem on the Internet. There are chain letters, pyramid schemes and monumental rip-offs all tying up the network pipeline, reducing worker productivity, and pickpocketing unsuspecting users.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (New York), online advertising made $129.5 million in the first quarter of 1997, an increase of 300 percent in just 2 years. Analysts at Forrester Research (Cambridge, Mass.) predict it will continue growing at a rate of about 250 percent for the next 3 years. While much of the advertising is labeled "spam," much of it is harmless. In part, it is the sheer quantity that is causing the problem. For example, America OnLine Inc. (AOL, Dulles, Va.) claims it has received 1.8 million spams per day from well-known junk e-mail company Cyber-Promotions (Philadelphia).

If it took AOL or its users 10 seconds to delete each spam message, that would amount to 5,000 hours per day.

Chain letters are another drain on users' time and a potential clog in the system. Many are harmless, but the quantities can cause problems. However, others are fraudulent schemes that pose a financial threat to the unsuspecting receiver. Chris Gauthier, system administrator for MonadNet, an Internet service provider (ISP) in Keene, N.H., sees fraud as the biggest threat. According to Gauthier, "Chain letters and spam are stressful on networks and waste time, but unlike fraud, they're rarely dangerous to the recipient."

According to the National Consumers League Fraud Information Center (Washington), pyramids are the number one form of online fraud. Often pyramids claim they'll help you "get rich quick" in one way or another, from simple work-at-home opportunities to elaborate multilevel marketing investment offers. One such scheme was run by the Global Assistance Network for Charities and preyed on Net users who were looking for high returns on small investments. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stepped in and shut down the operation.

Systems administrators are not alone in the fight against spam and other online abuse. Government, industry and private individuals are battling the spam as well. Junk e-mail and fraud recently compelled the FTC to announce on June 12 that businesses will be penalized for sending unsolicited e-mail with false information. Additionally, the FTC asked the industry to devise ways to close the gates on the flood of mail that bottlenecks the Internet. Specifically, the FTC asked for lists of junk mail senders. Penalties can include fines of up to tens of thousands of dollars.

Users can also find help from their ISPs. For example, MindSpring (Atlanta) recently launched a free service called The Spaminator, which provides server-level filtering of spam. By maintaining a list of well-known spam creators, MindSpring users can choose to not receive e-mail from those on the spam list and can also choose to have MindSpring block e-mail sent from bulk e-mail programs.

System administrators and end users can also take measures to help stem the tide. Most e-mail programs, including Exchange, have filters that will automatically reply to messages from specific addresses or from specific domains. Users can set up the filter to automatically route the e-mail to a special folder for deletion. Identifying the source of spam is slightly harder, but help is available with that problem, too. Multimedia Marketing Group (Lake Oswego, Ore.) maintains a list of domains used by known spammers, which is available for download from www.mmgco.com/nospam/ns1.html.

Setting up a policy to fight spam sounds great and works for some groups, but it is limited in its overall effectiveness. MonadNet's Gauthier notes, "One generally doesn't have control over what comes over the pipe." Gauthier is looking at ways that MonadNet can block spam from its network, but says, "Some techniques could potentially block valid mails as well."

Another idea is to find the source of the junk mail and complain. If you receive mail from someone, for example, called [email protected], send a message to the system administrator at [email protected] and send duplicate messages to [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]. Send a copy of the spam, including all headers, and include a brief note saying that you would like the mailings to stop. Experts suggest being polite in your correspondence, however, because with relay spamming, in which a perpetrator taps into an insecure SMTP server to do his or her spamming, you might not be writing to the spammer; you might have found another victim of network spam -- that is, your server.

Jim Hamilton, an analyst with Freeman Associates, a management consulting firm in Santa Barbara, Calif., claims that the job of keeping junk mail down falls to the system administrator. "It's mostly an organizational issue," he says. "The user needs to be informed of the crafty ways people send junk e-mail."

Following Hamilton's advice, educating end users can help in many ways. First, they can choose to read or not read possible spam, thus saving themselves valuable work time. They can also help you filter spam or uncover pyramid schemes that may have hit or even be operating from your server. Users should be taught to be on the lookout for messages that claim to offer information about a sick or injured relative, a sick child, a debt, bad credit or a prize offer. Caution users to be wary of messages from unfamiliar sources with a return telephone number prefixed by 011 or 900, or worse, numbers such as 664, 758 or 809, which are international numbers not requiring the 011 international access code.

While there are solutions today to help eradicate some of the fluff, fraud and spam, junk mail is going to get worse. According to Freeman's Hamilton, "More people are coming online everyday, and that means the scam artist are coming online, too."

COPYRIGHT 1997 101 Communications, Inc.
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