alt.spam FAQ or "Figuring out fake E-Mail & Posts".

Jamie, in a kind inimitable way, has informed me that some of the scumware sites are showing this page in popups. If you see this alt.spam FAQ in a popup please be assured that spyware / adware sites are doing this to try to discredit anti-spam / anti-spyware sites. See:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
and
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/

Please see my section on removing spyware.

Thanks,
Ken

From: gandalf@digital.net
Subject: alt.spam FAQ or "Figuring out fake E-Mail & Posts". Rev 20050130
Newsgroups: alt.2600, alt.spam, alt.newbie, news.admin.net-abuse.misc, news.admin.net-abuse.email, news.admin.net-abuse.usenet, alt.answers, news.answers
Followup-To: news.admin.net-abuse.misc, alt.spam, news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
Summary: This posting describes how to find out where a fake post or e-mail originated from.

Archive-name: net-abuse-faq/spam-faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 20050130
URL: http://gandalf.home.digital.net/spamfaq.html

Greetings and Salutations:

This FAQ will help in deciphering which machine a fake e-Mail or post came from, and who (generally or specifically) you should contact.

The three sections to this twelve portion FAQ (With apologies to Douglas Adams :-)) :
   o   Introduction
          o   The Easy Way To Get Rid Of spam
   o   Tracing an e-mail message
          o   What computer did this e-mail originate from?
          o   MAILING LIST messages
   o   Reporting Spam and tracing a posted message
   o   WWW IP Lookup URL's
   o   Converting that IP to a name
          o   What to do with "strange" looking Web links
          o   Getting a World Wide Web page busted
   o   Usenet complaint addresses
          o   Viruses / Trojans / Spyware
          o   Fraud on the Internet and The MMF (Make Money Fast) Posts
          o   Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud
          o   Hoaxes
          o   Open system spammers love
o   Filtering E-Mail BlackMail, procmail or News with Gnus
          o   Rejecting E-Mail from domains that continue to Spam
   o   Misc. (Because I can't spell miscellaneous :-)) stuff
         I couldn't think to put anywhere else.
          o   Protection for you and your kids on the Internet
          o   I am interested in eliminating spam from my emails, how do I do this?
          o   Origins of Spam
          o   How *did* I get this unsolicited e-mail anyway?
          o   Can I find the persons name and phone from an e-mail address?
          o   How To Respond to Spam
          o   Firewalls and protecting your computer
   o   Revenge - What to do & not to do (mostly not)
          o   Telephoning someone
          o   Snail Mailing someone
   o   1-900, 1-800, 888, 877 and 1-### may be expensive long distance phone calls
   o   Junk Mail - The Law
   o   Additional Resources - Lots Of Links

    Introduction
=============

Jamie, in a kind inimitable way, has informed me that some of the scumware sites are showing this page in popups. If you see this alt.spam FAQ in a popup please be assured that spyware / adware sites are doing this to try to discredit anti-spam / anti-spyware sites. See:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
And
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/

Also please see my expanded section on removing spyware.

Please feel free to repost this, e-mail it, put this FAQ on CD's or any other media you can think of. Just please do not pop it up on the screen of anybody who didn't request it.

The latest & greatest version of the Spam FAQ is found at:
http://gandalf.home.digital.net/spamfaq.html
   or
http://home.digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html
or
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/alt.spam/
Also see:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/alt.syntax.tactical/

Please email follow-ups / additions / changes comments / questions to gandalf@digital.net . . . BUT PLEASE NOTE because I receive (on the average) over 200 e-mails EVERY day (of which 195 or so are spam) you MUST put the words "Alt.spam" in the subject of the e-mail or there is a VERY good chance the e-mail will be deleted without being read. I get 10 or 15 "No Subject" spams a day.

My news source is OK, but I sometimes miss items.

I accept all and any input. I consider myself to be the manager of this FAQ for the good of everyone, not the absolute & controlling Owner Of The FAQ. I do not always write in a completely coherent manner. What makes sense to me may not make sense to others. If the community wants something added or deleted, I will do so. I removed any e-mail and last name references to someone making a suggestion / addition. This is so that someone doesn't get upset at this FAQ and do something stupid. If you don't mind having your e-mail in this FAQ (or where it is required), please tell me and I will add it back in.

If you are in the United States and have not yet written to your Senator or House of Representatives about how terrible the CAN-SPAM act is, I would ask you to do so. Bottom line is that there are many large corporations and over 22.9 million small businesses on the United States. If you received just one e-mail a year from each of the small businesses (I am not even including large companies) you would receive 63,800 e-mails PER DAY. According to CAN-SPAM you would then be required to opt out of each and every one of these e-mails, and the company has 10 days to honor your request. Of course this would not stop spammers from changing company names every 10 days and just start spamming all over again. I have written a letter explaining why I think that this act was poorly written, and I would ask you to write a letter to your representatives also:
http://home.digital.net/~gandalf/CAN-SPAM.htm
http://gandalf.home.digital.net/CAN-SPAM.htm

How did this incredibly bad law get passed? This law was written without any public hearings, with input from only the marketing industry and Internet Service Provider lobbies (guess who loses, You Do). From http://www.cauce.org/news/index.shtml :
"CAUCE is also disappointed that both the House and Senate versions of this law were passed without any public hearings, instead being written and passed solely through back-room compromises and with the input of the marketing industry and Internet Service Provider lobbies, but with scant regard for the interests of America's consumers and business Internet users."

Apparently one of the lobbying groups talking to our representatives (for you) is The Center for Democracy and Technology. They were kind enough to speak for "everybody" in this missive sent to Congress:
http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/031015cdt.shtml

They supported everything the Direct Marketing Association ( http://www.the-dma.org/ (telemarketers)) and spammers wanted in a bill and more.

CDT is supported by many different companies:
http://www.cdt.org/mission/supporters.shtml

Find Your Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and find your US Representative: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ (Fill in your state and zip, click "Contact My Representative" and you will be told who your representative is). Go To: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html , click on their site and your representative should have an address at the bottom of the page for where to write them. I would also suggest that you cc the two sponsors of the bill: Conrad Burns 187 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 and Ron Wyden 516 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510.

Davjohn suggests going to http://congress.org , plug in your zip code and click on GO. Internet Explorer and Netscape will show you your representatives. Safari browser did not work at this site.

And why CAN-SPAM won't work:
http://www.google.com/search?q=CAN-SPAM+won%27t+work
http://www.google.com/search?q=Critics+CAN-SPAM
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2003/12/11/9145/0712
http://www.circleid.com/article/725_0_1_0_C - And how the DMA is trying to convince the public that CAN-SPAM works

Before trying to determine where the post or e-mail originated from, you should realize that (just like The National Enquirer http://www.nationalenquirer.com/ or a logical argument from Canter and Siegel) the message will have *some* amount of truth, but all or most of the information may be forged. Be careful before accusing someone.

Commands used in this FAQ are UNIX & VMS commands. Sorry if they don't work for you, you might wish to try looking around at your commands to find an equivalent command (or I might be able to help out some). There are programs for the Macintosh and Windows machines that do the same thing the UNIX commands do, see the above URL's for where to locate this software.

And no, I am not going to tell you how to post a fake message or fake e-mail. It only took me about 2 days (a few hours a day) to figure it out. It ain't difficult. RTFM (or more appropriately, Read The @&%^@# RFC).

Every e-mail or post will have a point at which it was injected into the information stream. E-mail will have a real computer from which it was passed along. Likewise a post will have a news server that started passing the post. You need to get cooperation of the postmaster at the sites the message passed thru. Then you can get information from the logs telling you what sites the message actually passed thru, and where the message "looked" like it passed thru (but actually didn't). Of course you do have to have the cooperation of all the postmasters in a string of sites...

The Easy Way To Get Rid Of spam
=========================

Sorry to tell you this but if you received a spam (Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail) there is no "easy" way to get the spam stopped. Generally if you reply (unsubscribe) this confirms that your e-mail address is "live" and just gets your e-mail address sold to other spammers. Spam has to be dealt with one at a time. Sorry, it isn't easy to stop the spam. The "Internet" (the collective non-profit and profit entities of the network) is trying to fix this problem but it is taking time. The "easiest" way to stop getting spam is to change your e-mail address and only give your e-mail address to people you absolutely trust, and to NEVER allow the e-mail address to be posted to a web site or posted ANYWHERE on the internet. To see how many times my e-mail address appears on the Internet go to the following link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=gandalf%40digital.net
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/edu/2003/0324ed1.html - E-Mail addresses on the web attract the most spam

It your e-mail address shows up on a search engine, then the spammers can find your e-mail address also. Be careful about giving your e-mail address to companies that purport to be against spam:
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2003/5/15/10299/0559

There are businesses that make a good living filtering out spam both on a personal and corporate level. I would suggest that if you really don't want to deal with spam that you get an e-mail address from one of these services (Please note I am not recommending this service, just using it as an example). Do a search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=email+hosting+spam
And you will come up with companies like:
http://www.No-JunkMail.com/

Or if you wish to block it from your personal e-mail account do a search on something like:
http://www.google.com/search?q=spam+blocking+software
And you will come up with examples like:
http://www.spamulor.net/ - Free
http://www.spambutcher.com/

Be aware that no spam blocking software (as of yet) is perfect and you may get "false positives". An e-mail from a friend may be detected as spam and may get deleted as spam or moved to the spam box. The spam wars:
http://computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/groupware/story/0,10801,75737,00.html

Davjohn reminds us that if you are required to give a "legal" e-mail address to a company you don't know or trust, go to http://mail.com and set up a free account. There are a hundred-or-so variations available. General.delivery@arcticmail.com sounds like a Santa Clause e-mail address. He has 2 addresses there. About once a week he goes in and clicks "empty" and ~flush~ it's all gone.

        Tracing an e-mail message
============================================

To trace the e-mail you have to look at the header. Most mail readers do not show the header because it contains information that is for computer to computer routing. The information you usually see from the header is the subject, date and the "From" / "Return" address. About the only thing in an e-mail header that can't be faked is the "Received" portion referencing your computer (the last received).

