SWE Statement on SPAM

SPAM is an Internet-wide issue for personal and professional e-mail systems, hitting record numbers in volume. AOL has reported it was blocking over 1 billion unwanted e-mail messages PER DAY, and SPAM volume continues to increase. The impact SPAM has is enormous: it takes time to delete, is a distraction from reading important e-mail, takes up network resources to store the e-mail messages and bandwidth to receive, deliver and bounce messages, and it can be offensive.

Headquarters Efforts Completed to Date

Unfortunately there is no single method or software to detect and eliminate all SPAM from the normal flow of e-mail communication. SWE approaches the problem from a number of directions to filter those communications that are clearly not legitimate. Among the techniques currently used are:

Connection Filtering

Real-time Blackhole Lists (RBL) are third party services that include domain names and IP addresses of known spammers. SWE currently uses four separate providers of these lists and removes e-mail before delivery if the e-mail sender is listed by three of the four RBL’s.

Content Filtering

Bayesian statistical filters use SPAM’s characteristics against itself. Words in messages are analyzed based on how frequently they appear in good e-mail versus bad e-mail. Then the message is assigned a probability of being SPAM. When a probability threshold is reached, the message is redirected and deleted.

Phrase Filtering searches for phrases in the body of the messages. Lists are updated periodically to capture the latest internet fads and scams.

Blacklist URLs Filtering searches for known SPAMMER web site addresses that appear in SPAM messages (most SPAM e-mails contain a call to action to visit a web page and these URLs can be detected and the message deleted).

Relay Prevention

SWE has implemented technology to prevent the mail system from being used as a relay by junk mailers to launch their junk mail - often making it look like the source of the SPAM is SWE.

List Serv Lockdowns

SWE has provided an easy-to-use list serv interface for list serv administrators, and this interface includes options which make it more difficult for SPAMMERs to reach individuals through list servs. List management features (valid poster lists) can be defined by SWE list owners through a web interface. SWE has removed the ability to request the list of SWE list servs or a list of members on a list serv. This makes it more difficult to hijack and abuse list servs.

Virus Sniffing

SWE offers basic virus protection to reduce the chance that messages containing common viruses, which might damage recipient systems or utilize them as SPAM generators, are deleted before delivery. As with any virus solution, it is not fool proof and users of SWE services should maintain local up-to-date virus protection on their machines and systems.

E-mail Publishing Best Practices

Where ever possible, e-mail addresses, including aliases and list servs, are published on the web site in the members-only portion of the web site as appropriate. By limiting access to web pages with e-mail addresses, this limits the impact of tools used by SPAMMERs such as crawlers and scrapers which read every accessible page on the site and grab any e-mail addresses within the content.

We have also developed recommendations for region gatekeepers and section webmasters regarding the use of e-mail addresses in site content.

What SWE Members Can Do

Consider setting up an e-mail account specifically to receive SWE e-mail with a system utilizing SPAM filtering technology, such as Yahoo!, Hotmail or AOL.

If you are utilizing a SWE alias and you would like to point it to a new account using SPAM filtering, please use the link at https://www.swe.org/msc-swe/memberforms/aliasrequest.aspx for E-mail Aliases to request an update to your alias.

If you have subscribed to any list servs (mailing lists) and would like to have those messages delivered to another account, please unsubscribe using your old e-mail address and re-subscribe using the new address. Instructions on this process can be found at https://www.swe.org/msc-swe/memberforms/aliasrequest.aspx under Mail Lists.

NEVER respond to any SPAM, even to request removal from their distribution list. Making such a request simply confirms your e-mail address is valid and will likely increase the amount of SPAM you receive.

If you are serving in a volunteer capacity for SWE and need to post a contact e-mail address on a web site to reach you, DO NOT USE A PERSONAL E-MAIL ADDRESS OR PERSONAL SWE ALIAS. Instead, use a generic SWE alias that can be discarded at a later date if the SPAM volume becomes unbearable. You can request special use aliases at https://www.swe.org/msc-swe/memberforms/aliasrequest.aspx under E-mail Aliases.

SWE Headquarters will never be able to block all SPAM but with the technology in place and your help we should be able to limit it substantially.