SPAM
- The electronic equivalent of junk mail
When you receive spam, simply
forward it to the following address:
spam@flcc.edu
It is as simple as just clicking forward,
typing the address, and sending. You don't need to worry if you include your
signature, or if you mistakenly forward something you didn't mean to. The spam@flcc.edu address has human editors that
review the messages and create signatures for the spam filtering database in
real-time. In the overwhelming majority of cases within two days you will not
receive that spam again - worst case, within two weeks. If you happen to get
multiples of the same spam message, forward each one
separately. Do not embed multiple spam messages in one message, just forward
each one individually. There are no
special classifications of spam you need to avoid forwarding,…
i.e. forward all phishing, spam,
unwanted advertisements, UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail), etc. to them. In
turn, the people at the spam@flcc.edu include
the spam in the filtering software which is updated on our Exchange e-mail
server every few minutes.
What else can you do about
spam? Here are some suggestions that may help!
- Protect your main e-mail address from 'friends'
Only give your main e-mail address to co-workers
and other important business contacts. Ask them to never give it out to
anyone without your permission. Ask that you never be placed on a 'mailing
list' that they use to send e-mail to everyone they know. Those
'forwarded' e-mails keep getting forwarded, until hundreds of people have the e-mail addresses of everyone
(including you). Some of the recipients will be unscrupulous people known as 'spammers' or 'junk mailers.'
These people put ALL the e-mail
addresses on their list of addresses to spam... and the junk mail starts
pouring in to you... all
because Aunt Betty forwards every e-mail she gets to everyone she knows!
- Never reply to a message from a stranger
Don't fall for the trick of
clicking on the link they provide to 'please remove me from your mailing
list.' When the sender gets your reply, the spammer knows they have an
actual working e-mail address to send spam to. Simply delete the message
(better yet, forward it to spam@mail-filters.com).
If it's not a trusted site from a major company, don't bother with the
'remove me' options... you just make the spammers happy.
- Delete chain letters!
Don't fall for the trick of
forwarding those chain letters that ask you to forward some cute or important
message to 5 friends, or you won't find true love, etc. These letters are
a spammer's paradise, as they get forwarded over and over, picking up
every email address along the way and eventually
supplying them to spammers. And, I should remind you: chain letters
of any type (postal mail or email) are illegal in the USA. You
can actually get in trouble for
sending chain letters, so don't do it. Just delete the letter. Send an
email back to the friend who sent you the junk, and tell them to look at
this website!
- Use a second e-mail address with strangers
Get a free 'Net-based' e-mail address from a service like YahooMail or MSN HotMail . Provide that
alternate address when buying products/services on the Net, or when
corresponding with strangers. Free Net-based services offer advanced
filtering and spam-blocking services. Check your free address once a week
or so, just in case some 'real' e-mail is there. Any spam you receive
there is probably because the company or site you gave your address to sold or gave away your address to spammers or mailing
lists (just like those junk snail-mail catalogs you get for no apparent
reason).