You will need to take a look at the headers on the message as follows (Thanks to Bob, Dave, Kathy, Michael, Piers, Russ, Simon, Chalmers and others) :
Claris E-Mailer - under Mail select Show Long Headers.
Eudora (before ver. 3) - Select Tools , Options... , then Fonts & Display then Show all headers
Eudora (ver. 3.x, 4.x IBM or Macintosh) - Press the BLAH button on the incoming mail message
Eudora V5.1:
       1) Double-click on the email subject line in the current mailbox. This displays the same message with a fuller version of the header, which will be enough for some ISPs but not all, and also shows an extra Toolbox which contains the BlahBlahBlah button
       2) Click on the BlahBlahBlah button
For Mac Eudora 4.x, hitting the following will cause Eudora to alter its default setting so that BLAH will be automatically selected for all new email received after this switch is set:
<x-eudora-setting:123=y> When checked, Eudora will show all the headers from messages, not just an abbreviated set.
Hotmail - How to set show the mail headers in hotmail:
1. After you login, just to the right of the tabs, select Options
2. Under Additional Options, select Mail Display Settings
3. In the Message Headers section, click the Advanced button
JUNO - Click on the word "OPTIONS" in the MENU BAR.
On This menu, click on "E-Mail Options (ctrl-E)"
This will get you a Dialog Box:
In the "Show message headers" part, you need to have the "Full" button marked in order to show full message headings.
KMAIL (KDE Mail Client) - Bryan tells us To display all headers in kmail(KDE mail client), go to 'view' and click 'all headers'.
Lotus Notes R4 and R5:
1) Examine the fields in the document.
   Click on File --> Document Properties
   Click on fields tab (square rule)
   Scroll down to the "received" fields - there should be one for each "received" header added.
   Copy and paste these into a file.
2) Export the headers from the document
   *important* You need to be in the inbox folder in Notes
   Select the document.
   Click on File --> Export
   Enter a temporary file name, ensure File type is "Structured Text"
   Under Export options, click on "selected documents", click OK.
   The generated file contains all the headers on the message along with the message body.
Lotus Notes R6: Open the mail, View/ Show /Page Source and the OpenNTF mailtemplate has an action to forward the full header (to yourself, or to support for instance). You may want to copy that, or use the template.
MS Outlook - Double click on the email in your inbox. This will bring the message into a window. Click on View - Options. You can also open a message then choose File....Properties....Details.
Microsoft Outlook 2000 - From the Menu Bar select "View" and then "Options" from that menu.
This displays a dialogue box called "Message Options".
The largest and last text box is called "Internet headers:"
Scroll through this to read all the details.
To save a copy, highlight all the content, and copy it to the clipboard by pressing <Ctrl C> (thats both those keys at the same time), then go into whatever word processor or email program you wish and press <Ctrl V> to paste the text onto that page.

Because Microsoft Outlook has many security flaws, the below instructions may expose your computer to risks. See:
http://www.the-foxhole.org/Disabling_IE_Security_Flaws.htm
MS Outlook Express - Alt-Enter, or Alt-F then R.
MS Outlook Express - More Detailed:
To look for, copy and send headers In Outlook Express
1- Press CTRL F3
2- Press CTRL A
3- Press CTRL C
4- Press Alt F4. (At this point the message is already copied)
5- Open a new message. Right click and paste or select Edit and paste.

Mike tells us a better way to expose the headers and copy the body for MS Outlook Express is as follows:
http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/119.html
The mouse selections are File/ Properties/ Details tab/ Message source button. The keyboard access is alt-Enter ctrl-Tab alt-M. Once accessed the remainder of commands are as discussed elsewhere: Mouse; R click context menu, Select all, Copy or Keyboard; ctrl-A ctrl-C. The Message Source described here is the headers + attached spam body. If one only wanted the complete headers without spam body, they would stop one step earlier at the Details tab section above.

Netscape 3 - In the mail viewing window: Options > Show Headers > All - When all the headers are displayed in the NS3 mail window, they are formatted. This is much more readable than the display in a text editor such as Notepad.
Netscape 4.xx - Double click on the email in your inbox. Click on View - Headers - All.
PINE - You have to turn on the header option in setup, then just hit "h" to get headers.
WebTV - http://www.haltabuse.org/help/headers/webtv.shtml :
   1) While viewing the email, hit "Forward" on the sidebar. Address the document to yourself. Completely erase the subject line.
   2) Put your cursor on the first line of the "body" (text area); Hit "Return" (enter) twice. Your cursor should now be on the 3rd line of the text area.
   3) Type any "Alt" character on this line; DO NOT HIT "RETURN"
   4) Cut and Paste the "Alt" character onto the subject line: (CMD+"A"), (CMD+"X"), (CMD +"V") The "Alt" character should "jump" down to the message text-area.
   5) Hit "Send"; open the received mail.
Ximian Evolution (Linux email program) to display full headers, open the message, go to the VIEW menu and choose message display>full headers.
Yahoo-
-Click on the "Mail Options" link located near the top right-hand side of the page.
-Click the "General Preferences" link.
-Locate the Show Headers heading and select either "Brief" or "All."
-Click the "Save" button to put your new settings into effect.
Another way to show you how to display headers, please see (with some good screen shots):
http://help.att.net/docs/use/email/gen/prb_msol_mac_headerinfo.htm?platform=osnone - MS Outlook Express for the Mac
http://help.att.net/docs/howto/other/win/prb_all_all_ns-header.htm?platform=osnone - Netscape Messenger or Netscape Mail
http://www.wurd.com/cl_email_outlook_headers.php - MS Outlook
http://www.wurd.com/cl_email_msie_headers.php - MS Outlook Express

Programs that do not comply with any Internet standards (like cc-Mail (depending on how it is configured), Beyond Mail, VAX VMS) throw away the headers. You will not be able to get headers from these e-mail messages.

George tell us that the gateway that Lotus provides, SMTPLink (is one of those Microsoft-style utilities that's functional, but just barely) has an administrator-configurable setting for handling RFC-822 headers on inbound (to cc:Mail) messages. Headers can be completely discarded, or copied to an attachment.

George also tells us in the R6 client, headers (if saved to an attachment in the gateway) are viewable as an attachment, as noted above. The R8 client handles things differently, hiding the existence of the headers attachment, and making the content available only by going to the inbox or a message folder, right-clicking on "Properties", then selecting the "history" tab. From there, it's possible to copy/paste into another document. Header information is left in its original chronological order (unlike Notes, which takes the liberty of sorting all the headers into alphabetic order).

Aussie tells us that in Pegasus to view the full headers for each message, use CTRL-H. This will show the full headers for the particular message, but will not add them to any reply or forward. You need to cut/paste the message into the reply/forward to send these headers.

Richard tells us with Nettamer, a MS DOS based email and USENET group reader you must save the message as an ASCII file, then the full header will be displayed when you open the saved file with your favorite ASCII editor.

At this point if you are "pushing the envelope" on your ability to figure out how to get that complaint to the correct person, I would suggest joining the Usenet group alt.spam or news.admin.net-abuse.email and post the message with a title like "Please help me decipher this header". Unfortunately there is no "single" place to complain to about spam (or Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail). Complaints have to be directed to the correct ISP (Internet Service Provider) that the spam originated from. See the below section entitled "Reporting spam".

URL's to help you figure out how to look at the headers:
http://support.xo.com/abuse/guide/guide1.shtml
http://www.rahul.net/falk/mailtrack.html

A little different description of headers:
http://digital.net/~gandalf/trachead.html - Line by line tracing of a spammers e-mail
http://digital.net/~gandalf/trachead2.html - Line by line tracing of a spammers e-mail when the spammer has inserted a "Fake" Received line to confuse tracking the e-mail.
http://help.mindspring.com/docs/006/emailheaders/
http://help.mindspring.com/features/emailheaders/extended.htm
http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers/headers.html - In depth header analysis

There is spamming software that sends the e-mail directly to your computer. This makes only one received line in the e-mail making your life many times easier. The computer that is not your computer is the spamming computer.

Also, please look through the body of the message for e-mail addresses to reply to. Complain to the postmasters of those sites also (see below for a list of complaint addresses).

Gregory tells us that assuming a reasonably standard and recent sendmail setup, a Received line that looks like :

Received: from host1 (host2 [ww.xx.yy.zz]) by host3
        (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA04298; Thu, 18 Jul 1996 12:18:06 -0600

shows four pieces of useful information (reading from back to front, in order of decreasing reliability):
- The host that added the Received line (host3)
- The IP address of the incoming SMTP connection (ww.xx.yy.zz)
- The reverse-DNS lookup of that IP address (host2)
- The name the sender used in the SMTP HELO command when they
   connected (host1).

Looking at the below we see 6 received lines. Received lines are like links in a chain. The message is passed from one computer to the next with no breaks in the chain. The received lines indicate that it ended up at digital.net (my computer) from mail.bestnetpc.com. It was received at mail.bestnetpc.com from unknown (HELO paul-s.-aiello) ([205.160.183.123]). The last three lines suggests that it was received at in2.|bm.net from mh.tomsurl|.com and from reb50.rs41|1date.net. Since none of these computers are in the first two received lines then we can ignore these lines and every received entry after this line (this UCE had 4 or 5 more faked Received lines in it that were deleted for this example). We also know that these lines are faked because no domain name has a "|" character in the name. Domain names only have alphabetic or numeric characters in the name.

Do not get confused by the "Received: from unknown" portion. The word "unknown" can be *anything* and should be ignored, this is whatever the spammer put in the SMTP HELO command when they connected to the SMTP server.

Received: from mail.bestnetpc.com (IDENT:qmailr@mail.bestnetpc.com [205.160.183.3]) by digital.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id CAA10768 for <gandalf@digital.net>; Thu, 26 Nov 1998 02:55:11 -0500 (EST)
Received: (qmail 25259 invoked from network); 26 Nov 1998 08:05:49 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO paul-s.-aiello) ([205.160.183.123]) by mail.bestnetpc.com with SMTP; 26 Nov 1998 08:05:49 -0000
Received: (from uudp@lcl|lhost) by in2.|bm.net (8.6.9/8.6.9) id CFF569794 for <suppressed>; Thursday, November 26, 1998
Received: from tomsurl|.com (mh.tomsurl|.com [100.257.57.69]) by m4.tomsurl|.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA21932 Thursday, November 26, 1998
Received: from reb50.rs41|1date.net (root@reb50.rs41|1date.net [256.36.1.176]) by tomsurl|.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PBA023891 for <suppressed>;

So we complain to whomever owns unknown (HELO paul-s.-aiello) ([205.160.183.123]). Make sure that you do a nslookup (or use http://samspade.org/ , put the address in the section "address digger", click on WhoIs IP block and Traceroute and click on "do stuff") on the IP address's. I try to verify 205.160.183.123 is paul-s.-aiello. Indeed paul-s.-aiello does not even exist and 205.160.183.123 does not resolve to a name when I do a NSLookup. Next would be a traceroute. See further below for more in-depth tracking on resolving an IP.

IP portion = 205.160.183.123

Traceroute 205.160.183.123 gives us:
Step Host                          IP
Find route from: 0.0.0.0 to: 205.160.183.123 (205.160.183.123), Max 30 hops, 40 byte packets
<snip>
13 acsi-sw-gw.customer.alter.net.   (157.130.128.26 ):   235ms
14 atlant-ga-2.espire.net.          (206.222.97.24 ):   272ms
15 206.222.104.37                   (206.222.104.37 ):   279ms
16 orland-fl-1-a5-0.espire.net.     (206.222.99.7   ):   362ms
17 iag.net.orland-fl-1.espire.net. (206.222.106.6 ):   195ms
18 d1.s0.gw.dayb.fl.iag.net.        (207.30.70.38   ):   230ms
19 s0.gw.bestnetpc.net.             (207.30.70.254 ):   231ms
20 *     *     *
21 205.160.183.123                  (205.160.183.123):   372ms

See the traceroute section below for how to interpret the "*" (and other codes) that are returned from a traceroute.

Note - if you see something like the following realize that the only portion you can trust is within the "([" and the "])". The spammer put in the (faked) portion "mail.zebra.net (209.12.13.2)" :
Received: from mail.zebra.net (209.12.13.2) ([209.12.69.42])

Kamiel tells us that you might also want to make sure that the IP is not hosted by an intermediary site. Check it out at:
http://www.arin.net/

You should complain to the abuse@ or postmaster@<Last Two or Three words at the end of the name>. I would complain to abuse@iag.net OR abuse@espire.net (but NOT both sites) since after looking below at the list of complaint addresses in this FAQ there are no alternate addresses for iag.net or espire.net. Unless it is a "major provider" (someone in the below complaint list) I usually complain to the upstream provider rather than risk the chance of complaining to the spammer and being ignored. If you go too far up the chain, however, it may take quite some time for the complaint to filter down to the correct person.

Louise tells us that you are entitled to make an 'alleged' accusation but to prevent yourself from being libel, prefix your statement with:-
"Without prejudice: I suspect you are the culprit of such and such."

The constitutional and legal boundary of 'Without prejudice' exempts Politician's opinions being spoken publicly and this prefix is often adopted by Solicitors (English) or Lawyers/Attorneys (USA).

I use :
abuse@XXXXX - Without prejudice I submit to you this Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail is from your user XXXX. UCE is unappreciated because it costs my provider (and ultimately myself) money to process just like an unsolicited FAX. Please look into this. Thank you.

BE SURE to verify the IP address. Windows '95 machines place the name of the machine as the "name" and place the real IP address after the name, meaning a spammer can give a legitimate "name" of someone else to get someone innocent in trouble. A spammer at cyberpromo changed their SMTP HELO so that it claimed to be from Compuserve. The Received line looked like the below, but a quick verification of the IP address 208.9.65.20 showed it was indeed from cyberpromo :

Received: from dub-img-4.compuserve.com (cyberpromo.com [208.9.65.20]) by karpes.stu.rpi.edu

The below e-mail was passed to me thru a "mule" (un1.satlink.com [200.9.212.3]). The Spammer hijacked an open SMTP port to reroute e-mail to me:
Received: from un1.satlink.com (un1.satlink.com [200.9.212.3]) by digital.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id GAA06372; Fri, 27 Nov 1998 06:53:20 -0500 (EST)
Received: from usa.net ([209.86.128.234]) by un1.satlink.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with SMTP id AAT2FEA; Fri, 27 Nov 1998 08:46:07 -0200

A NSLookup on 209.86.128.234 resolves to user38ld07a.dialup.mindspring.com, so after I complain to mindspring.com I also send the postmaster of the open SMTP port the following :
postmaster@XXXXX - Your SMTP mail server XXXXX was used as a mule to pass (and waste your system resources) this e-mail on to me. You can stop your SMTP port from allowing rerouting of e-mail back outside of your domain if you wish to. FYI only. Info on how to block your server, see:
http://www.ordb.org/
http://dsbl.org/main
http://relays.osirusoft.com/
http://relays.osirusoft.com/cgi-bin/rbcheck.cgi - See if a server is on a BlackHole list, i.e. an open relay
http://www.dorkslayers.com/
http://spamhaus.org/sbl
http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/usage.html
http://samspade.org/
http://www.abuse.net/relay.html - Test for server vulnerability

Now that Cable Modems are so popular, companies are starting to put their "personal" e-mail servers on cable / DSL modems and are (of course) not configuring them correctly. I received UCE from an open SMTP server:
Received: from SDMAIN (DT1-A-hfc-0251-d1132e93.rdc1.sdca.coxatwork.com [209.19.46.147])                  by digital.net (8.9.3/05.21.76) with SMTP id SAA04761;            Fri, 30 Mar 2001 18:35:24 -0500 (EST)
Received: from Received: (qmail 554 invoked from network); 25 Mar 2001 23:56:02                  (ip207.miami41.fl.pub-ip.psi.net [38.37.111.207])        by SDMAIN; Fri, 30 Mar 2001 10:19:58 -0800

Complain to Cox ( abuse@home.com in this case) about their open SMTP server.

There are some systems that "claim" to "cloak" e-mail. It is not true. If you receive one that looks like the following :

Received: from relay4.ispam.net (root@[207.124.161.39]) by digital.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA28969 for <gandalf@digital.net>; Thu, 26 Jun 1997 10:41:46 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from --- CLOAKED! ---
      or
Received: from cerberus.njsmu.com ([204.142.120.2]) by digital.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA06250 for <gandalf@digital.net>; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 07:11:18 -0500 (EST)
From: hostme39@aol.com
Received: from The.sender.of.this.untracable.email.used.MAILGOD.by.IMI

It is still broken down as follows :
- The route the e-mail took originated from one of the systems above the line marked "cloaked" or the line "untraceable" (in fact this makes it even easier to trace). There is no magic to it. Complain to that provider. If you get no response from the site that spammed, you should ask your provider to no longer allow the above site [207.124.161.39] to connect to your system.

It has been kindly pointed out to me that there is a "feature" (read "bug") in the UNIX mail spool wherein the person e-mailing you a message can append a "message" (with the headers) to the end of their message. It makes the mail reader think you have 2 messages when the joker that sent the original message only sent one message (with a fake message appended). If the headers look *really* screwy, you might look at the message before the screwy message and consider if it may not be a "joke" message.

There are also IBM mainframes and misconfigured Sun Sendmail machines (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) that do not include the machine that they received the SMTP traffic from. You have to route the message (with headers) back to the postmaster at that system and ask them to tell you what the IP of the machine is that hooked into their system for that message.

An example of a Microsoft Exchange server that the "HELO" transaction is taken as the "From" portion (and is completely false) :
Received: from dpi.dpi-conseil.fr (dpi.dpi-conseil.fr [195.115.136.1])      by digital.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA06614        for <gandalf@digital.net>; Thu, 26 Aug 1999 10:51:31 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from FIREWALL ([192.168.0.254]) by dpi.dpi-conseil.fr with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2448.0)     id QW11TJV1; Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:44:38 +0200

It has also been pointed out that someone on your server can telnet back to the mail port and send you mail. This also makes the forgery virtually untraceable by you, but as always your admin should be able to catch the telnet back to the server. If they telnet to a foreign SMTP server and then use the "name" of a user on that system, it may appear to you that the message came from that user. Be very careful when making assumptions about where the e-mail came from.

Note for AOL users when looking at headers:
If you get double headers at the end of a message (like the below) the spammer has tacked on a extra set of headers to confuse the issue. Ignore everything except the last set of headers. These are the *real* headers.

------------------ Headers --------------------------------
Return-Path: <Gloria@me.net>
Received: from rly-za05.mx.aol.com (rly-za05.mail.aol.com [172.31.36.101]) byair-za04.mail.aol.com (v51.16) with SMTP; Mon, 16 Nov 1998 19:16:02 1900
Received: from mailb.telia.com (mailb.telia.com [194.22.194.6]) by rly-za05.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with ESMTP id TAA05189;
Mon, 16 Nov 1998 19:15:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Gloria@me.net
Received: from signal.dk ([194.255.7.40]) by mailb.telia.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id BAA14174; Tue, 17 Nov 1998 01:15:50 +0100 (CET)
Received: from 194.255.7.40 by signal.dk viaSMTP(950413.SGI.8.6.12/940406.SGI.AUTO) id AAA28586; Tue, 17 Nov 1998 00:53:13 +0100
Message-Id: <199811162353.AAA28586@signal.dk>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 98 18:27:19 EST
To: Gloria@papa.fujisankei-g.com.jp
Subject: ATTENTION SMOKERS - QUIT SMOKING IN JUST 7 DAYS
Reply-To: Gloria@papa.fujisankei-g.com.jp

------------------- Headers --------------------------------
Return-Path: <lifeplanner@zcities.com>
Received: from rly-yd04.mx.aol.com (rly-yd04.mail.aol.com [172.18.150.4]) by air-yd02.mx.aol.com (v56.14) with SMTP; Mon, 11 Jan 1999 23:54:48 -0500
Received: from phone.net ([207.18.137.42])
                  by rly-yd04.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
                  with SMTP id XAA01327;
                  Mon, 11 Jan 1999 23:51:03 -0500 (EST)
From: <lifeplanner@zcities.com>
To: <Someone@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:54:19 -0600
Message-ID: <13653344018870252@phone.net>
Subject: Life insurance, do you have it?
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

What computer did this e-mail originate from?
==================================================

You cannot generally tell by a e-mail header which specific computer the e-mail came from. Just about every time you dial into your ISP (Internet Service Provider) you are assigned a different IP address. If someone sends you an e-mail and they log out, the next time they log in their IP address will most likely be different. If the computer has a permanently assigned IP address *and* you have the cooperation of whomever owns that block of IP addresses you *might* be able to get information on who might have sent the e-mail.

About the only way to tell *exactly* which e-mail account the e-mail was sent from is to get the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to tell you. Usually the ISP will require you to get the local police involved (a warrant of some type) to force the ISP to give you that information. Even given that you know the account the e-mail originated from, a forger can find out that person's account / password and log in as them, they can gain access to that computer while the person who owns that computer is away from the computer or they could install a back door program that allows them to control that person's computer remotely. If this were to happen then the forger could send the e-mail and nobody would know who *specifically* sent the e-mail.

        MAILING LIST messages
========================================

Stephanie kindly defines MAILING LIST versus LISTSERVER :

A MAILING LIST is a type of email distribution in which email is sent to a fixed site which holds a list of email recipients and mail is distributed to those recipients automatically (or through a moderator).

A LISTSERVER is a software program designed to manage one or more mailing lists. One of the more popular packages is named "LISTSERV". Besides Listserv, other popular packages include Listproc which is a Unix Listserv clone (Listservs originated on BITNET), Majordomo and Mailserve. Most importantly -- not all mailing lists run on listservers, there are many mailing lists that are manually managed.

You may hear of mailing lists being referred to as many things, some strange, some which on the surface make sense, like "email discussion groups". But this isn't accurate either, since not all mailing lists are set up for discussion.

Istvan suggests "Majordomo software is remarkably funny about headers. It does not like headers which contain anything odd. All messages the software receives which do not conform to its rigorous standards are simply forwarded to the list moderator. It turns out this feature is effective at stopping between 80 and 90% of spam actually getting to the list."

Kirk tells us that you can set majordomo up so that new subscribers have to reply to a subscribe request, thus verifying the address is legit. Additionally the lists can be configured so that only subscribers can post. And finally you can put filters on content. I've got the list I manage configured to reject multipart email and email which contains html.

Jeff adds that this would be the closed+confirm option in the configuration file so that only subscribers can post. Also, to prevent multipart or HTML this would be the taboo_headers configuration.

Richard mentions "Listserv can be configured to restrict non-members from sending to a list and can restrict spam based on the headers similar to Majordomo. I've used both of these features successfully. You can read more about Listserv capabilities, if you are interested, at:
     http://www.lsoft.com/listserv.stm
     http://www.lsoft.com/spamorama.html - FILTER (info on its spam filter)
I suspect that Listserv's spam filter may be better than Majordomo's (but I've not managed any Majordomo lists)."

Jeff adds that having ran a majordomo list for almost 4 years, I find majordomo to be every bit as good. I should, however, qualify that; the listowner needs to have his/her clueons in good working order. Simply put, no listowner in their right mind should leave their majordomo lists set to anything other than closed+confirm. Alas, there are listowners who will leave their lists wide open. I've also seen others knock themselves dead creating their own filters just so a listmember can post to the list from a web-based e-mail account while on vacation. I usually tell anyone in such a situation to subscribe to the list from whatever free e-mail account they plan to use. IMO, I cannot justify compromising list security for such reasons. Lists should be closed+confirm...plain and simple.

Example Header appears below:
Received: from dir.bham.ac.uk (dir.bham.ac.uk [147.188.128.25]) by gol1.gol.com (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id GAA27292 for <XXXX@gol.com>; Sun, 5 May 1996 06:31:15 +0900 (JST)
Received: from bham.ac.uk by dir.bham.ac.uk with SMTP (PP) using DNS id <26706-38@dir.bham.ac.uk>; Sat, 4 May 1996 20:56:49 +0100
Received: from emout09.mail.aol.com (actually emout09.mx.aol.com) by bham.ac.uk with SMTP (PP); Sat, 4 May 1996 21:13:03 +0100
Received: by emout09.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA29156; Sat, 4 May 1996 15:35:53 -0400
Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 15:35:53 -0400
From: Jeanchev@aol.com
Message-ID: <960504153553_287142426@emout09.mail.aol.com>
Subject: CRaZy Complimentary Offer........

This is a post from Kevin Lipsitz for his "===>> FREE 1 yr. USA Magazine Subscriptions". The latest information indicates that the state of New York has told him he should stop abusing the Internet for a while ... lets hope it is forever. In relation to the Internet he makes a slimy used car salesman look like a saint.

But as David reminds us, There are a million Kevin J. Lipsitz's out there. All selling magazines, Amway, vitamins, phone service, etc. All the losers who want to get rich quick, but can't start their own business.

That having been said, e-mail from a Listserve can usually be broken down the same way as "normal" e-mail headers. There are just more waypoints along the way. As you can see from the above, the e-mail originated from :

emout09.mail.aol.com

Jeff also mentions that news.admin.net.abuse.e-mail is a good newsgroup to monitor about how to keep spam off the listserve. I have seen mailing list issues arise occasionally.

Reporting Spam and tracing a posted message
============================================
If someone posts a message with your e-mail in the From: or Reply-To: field, it can (and will if you request) be canceled. Please repost the message to news.admin.net-abuse.misc WITH THE HEADERS (or it will probably be ignored) so that the message cam be canceled (the message-id is the most important) with a suggested subject of the following:

Subject: FORGERY <Subject from the Spam message>

Or you can look at the Cancel FAQ at :
http://www.killfile.org/faqs/cancel.html

Try to make sure that the message has not already been posted to news.admin.net-abuse.misc, news.admin.net-abuse.email or news.admin.net-abuse.usenet and that it is less than 4 or 5 days old. Chris reminds us that yes, there are a lot of annoying, off-topic and stupid postings out there. But that doesn't make it spam. _Really_. All we're concerned with is _volume_.   Don't report any potential spams unless you see at least two copies in at least 4 groups. The content is irrelevant. Spam canceling cannot be by content.

For off topic posts, see http://digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html

The first thing to do is to post the ENTIRE message (PLEASE put the header in or it will probably be ignored) to the newsgroup news.admin.net-abuse.misc. Do not reply or post it back to the original group. A suggested subject is one of the following:

Subject: EMP <Subject from the Spam message>
Subject: ECP <Subject from the Spam message>
Subject: UCE <Subject from the Spam message>
Subject: SEX <Subject from the Spam message>

Please include the original Subject: from the original Spam so that it can easily be spotted. Thank you.

Take a careful look at the header, if there are "curious characters" (characters that look like garbage) in the X-Mailer: line, or any other line in the header, then delete those characters otherwise the message may end up truncated. The offending line consists of the EIGHT characters D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1 (in hex).

If the post is particularly amusing (Spammer threat or a postmaster threat), put C&C in the subject. Seymour tells us it means Coffee and cats. This originated from a post claiming that a particular outrageous article had caused spewing of coffee into the keyboard and jumping while holding a cat, resulting in scratched thighs.

An Excessive Multiple Post (EMP) may exceed the spam threshold and may be canceled. An Excessive Cross Post (ECP) may not be canceled because it hasn't reached the threshold. A UCE is for Unsolicited Commercial Email, SEX is for off-topic sex-ad postings.

Make Money Fast message is immediately cancelable and are usually canceled already by others, so please do not report MMF posts. See MMF section below.

Tracing a fake post is probably easier than a fake e-mail because of some posting peculiarities. You just have to save and look at a few "normal" posts to try to spot peculiarities. Most people are not energetic to go to the lengths of the below, but you never know.

Dan reminds us that first you should gather the same post from *several* different sites (get your friends to mail the posts to you) and look at the "Path" line. Somewhere it should "branch". If there is a portion that is common to all posts, then the "actual" posting computer is (most likely) in that portion of the path. That should be the starting postmaster to contact. Be sure to do this expeditiously because the log files that help to trace these posts may be deleted daily.

If you *really* want to see some fake posts, look in alt.test or in the alt.binaries.warez.* groups.

A fake post:

Path: ...!news.sprintlink.net!in2.uu.net!news.net99.net!news!s46.phxslip4.indirect.com!vac
From: XXX@indirect.com(Female User)
Subject: Femdom In Search of Naughty Boys
Message-ID: <DHLMvE.24H@goodnet.com>
Sender: XXX@indirect.com(Female User)
Nntp-Posting-Host: s46.phxslip4.indirect.com
Organization: Internet Direct, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows[Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #1]
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 01:59:38 GMT
Approved: XXX@indirect.com
Lines: 13

This poor lady (Name deleted by suggestion) was abused by someone for a couple of days in an epic spam. Many messages were gathered. The message ID was different for several messages. But several anomalies showed an inept poster.

The headers were screwed up, and when looking at a selection of messages from several sites, the central site was news.net99.net, where goodnet.com gets / injects news at. This lead to the conclusion that either goodnet.com or news.net99.net should be contacted to see who the original spammer was. I never heard the results of this, but the spamming eventually stopped.

You can try looking at sites & see if they have that message by :
telnet s46.phxslip4.indirect.com 119
Connected to s46.phxslip4.indirect.com.
200 s46.phxslip4.indirect.com InterNetNews server INN 1.4 22-Dec-93 ready
head <DHLMvE.24H@goodnet.com>
430

Message was not found at that site, so it did not go thru that computer, or the article has already expired or been deleted off of that news reader.

If you wish to track a particular phrase, user-id (whatever) take a look at the URL for getting all the posts pertaining to "X" :

http://groups.google.com/

WWW IP Lookup URL's
=============================
http://samspade.org/ - My personal favorite. All the tools you need on one page.
http://www.geektools.com/- Does lookups at all of the servers (Arin, RIPE, APNIC, etc.)
http://www1.dshield.org/ipinfo.php- Look up IP address / complaint address for Denial of Service attacks.
http://andrew.triumf.ca/cgi-bin/spamalyzer.pl- Check and see if the address is in one of the real time abuse databases.
http://cities.lk.net/trlist.html- Traceroute Lists by States and Backbone Maps List
http://www.net.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/netops.cgi- Traceroute and ping
Index to Traceroute pages:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Communications_and_Networking/Software/Networking/Utilities/Traceroute/
http://www.traceroute.org/
SWITCH WHOIS Gateway:
http://www.switch.ch/search/whois_form.html
Or
http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois
http://www.ripe.net/perl/whois - European countries WhoIs
http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl- Asian Pacific WhoIs
http://whois.nic.or.kr/- Korean WhoIs
http://www.arin.net/- North / South America WhoIs (Upper Right Corner)
IP to Lat - Lon (For those times when only a Tactical Nuke will do ;-)) :
http://cello.cs.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/slamm/ip2ll/
Yet Another IP to name:
http://cello.cs.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/slamm/ip2name
What do those domain names mean :
http://www.alldomains.com/alltlds.html
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/country-codes.txt- Country Codes for the last characters in a domain name

Converting that IP to a name
=============================
When all you have is a number the looks like "204.183.126.181", and no computer name, then you have to figure out what the name of that computer is. Most likely if you complain to " postmaster@[204.183.126.181] " it will go directly to the spammer themselves (if it goes anywhere at all).

WhoIs or a traceroute will give you the upstream provider, complain to that organization.

Marty reminds us that there are some "special" IP's that are allocated as private networks. These fall within the confines of 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 but should be ignored. If the number is greater than 255 then it is faked. The addresses are :

Class Start Address End Address
A     10.0.0.0     10.255.255.255
       127.0.0.0    127.255.255.255 - Loopback addresses
B   172.16.0.0     172.31.255.255
C 192.168.0.0    192.168.255.255
D    224.0.0.0    239.255.255.255 - Multicast
E    240.0.0.0    255.255.255.255 - Multicast

For a full list of bogus IP addresses see:
http://www.cymru.com/Documents/bogon-dd.html
http://www.cymru.com/Documents/bogon-list.html

And a couple of other "mysterious" private IP addresses (that are not mentioned in any of *my* network books):
169.254.0.0 - 169.254.255.255 - IPV4 Auto Configuration address range (Draft RFC)
192.0.2.0 - 192.0.2.255

See :
http://www.ja.net/CERT/JANET-CERT/prevention/cisco/private_addresses.html

First off try using NSLookup (there is software for PC's, I use http://samspade.org/ , put the address in the section "address digger", click on WhoIs IP block and Traceroute and click on "do stuff" or look at the URL's at the bottom of this FAQ). If the NSLookup does not give you a name then try a Traceroute. Somewhere you will get a "name" and at that point I would complain to the postmaster@<that name>. See below for complaint addresses.

What to do with "strange" looking Web links
===========================================

http://1%30%38%35%338%31%32%39%32/ has some %-encoded characters, but decoding those gives http://1085381292/
1085381292 is just another way of writing the IP address 64.177.154.172

To convert a decimal number to a "dotted quad octet" :
http://3438189385/yt/rotten1/

You can put this "strange" number in at any of the following :
http://samspade.org/
http://www.webspawner.com/users/ipconverter

URL Decode:
http://www.swishweb.com/dec.htm

An example of a complex URL decode:
http://home.digital.net/~gandalf/URLDecode.txt

If you look at the source HTML and you see the following then the spam has been encoded using Base64:
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

To decode, just copy / paste everything below the above line and click "Decode" into:
http://david.carter-tod.com/base64/

You will now have the HTML code.

This decode decodes scripts encoded with the Microsoft Script Encoder:
http://www.greymagic.com/security/tools/decoder/

http://www.netdemon.net/decode.html - This CGI handles ALL the recent types of spammer tricks, including decimal, octal, hex addresses, username/password tricks, hex encoded characters, and redirectors.

http://www.netdemon.net/tools.html - All the tools.

And you get an answer like:
204.238.155.73

You can try the "strange" number at :
http://www.abuse.net/cgi-bin/unpackit

Kirk tells us wsftp and the traceroute that comes with wsftp will take those number and automatically translate them into the IP addresses.

Or under Widows 95 :
start --> Programs --> Accessories --> Calculator
Choose view --> Scientific
Put in the "strange" number (3438189385) and click on HEX. You get:
CCEE9B49

Then type in each of the two characters in HEX and click DEC after each number:
CC = 204
EE = 238
9B = 155
49 = 73

Viola ... Your IP is 204.238.155.73

For more general funny URLs, like http://23123443~32:3758493879/www.samspade.org/10.00.0.1/xxxstuff.html, try http://samspade.org/

Or if that doesn't work, Andreas suggests:
Something like following does NOT work the obfuscated URL form at samspade but I figured out that these can be typed into a html-file with a texteditor or in Netscape composer 6.x in the source-mode, than loading or switching to the html mode will immediately show the decoded characters, should be an URL with a form mailer or something like "mailto:user@domain.nic"
97;ilto:jimmy1440200&#

If you get a strange URL like:
http://www.nt.dahouc.mx^T^B^T^E^T.com|net.fr^B^E^T^B^T^E^T^T.oooooooooooooooooo.com:80/nt/dahouchy/
Where the ^B = Control "B", ^T = Control "T", etc. you can look at the very end right before the first "/" to figure out what the site is, on this case it is oooooooooooooooooo.com, using port 80. The rest of it is "decoded" by oooooooooooooooooo.com to give the "real" site name.
For MS Windows the program at http://www.netdemon.net/ will decode these with ease.

If you are looking thru the HTML source and you get something like:
<FORM name="form" method="post" action="mailt&#111 ;:mortm&#97 ;il6@ya&#104 ;oo.com&#63 ;subjec&#116 ;=Debt1" enctype="text/plain"
Then take the "funny" looking part and paste it into the "Obfuscated URLs" section of http://samspade.org/ like so:
http://mailt&#111 ;:mortm&#97 ;il6@ya&#104 ;oo.com&#63 ;subjec&#116 ;=Debt&#49
And you get:
http://mailto:mortmail6@yahoo.com?subject=Debt1

So then you send a complaint to yahoo.com asking them to delete their user mortmail6@yahoo.com.

If the site is a IP address like "198.41.0.5", you can do a DNS lookup to backtrack the site. A DNS lookup or a host command (see example below) uses the info in a Domain Name Server database. This is the same info that is used for packet routing. The UNIX command is :

nslookup 198.41.0.5
Commands:
nslookup hostname dns_server
or
dig @dns_server hostname

And you get :
Name:    whois.arin.net
Addresses: 198.41.0.5, 198.41.0.6

If you are having problems with this, Josh suggests you try :

$ nslookup
Default Server: digital.net
Address: 198.69.104.2

> set type=ptr
> 181.126.183.204.in-addr.arpa
Server: digital.net
Address: 198.69.104.2

Non-authoritative answer:
181.126.183.204.in-addr.arpa    name = kjl.com

Authoritative answers can be found from:
126.183.204.IN-ADDR.ARPA        nameserver = escape.com
126.183.204.IN-ADDR.ARPA        nameserver = ns.uu.net
escape.com      Internet address = 198.6.71.10
ns.uu.net       Internet address = 137.39.1.3

Looking up IP address ownership

InterNIC is your friend. The InterNIC Registration Services Host contains ONLY Internet Information (Networks, ASN's, Domains, and POC's). Please use the WhoIs server at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information. Try :

Bruce tells us that there are three places where you can lookup an IP address, being the current trinity of Regional Internet Registries. These RIRs are:

Jeef says Geektools will work out which one, as well as display the results.

Asia and Pacific Rim: APNIC - Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
        whois.apnic.net
        http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl

Americas and parts of Africa: ARIN - American Registry for Internet Numbers
        whois.arin.net
        http://www.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl

Europe and Surrounding Areas: RIPE NCC - Rseaux IP Europens, Network Coordination Centre
        whois.ripe.net
        http://www.ripe.net/db/whois.html

Under Unix, you can use:
    whois -h whois.arin.net 198.41.0.5
          or
    whois -h whois.apnic.net 198.41.0.5
          or
    whois -h whois.ripe.net 198.41.0.5

Each of the above three RIRs may refer to one of the other RIRs. Please do not send complaints to any of the RIRs as they merely provide contact information, and are not related in any way to the possible spammers.

Dan has said that the NIC technical contact is the address to contact if there is a technical problem with the name service records for that domain. Sending spam notifications to the zone tech contact is an abuse of the NIC WhoIs records. Sending to the admin contact is marginally more justifiable, but should only be used after postmaster and abuse address has been tried. Sending a complaint to all of the intermediate sites in a traceroute should *not* be done, these sites in all likelihood cannot do anything about the problem (with the exception of possibly the next to last site).

For domains that have invalid contact information you should contact the appropriate RIR (see above)

To see who the upstream provider is, try :

traceroute ip30.abq-dialin.hollyberry.com

You might get :
traceroute to IP30.ABQ-DIALIN.HOLLYBERRY.COM (165.247.201.30), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 cpe2.Washington.mci.net (192.41.177.181) 190 ms 210 ms 120 ms
2 borderx1-hssi2-0.Washington.mci.net (204.70.74.101) 100 ms 100 ms 60 ms
3 core-fddi-0.Washington.mci.net (204.70.2.1) 180 ms 130 ms 70 ms
4 core1-hssi-4.LosAngeles.mci.net (204.70.1.177) 150 ms 140 ms 150 ms
5 core-hssi-4.Bloomington.mci.net (204.70.1.142) 180 ms 200 ms 180 ms
6 border1-fddi-0.Bloomington.mci.net (204.70.2.130) 170 ms 290 ms 240 ms
7 internet-direct.Bloomington.mci.net (204.70.48.30) 300 ms 210 ms 270 ms
8 165.247.70.1 (165.247.70.1) 180 ms 240 ms 180 ms
9 abq-phx-gw1.indirect.com (165.247.202.253) 290 ms 220 ms 230 ms
10 * * *

The first column is the "hop" that traceroute is working on. The next is the "computer" (and IP) of the computer at that hop. The last three numbers are the milliseconds it took to get an answer from that computer.

You can get "codes" instead of the milliseconds. An example of a "code" is the "* * *" for hop 10.

Here is a list of the codes:
? Unknown packet type.
H Host unreachable.
N Network unreachable.
P Protocol unreachable.
Q Source quench.
U Port unreachable.
* The Traceroute Packet timed out (did not return to you).

Chris clarifies that a '*' in actuality could be caused by a timeout OR something listening on the UDP ports traceroute uses to get it's port unreachables back from, to work, OR the router simply does not support ICMP/UDP unreachable ports and traceroute cannot determine it's status so it displays asterisks.

Humm..... Seems that after abq-phx-gw1.indirect.com we get no response, so *that* is who I would complain to... or you can just send a message to postmaster@indirect.com ... If that doesn't work then complain to MCI.net.

JamBreaker sez : Be sure to let the traceroute go until the traceroute stops after 30 hops or so. A reply of "* * *" doesn't mean that you've got the right destination; it just means that either the gateways don't send ICMP "time exceeded" messages or that they send them with a TTL (time-to-live) too small to reach you.

Try DIG (Domain Information Groper) (or one of its derivatives), it is used to search DNS records :
http://www.spacereg.com/a.rpl?m=dig
http://www.gulftech.org/webtools/webutil.pl?dig
http://tools.bintec.com/

What DIG tells you:
http://home.att.net/~marjie1/Dig.htm

yourhost> dig -x 38.11.185.89

; <<>> dig 2.0 <<>> -x
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY , status: NOERROR, id: 6
;; flags: qr aa rd ra ; Ques: 1, Ans: 1, Auth: 3, Addit: 3
;; QUESTIONS:
;;      89.185.11.38.in-addr.arpa, type = ANY, class = IN

;; ANSWERS:
89.185.11.38.in-addr.arpa.      86400   PTR    ip89.albuquerque.nm.interramp.com.

;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
11.38.in-addr.arpa.     86400   NS      ns.psi.net.
11.38.in-addr.arpa.     86400   NS      ns2.psi.net.
11.38.in-addr.arpa.     86400   NS      ns5.psi.net.

;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
ns.psi.net.     86400   A       192.33.4.10
ns2.psi.net.    86400   A       38.8.50.2
ns5.psi.net.    86400   A       38.8.5.2

;; Sent 1 pkts, answer found in time: 64 msec
;; FROM: (yourhostname) to SERVER: default -- (yourDNSip)
;; WHEN: Thu Nov 16 23:30:42 1995
;; MSG SIZE sent: 43 rcvd: 216

Getting a World Wide Web page busted
====================================

Many spammers use throw away accounts, accounts that they know will be deleted as soon as the service gets a complaint. Of course the spammers mentality is "if it is free it is for me to abuse". If the spammer really annoyed you then you might wish to dig and get every account possible deleted. What you need to do is actually go to the WWW page that they advertise, look at the page and usually the page will redirect you to another site (or possibly redirect 2 or 3 times). Send a complaint to these sites (with the original spam). It is important to explain to the site you are complaining to how you got to their site so that they don't ignore you.

In Netscape and Explorer there is an option to "view source". This will pop up a page with all of the http source from the page. This page will have all of the "links" to the next site.

If you look at the http source and it is unreadable (and sez "Haywyre"), take a look at :
http://www.netdemon.net/haywyre/

There are spammers out there that actually have a clue. They use open Web Proxies to reroute their web page to another location. When you do a ping of a web site, the ping is of the open web proxy. The open web proxy then redirects you when it gets the request for the web page. A complete technical explanation can be found at:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=3ee16105$1_2@nntp2.nac.net

Another thing spammers do is to abuse free WWW services to set up a web page that is encoded with Java script so that you cannot see what the html looks like. The spammer then redirects the information to their "real" site.

http://www.spamsites.org/decode.html tells us that to decode the Java script and complain to the people that are actually hosting the spammers, set up a bookmark called "Decode Javascript" and set the URL (thanks to Code by Kicken) as the below, the code is all on one very long line:
javascript:h=document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].innerHTML;function disp(h){h=h.replace(/</g, '\n<');h=h.replace(/>/g,'>');document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].innerHTML='<pre><html>'+h.replace(/(\n|\r)+/g,'\n')+'</html></pre>';}void(disp(h));

Your computer may take a while to decode all the Java, just be patient.

Usenet complaint addresses
============================================
O.K... So you have a common site that you can complain to. Good. If you cannot figure out where the message came from, you can post the FULL HEADERS (this is *very* important for tracing) to alt.spam, news.admin.net-abuse.misc, news.admin.net-abuse.email or news.admin.net-abuse.usenet (see the section entitled Reporting Spam and tracing a posted message). Usually you can get someone to help with the message.

If you complain (or asked to be removed) to the spammer directly, you may just be confirming a "real" live e-mail address, which may lead to even more junk e-mail. I would suggest complaining to the owner of the site only. You can send e-mail to foo.bar.com@abuse.net (where foo.bar.com is the provider you are complaining to) and it will get forwarded to the "best" e-mail address.. See http://www.abuse.net/

I used to post a long list of abuse addresses in the alt.spam FAQ, but the abuse.net lookup is much better, in fact it is the way that I look up abuse addresses. Look up the abuse address of the ISP that you think the spammer is a customer:
http://abuse.net/lookup.phtml

There is a list of admins to contact:
http://personalpages.tds.net/~slambo/spamreports.htm

Greg reminds us that if you are complaining to a postmaster about a week-old post, don't bother. It's not on their server, they can't verify it. Make sure you use terms correctly. A recent trend is to call any off-topic post "spam". It's not. I deal with spammers and off-topic or advertising posters differently. Other providers do also. Also, try to keep the clutter in your complaints down. I don't need a copy of the referenced RFC or statute. It doesn't help either of us if I can't find your complaint in between all the mumbo jumbo.

From : David Jackson (djackson@aol.net) (and this applies to *any* abuse) :
To report an instance of USENET abuse send mail to tosusenet@aol.com - please remember to include a complete copy of the USENET article, including all headers, to help us quickly quash the abuse.

Scott reminds us :
It might also be a good idea to remind people that sometimes the postmaster _is_ the spammer. Joe Spam might have his own domain (since they _used_ to be free) inside of which they are the postmaster. This is terrifyingly common with net.twits (kooks, etc.) but seems rare for spam. A quick note that if the spammer is the admin contact in WhoIs, notifying the postmaster will surely generate laughs on their end.

In the letter to the postmaster, you might wish to mention Joel's very good FAQ about advertising on the Internet :
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1.html
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1/faq.html

One company that was suckered in by a bulk e-mail company received 35 responses to the addresses in the body of the message, and 100% of them were negative. Additionally the ISP that hosted them received 15 complaints asking for them to terminate their service. UUNet received 50+ complaints about this UCE.

And where they *should* advertise :
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/finding-groups/general.html

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmm/papers.html#efi - Economic FAQ about the Internet

If you don't get a proper response from the postmaster, remember, WhoIs - rs.internic.net is your friend. See the section labeled "Converting that IP to a name" for more information on InterNIC.

This *should* get you a person to talk to & their personal e-mail address. If you don't get any response from that postmaster, then you should try the provider to that site. This gets a little trickier, but a traceroute should show you the upstream provider, and from there you can try contacting the postmasters of *that* site.

To contact the upstream providers first go to Merit Network Advanced WhoIs query and get their AS:
http://www.radb.net/cgi-bin/radb/advanced-query.cgi
It should look something like:
origin: AS15084

Then go to the CIDR report and get their upstreams (change the "AS15084" to something appropriate):
http://www.cidr-report.org/cgi-bin/as-report?as=AS15084
Or go to the following, scroll to the bottom and type in the AS:
http://www.cidr-report.org/

Any non-profit organization (like a University) should be very happy to help get rid of a spammer. If the non-profit organizations resources are being used to spam a for-profit business the IRS can take their non-profit status away. Talk to the legal council at the non-profit organization if you don't get a positive response from the postmaster.

Worst case, a site can be UDP (Usenet Death Penalty) out so that other sites stop accepting news or even e-mail from that site. They are cut off from the net. Decisions like this are discussed in the news group news.admin.net-abuse.misc .

If the spammer site has problems trying to figure out where the spam came from, they can *always* get help from the denizens of news.admin.net-abuse.misc, but have them take a look at their logs first and see if they see something like (Thanks to help from Michael):

My news logs (for INND) are:
$ cd /usr/log/news
$ ls
OLD                expire.log         news.err           unwanted.log
errlog             news               news.notice
expire.list        news.crit          nntpsend.log

and here is my syslog.conf:
## news stuff
news.crit               /usr/log/news/news.crit
news.err                /usr/log/news/news.err
news.notice             /usr/log/news/news.notice
news.info               /usr/log/news/news
news.debug              /usr/log/news/news.debug

but, what they need to remember, is they HAVE TO LOOK QUICK!. INND expire puts all these logs in OLD, and recycles them, and expires them at the 7th day (and gzips them), i.e., OLD/:
ls -l news.?.*
-r--r----- 1 news      news         181098 May 23 06:26 news.1.gz
...
-r--r----- 1 news      news         319343 May 17 06:29 news.7.gz

so... to grep an old log looking for sfa.ufl.edu:
(the {nn} is how many days ago, 1 is yesterday, 2 is 2 days ago, etc)
cd {log/OLD}
gunzip -c news.1.gz | grep sfa.ufl.edu | more

Viruses / Trojans / Spyware
===========================
If you do not have anti-virus software loaded on your computer *or* you do not have the latest and greatest virus definitions then run - do not walk - to the closest software store and buy the latest anti-virus software or download the latest definitions if you have the software and haven't updated the definitions lately.

There are several free antivirus programs available:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Free+Anti-virus
Like:
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 - AVG

The grief you will have if you are infected with a virus is many times the grief of loading and maintaining anti-virus software.

More and more viruses propagate thru e-mail. If your friends machine is infected you can receive a virus from them because the virus sends a copy of itself to you (the virus send itself to everybody in your friends address book). DO NOT open attachments even if they are from someone you know unless you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN the attachment is virus free.

http://www.incidents.org/react/avinfo.php - Online scanning of your hard drive and reporting viruses

If you think that you have received a virus in an e-mail, there are some online scanning tools that will scan for the latest and greatest viruses:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://www.commandondemand.com/
http://security1.norton.com/us/intro.asp?venid=sym&langid=us

You can submit the virus to your choice in anti-virus vendors, please take a look at their site to see if they have any particular submission instructions:
"Command AntiVirus" virus@commandcom.com
http://www.commandcom.com/virus/think_you_have_a_virus.html
"Computer Associates" virus@cai.com
http://www3.ca.com/virusinfo/
"F-Secure" samples@F-Secure.com
"Kaspersky AntiVirus" newvirus@kaspersky.com
http://www.avp.ru/
"Network Associates" virus_research@nai.com
http://www.mcafeeb2b.com/naicommon/avert/avert-research-center/submit-sample.asp
"SARC" avsubmit@symantec.com
http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/submit.html
"Trend Micro" virus_doctor@trendmicro.com
http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/trendlabs/submit.htm

A Trojan is a program that you are tricked into executing that has a devious purpose. You run a small game that (in reality) loads itself onto your computer to allow someone else to get into your computer. Most anti-virus programs *should* protect against this. See:
PestPatrol Glossary
http://www.safersite.com/PestInfo/G/Glossary.asp
PestPatrol White Paper: About RATs (Remote Admin Trojans)
http://www.safersite.com/Support/About/About_Rats.asp
http://www.pestpatrol.com/whitepapers/Comparison/Product_Details.asp
Also see "A Comparison of Pest Detecting Tools" at:
http://www.pestpatrol.com/Whitepapers/Comparison/Index.asp

Spyware is software that tracks what you do at your computer and reports that information via the Internet back to the company that wrote the software. Depending on how paranoid you are and how much you want companies to know what you are doing, you might wish to remove this software from your computer:
http://grc.com/optout.htm

Adware is software that loads itself on your computer usually without your specific permission and pops up advertisements while you are on your computer. Both spyware and adware are usually not well programmed and should be removed. This will make your computer run smoothly.

Scanning for Spyware:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=4306576

Spyware removal tools:
http://www.securitypipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=57702061

To remove spyware / adware, see the below free tools. Try one at a time and see if it stops your problem:
1) Back up any important data (this *especially* applies before taking your computer into someone to "fix")
2) Run adaware:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
3) Run Spybot Search And Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
4) Run Hijack This
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
5) Microsoft Spyware Removal (I haven't used this yet, so I don't know how well it works):
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

There are companies spamming (and ostensibly making money) off of Trojan programs. They tell customers they can spy on children, spouses, employees, etc (which is, by the way, illegal in the USA and many countries):
"Spy on Anyone by sending them an Email-Greeting Card!
Spy Software records their emails, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, ACTUAL Computer Passwords, Chats, Keystrokes, PLUS MORE."

Fraud on the Internet and The MMF (Make Money Fast) Posts
================================================================
There are many hoaxes and frauds on the Internet. No different than RL (Real Life).

You must be very careful of any e-mail that you receive. If the e-mail is asking for any account and password there is a very good chance that this is a fraud. The current vernacular for this on the Internet is "Phishing". The fraud artist is trying to get you to divulge information to them that they should not know. Never click on a link that says anything about updating your account. There are ways that the links you click on "look" like they are pointing to a legitimate site but in reality are pointing to the fraud site that looks JUST LIKE the real site. If you are worried that your account may need updating, go to your browser and type in the site name by hand and then look at your account. See :
http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,88583,00.html?nlid=SEC2
Also see:
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2004/0,4814,89096,00.html
And Suing spammers for fraud:
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/sec/2004/0105sec2.html
The Washington Post wrote three articles on victims of Phishing crimes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59347-2004Nov18?language=printer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59349-2004Nov18?language=printer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61916-2004Nov19?language=printer
Australian Financial Advisor give 419ers 1 Million:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/aussie_419_victim

Anti-Phishing Working Group ( http://www.anti-phishing.org ) is a coalition of financial institutions, ISPs and online retailers. Visit their website for the latest Phishing scams that are trying to steal accounts, etc.

Many of the different organizations are creating pages to report fraud. For example CitiBank has a page:
http://www.citi.com/domain/spoof/report_abuse.htm
And USbank:
http://www.usbank.com/cgi_w/cfm/promo/personal/fraud_email_info_and_help.cfm
http://www.usbank.com/cgi_w/cfm/personal/achieve_goals/id_theft.cfm

Donna tells us If you would like to see a safe sample of this mischief visit:
http://www.zapthedingbat.com/security/ex01/vun1.htm

Examples of the e-mails that I have received that are fraud or viruses purport that they are from E-Bay, PayPal, Amazon, Earthlink, a multitude of banks and from Microsoft. An example of the URL (that looked like it was from Earthlink) and how it was decoded can be found at:
http://home.digital.net/~gandalf/URLDecode.txt

In addition some of these fraud artists are targeting technically unsophisticated office workers claiming they have control over the workers computer (when they really don't), or that they will get them in trouble by putting pornography on their computer unless they pay them :
http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,88623,00.html?nlid=PM

A partnership of the National Association of Attorneys General, the Federal Trade Commission and The National Consumers League :
http://www.fraud.org/
Call 1-800-876-7060 or fill out an on-line scam sheet:
http://www.fraud.org/info/repoform.htm
http://www.ifccfbi.gov/ - Internet Fraud Complaint Center
http://www.ifccfbi.gov/strategy/howtofile.asp - How to file a complaint - "It is important that you keep any evidence you may have related to your complaint"
http://www.ifccfbi.gov/cf1.asp - File a complaint
http://www.junkemail.org/scamspam/ - FTC ScamSpam - uce@ftc.gov
http://www.gcn.com/21_9/top-stories/18494-1.html - An article on what the FTC is doing to stop scams
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/dotcon/index.html FTC Scam Page
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/05/15/HNftcspammer_1.html - The FTC goes against spammers
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/cybercrime/story/0,10801,78551,00.html?SKC=cybercrime-78551 - Internet fraud is expanding. Spam has been sent out with fake sites that "look" like real sites to steal credit card information, etc.
http://www.acidics.com/ - How all the MMF, envelope stuffing, paid to surf, read e-mail, etc scams work. That is work for the con artists. You (of course) lose money.

The Better Business Bureau has a web site at:
http://www.bbb.org

Hoaxes and scams :
http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Issues/Fraud/
http://HoaxBusters.ciac.org/
http://www.scambusters.com/
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39298,00.html - A scam if you download a program you may pay $250 in telephone charges.
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/sec/2001/00680235.html - Article on Chain e-mail, pyramid schemes, fraud

National Criminal Justice Reference Service has a site on White Collar Crimes and what to do if you are a victim. Under More Issues:
http://virlib.ncjrs.org/MoreIssues.asp
Click on White Collar Crime:
http://virlib.ncjrs.org/more.asp?category=51=152

Virus updates, scams and hoaxes:
From Security Wire Digest ( http://www.infosecuritymag.com/digest_intro.shtml )
MTX-TESTING E-MAIL SCAMS USERS
A scam artist has been making money off gullible users by sending a virus alert about testing for the MTX Worm. The e-mail advises users to call a 900 number, which costs $2.69 per minute, for a recorded message that instructs users to visit three antivirus Web sites--sites that provide AV definitions free of charge. Always check virus alerts and possible hoaxes against hoax web sites or legitimate antivirus authorities, such as Sophos, Trend Micro and TruSecure.
http://www.vmyths.com
http://www.sophos.com
http://www.trendmicro.com
http://www.trusecure.com

In the United States :
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission web page (stock solicitations, stock manipulation by sending out spam after buying a stock to get others to buy the stock and increase the price) http://www.sec.gov/enforce/comctr.htm or Email:
enforcement@sec.gov
http://www.sec.gov/answers/pumpdump.htm - Pump and Dump tips
http://www.sec.gov/news/headlines/netfraud.htm - SEC prosecutions
Net Securities scam: Report to cyberfraud@nasaa.org

The Food and Drug Administration :
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/problem.html
Medical Items:
US Food and Drug Administration - MedWatch - Medwatch@OC.FDA.GOV
I sent Medwatch a spam about a "miracle fat removing creme" and I received the following, so for non-prescribed drugs I guess you report to the following:
Thank you for your comments. The office of MedWatch does not look into this type of complaint. This information may be given directly to FDA via the web. Please go to http://www.fda.gov.
Buying Medical Products Online - http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2000/100_online.html
Notifying FDA about problem Web Sites - http://www.fda.gov/oc/buyonline/default.htm

Make Money Fast is a pyramid (or Ponzi) scheme where you are in a chain of people wherein you send money to a few people and try to recruit others to send money to you. Basically if it even remotely smells like a MMF scheme it is illegal (even tho' many of the MMF schemes "claim" to have been looked at by a lawyer or checked by the United States Postal Authorities).

For a list of countries where Make Money Fast is illegal see :
http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/mmf/mmf_table.html
http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/mmf/

Please, only report MMFs in news.admin.net-abuse.misc if they're spam and you've seen it in lots of groups and / or the postmaster/user are defiantly stupid.

MMFs should be reported to the user and their postmaster and the following :
Where to send complaints to in Australia:
Ministry of Fair Trading
P O Box 6355
EAST PERTH 6536

The applicable Canadian description can be found at :
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams/scams_e.htm
Specifically http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams/pyramid_e.htm
And from the Canadian Department of Justice server ( http://canada.justice.gc.ca/ ):
STATUTES OF CANADA, C, Competition - PART VI OFFENSES IN RELATION TO COMPETITION - Definition of "scheme of pyramid selling" - Section 55.1
EXTRACT FROM THE CANADIAN CRIMINAL CODE
Chain-letters
206. (1) Every one is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years who . . .
Pyramid Schemes
55.1 (1) For the purposes of this section, "scheme of pyramid selling" means a multi-level marketing plan whereby ...

Norway - Sylfest tells us Norwegians should report these via email to the national taskforce on economical crime, the KOKRIM by forwarding the mail with full headers to: < desken@okokrim.no >

United Kingdoms:
Consumer Affairs and Competition Policy Directorate 2
Department of Trade and Industry, 1 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0ET
Tel: 0171 215 0344
Have a booklet called 'The Trading Schemes Guide' which is very useful
indeed and explains the UK legal details on these things,

In the United States, you should write the Federal Trade Commission Ms. Broder
( bbroder@ftc.gov ). For more info on pyramid schemes use pyramid@ftc.gov
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/0212antispam.html?net - Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on illegal spam
To find your nearest postal inspector in the USA, see URL
http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/locators/find-is.html
California MMF law :
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=pen&codebody=endless

Another type of fraud is one where the spammer sends out a HTML message with a message / URL link that says "try a new game". When you click on the URL there is nothing related to the original message. What the spammer has (at the very least) done is gotten some money for himself by you clicking on his "click to pay" URL. Worst case the spammer may have taken advantage of a security hole in your browser and done something nefarious. Bottom line, do not click on the spammers URL, look at the e-mail and complain to the upstream provider.

And just when you thought that the spammers had reached new lows you get a spam from Word-of-Mouth.Org or WordofMouthConnection.com or womc.net (as the scam gets reported I am sure they will continue to change their name). They purport:
"An acquaintance of your's recently shared their experience with you in our online community, Word-of-Mouth.Org. It could be a friend, a family member, co-worker, business associate, or someone else you have run into at some time.
Why are we sending you this email?
When people find out others are talking about them -- whether it is good or bad -- they want to know. At Word-of-Mouth.Org, we feel responsible to alert people so they have an opportunity to find out what is being said."

When you go to the site to find out what is being said, all you can find out for "free" is that your e-mail address is in their database. To find out exactly what is going on you have to "join" (and, of course, pay a fee). After you pay mysteriously your report cannot be found. See:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=word-of-mouth+scam
(Look at the news.admin.net-abuse.email posts)
Also See:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/wordofmouth.asp
And:
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/sec/2003/0901sec1.html

Yet another fraud arrives via e-mail with a subject of "Pre Action Warning." addressed to "Dear Sir" (didn't even know my name). It specifically stated:
"I am writing to you in connection with you debt that you have with our company, Due to inflation and other factors outside of my control, your debts have exceeded       $1100.94 (one thousand one hundred and ninety four cents) I regret to inform you that we are pushing for legal action against your person.
We will offer you the opportunity to pay your debt. within the next 7 business days, if you fail to comply, our partners, hold the right to litigate on behalf of our organization."

The E-Mail went on to state that I could send Banking details, Banking Authorization, etc. Even better it stated:
"CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: E-mail may contain confidential information that is legally privileged. Do not read this e-mail if you are not the intended recipient. This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it may contain confidential and proprietary information that is legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED."

These are all scare tactics trying to get you to give them money and not report this to someone else. I (of course) immediately complained to uce@ftc.gov and the two providers linked to this fraud (with the entire e-mail message and headers). You don't owe money; they just want to make you think so. When you get any e-mail that tells you to give someone money because they say you owe it, don't do it. Trust me, if they want the money bad enough they won't be using e-mail to collect.

Another fraud (Bad English and all ) to try and get you to send the spammer your credit card purports:
"We have just charged your credit card for money laundry service in amount of $234.65 (because you are either child pornography webmaster or deal with dirty money, which require us to laundry them and then send to your checking account).
If you feel this transaction was made by our   mistake, please press "No".
If you confirm this transaction, please press "Yes" and fill in the form below.
Enter your credit card number here:
Enter your credit card expiration date: "

As always be a cynic when receiving unsolicited e-mails. The frauds are getting more and more complex.

Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud
============================

Robert Heinlein has a saying "TANSTAAFL" (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch). If it looks too good, it probably is.

There is a fraud promising you millions of dollars from a "government official" (or Widow, or son of a widow, etc.) in Nigeria (or some other small country) with a "secret" bank account, but all they need to transfer the money to you is:
(a)Your Company's Name and Address
(b)Your full Name(s), Telephone, and Fax numbers (Private and Company)
(c)Your Bank Name, Address, Account number, Telex and swift code (if any).

This is the start of the Nigerian AFF (Advance Fee Fraud). A summary is that they ask for you to "help" pay some fees that are required to get the money out of the country, then they try to get you to go to Nigeria (or a bordering country) to meet.

At this point they try to get you into the country without a visa, promising that they will get you a visa. At that point they have you under their control since you are in Nigeria without a visa (no, they never got you a visa) and they start intimidation (physical or otherwise) trying to get money from you.
According to the Department Of State in publication 10465 (release April 1997) "15 foreign businessmen (one American) have been murdered in Nigeria AFF scams".

The Advanced Fee Frauds can also take the form of:
Disbursement of money from wills
Contract fraud (C.O.D. of goods or services)
Purchase of real estate
Conversion of hard currency
Transfer of funds from over invoiced contracts
Sale of crude oil at below market prices

To see the details of this fraud:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53818,00.html - Short Version - Meet the Nigerian E-Mail Grifters
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/2189.pdf - The longer detailed version, Department Of State Publication 10465
Send scams to 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov (Put No Monetary Loss in the header if you haven't lost any money)
Also see:
http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml
http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm
http://www.419legal.org/
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,69562,00.html
http://www.nigerianfraudwatch.org/
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/news1998.htm
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/ - How to contact the US Gov't about this scheme
http://www.scambusters.org/NigerianFee.html - How the fraud works
http://www.cbintel.com/nigeriafraud.htm
http://www.scamorama.com/ - The Nigerian Scammers - Can you scam a scammer?
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/cybercrime/story/0,10801,80200,00.html?nas=AM-80200 - The Nigerian Fraud continues to claim victims
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/sec/2003/0224sec1.html - Two more scams, one like Nigeria scam, one demanding money you don't owe
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/sec/2003/1013sec1.html - M. E. Kabay talks about scams that allege you have won a lottery in Europe. M. E. Kabay mentions "its illegal for a U.S. resident to participate in a foreign lottery". Again, if it looks too good it probably is

Hoaxes
=====
Lat but certainly not least there are many hoaxes circulating around the internet. A hoax is the human version of a computer virus. Instead of convincing the computer to pass the message along to many other computers, the message is written to convince a human to send the message to many other humans. The cleverest hoax wins the prize. For example there is a letter circulating about "dying boy wants postcards" (Craig Shergold) which is no longer true. Same as with the Blue Star LSD addicting children hoax. See Urban Folklore FAQ at :
http://www.urbanlegends.com/classic/craig.shergold/craig_nyt.html
http://www.urbanlegends.com/classic/blue.star.tattoos/blue_star_lsd_faq.html

A complete Urban Legends listings (It is big) :
http://www.urbanlegends.com/afu.faq/index.html

Snopes offers a way to see if a photo is a hoax:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/

Some other hoax pages:
http://www.pfir.org/statements/hoaxes - Why hoaxes are damaging
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html - Symantec Hoax Page
http://chekware.com/hoax/ - Scams and hoaxes page
http://kumite.com/myths/myths
http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ - Hoaxes / Chain Letters
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/billgate.asp - All about the Bill Gates Hoax chain letter that was followed by a hoax letter from The Gap, Bath & Body Works, Old Navy, Abercrombie & Fitch and probably just about any company you can imagine.
http://www.vmyths.com - Virus Myths
http://www.hoaxkill.com - Look on the site and see if an e-mail is a hoax and if you can't find it forward your e-mails to hoaxcheck@hoaxkill.com and they will look at it for you. If it is a hoax send it to hoaxkill@hoaxkill.com and they will notify everyone in the e-mail that the message is a hoax
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq/scams/ - Hoaxes and Scams

My usual response goes something like:
(Quote part of the hoax)
Hi! My name is Janelle McCan, Founder of the Gap. I am offering
thirty five dollar gift certificates to every seven people you send
this to.

If you ever get an e-mail that tells you to forward it to other people, it is *almost certainly* a hoax. Specifically if it tells you about a "new virus" or free money. Before you send it along *please* look it up by going to http://www.google.com and typing words from the e-mail into the search line, like (in this example) and the word hoax:
Gap gift certificates e-mail hoax

Sorry. This is a hoax. See:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/billgate.htm

Plus, if the Gap could trace your e-mails, don't you think the Government could do the same and wouldn't that make you worry *just* a bit? Not that they aren't trying, see:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2606926,00.html

But anyway, there are no free Gap certificates, no free $1,000 bills from Microsoft or any free trips to Disney. Sorry.

PLEASE read about the Gullibility Virus. This is a very funny editorial to be passed along to your friends who send you all these kinds of hoaxes :
http://www.virtualsalt.com/warning.htm
end of hoax message

There has been some discussion that such things should be canceled because they exceed the BI 20 index. They are untrue and they waste bandwidth.

Open system spammers love
================================

FormMail is a free program used by many legitimate sites to glean data submitted via online forms. Last year, a vulnerability was discovered in the FormMail.pl gateway that allows external users to run the program. As a result, unsecured FormMail installations have become favored targets with junk emailers.

Many of the viruses circulating now leave "back doors" into the computers that they infect. Armed with the knowledge of the back door, spammers hijack the computer and use the hijacked computer to send out their spam.

Of course open SMTP servers are ALWAYS the computer of choice to blast a few million e-mails out with.

Bottom line, the owner of the computer is responsible for keeping their computer secure. Complain to the upstream provider about their customer and get the computer disconnected from the network until the problems can be corrected.

Filtering E-Mail BlackMail, procmail or News with Gnus
=======================================================

Filtering with BlackMail. This is free software that works with Mailers Smail, Sendmail, Qmail or Fetchmail under the OSes: Aix, various BSD, Irix, Linux, NeXTStep 3.x, Solaris, SunOs, SVR4:
http://www.jsm-net.demon.co.uk/blackmail/blackmail.html - Written by Ken Hollis (Not me ...) and maintained by James Murray
Or
http://www.jsm-net.demon.co.uk/blackmail/source
Get the procmail FAQ :
http://www.ii.com/internet/faqs/launchers/mail/filtering-faq/
or
http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/faqs/launchers/mail/filtering-faq/
http://www.ii.com/internet/robots/
or
http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/robots/
Procmail ruleset :
http://www.impsec.org/email-tools/procmail-security.html

Or read about it when it is posted to :
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc , comp.mail.elm , comp.mail.pine , comp.answers , news.answers
Subject: Filtering Mail FAQ

Bob tells me that Eudora Pro has a good filtering capability. You can filer based on who you send e-mail to, known spammers, etc. Enough filters and you may see hardly any Spam. Claris E-Mailer, likewise, has a filter option.

Brian has a Gnus scorefile from the Internet blacklist :
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/usenet/gnus/BLACKLIST
Or his example global scorefile :
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/usenet/gnus/SCORE

Many news readers have a "kill" file that will filter out the posts from either a certain user-id, or posts with certain titles. Each news reader is unique. You might wish to read the help file on the subject of kill files.

Columnist Al Fasoldt suggests a method for filtering your own e-mail:
http://www.twcny.rr.com/technofile/texts/bit121901.html

Rejecting E-Mail from domains that continue to Spam
====================================================
Spamfilter can be found at:
http://www.samiam.org/spam/index.html

See Sendmail site: http://www.sendmail.org/
Ask your admin to add the following to their sendmail.cf. This will reject all mail that continues to come in from domains that only send out spam. This is a group effort from many admins :
Modify your sendmail.cf in the following way.
1. Setup a hash table with the domains you wish to block:
# Bad domains (spam kings)
FK/etc/mailspamdomains

2. Add the following rules to S98 (be sure that there are three lines (i.e. the lines are not split up) and be sure to put a TAB character between the $* and the $#error, not a space) :
### Spam blockage
R$* < @$*$=K . > $*       $#error $@ 5.1.3 $: "Your domain has been blocked due to spam problems. Contact your administrator."
R$* < @$*$=K > $*          $#error $@ 5.1.3 $: "Your domain has been blocked due to spam problems. Contact your administrator."

3. Make your hash table. Here is a very small example :
moneyworld.com
globalfn.com

Mail that comes in from any of these domains will be returned to sender with the error. If the sender is bogus, it will bother the postmaster at the bad domain in an appropriate manner.

Keep in mind that *ALL* email from these domains will be blocked. This is really only a good solution for domains that are setup by spammers for spamming. Blocking something like aol.com, although it may seem initially attractive, would cause problems for legitimate users of email in that domain. Compile your list after careful verification that these domains fit the above description.

   Misc.
=================================

Protection for you and your kids on the Internet
=================================================
The kids have learned the Internet first, and there is a good point made that the Internet may be the first "system" created where kids are teaching parents about ethical use of the Internet.

Learn about it yourself to help your kids use the Internet responsibly. When educating yourself, be *very* sure to read all privacy notices (or anti-privacy policies in this instance). Many of the online contests have "privacy" policies that (basically) say that they can sell any and all information that you submit to anybody that they feel like. That could include selling your e-mail address to spammers. Even when you make an online purchase, scrutinize the privacy policy. An example of a company who's privacy policy allows them to redistribute your information is Ticketmaster. See:
Ticketmaster's Privacy Policy: Opting Out is Not an Option
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2003/7/24/84435/6284

http://www2.norwich.edu/mkabay/cyberwatch/index.htm - Protecting yourself and your kids on the Internet, teaching your kids about ethical Internet Use

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/infosecurity/ - FTC generic information about keeping secure on the Internet. In addition there is a Childs quiz about being a safe