How To Set Up Your Bigfoot Anti-Spam Solution For Your POP3/IMAP Accounts

After announcing the public launch of the Bigfoot Anti-Spam Solution for POP3/IMAP Accounts and giving you a background on this new product in our October edition, here in this issue, we are giving you a quick guide on how to set up this new anti-spam solution into your accounts.

I. For POP3 accounts

Step 1: Go to Bigfoot Anti-Spam Solution for POP3/IMAP Accounts administration page by logging in at http://antispam.bigfoot.com/en/index.jsp.

Step 2: Click on "Add POP3 Account". Enter your POP3 Email Address and POP3 Server in the designated fields. Then, click on "Submit." Once you've successfully entered the details, your POP3 email account and server will be shown on the table at the bottom of the page, along with the expiration date of your anti-spam subscription

Step 3: Set up Bigfoot Anti-Spam POP3 Proxy Server, pop3.antispam.bigfoot.com, in your POP3 client software. For a detailed guide in adding the Bigfoot Anti-Spam POP3 Proxy Server in your POP3 client software, click on "Quick Tips" on the "Add POP3 Account" page. We have listed three guides on how to set up "pop3.antispam.bigfoot.com" in Outlook, Netscape, and Eudora.

II. For IMAP accounts

Step 1: Go to Bigfoot Anti-Spam Solution for POP3/IMAP Accounts administration page by logging in here.

Step 2: Note: If you have changed your IMAP username or password, kindly update Bigfoot with the information by logging in here and editing your IMAP account information under the "My Accounts" page.

Step 3: This software supports standard Email Client Softwares such as Outlook Express, MS-Outlook, Eudora, etc.

For more inquiries and further assistance on Bigfoot Anti-Spam Solution for POP3/IMAP Accounts, click here to contact a Bigfoot customer representative.

Contents

Special Feature     "The Woman of Your Dreams" Is An Internet Scam

United States of America     AOL Files First Lawsuit On IM Spam Or Spim     Top Spammers Face Conviction; May Be Sentenced To     9 Years In Prison

Europe     Latest Spam Scam Offers Free Training     Medical-Related Spam Volume Up In October

Asia - Pacific     Two Australians Sentenced To Prison For Internet Scam

International News     International Fight Against Spam Heats Up    Users Warned Of “Click-less” Phishing Scam

Opinion    Don't Fall For This Anti-Spam Spam

Letters To The Editor

Special Feature

"The Woman of Your Dreams" Is An Internet Scam

Internet hustlers are on the loose again with a new modus operandi in full swing. Their targets are men from the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Britain who have posted their personal profiles on the Internet, on the look out for a wife-to-be, The New York Times reported.

These swindlers, who must look like heaven knows what, masquerade as a Russian femme fatale, Nadezhda Medvedeva (or “just call [her] Nadia”), who is educated, and who knows popular western films and classical Russian music.

According to the report, it all starts with an email asking for basic, personal information from the searching man. After which a couple of message exchanges, through emails (each with attached photographs), the calls follow. The routine suddenly turns into an exciting twist, when "Nadia" is given a vacation leave by her boss and wants to visit her newfound guy. Out comes the crucial question: "Can you help out with the travel expenses?" This leads into the ultimate prize which is when the victim wires money for the visa expenses and airfare for the affair's consummation.

Hustlers go as far as faking visas and putting up sham web sites to represent travel agencies complete with employees to take the men's airfare and reservations. Several suspected scammers have been busted for this kind of Internet hoax, but still the red alert is on, and we don't want you to be the next prey!

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AOL Files First Lawsuit On IM Spam Or Spim

The first lawsuit filed on Instant-Message (IM) Spam or “Spim” was announced by AOL as part of their campaign against unsolicited messages, The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. AOL targeted 20 defendants for sending instant-message spam.

The announcement was made as a part of series of lawsuits against spam by major Internet providers like AOL, Microsoft, Earthlink and Yahoo, the report said. The first legal action filed against “Spim” involved targeting a spammer selling controlled substances, including the pain reliever Vicodin and other pharmaceuticals, which required a doctor’s prescription.

AOL sued under the new CAN-SPAM law that took effect early this year.

In an interview, an AOL spokesperson said the company is continuing “to make spam-fighting a priority”. They will continue to use the legal process to help put a stop on the most active spammers, regardless of the location and how they send unwanted messages.

Reports show that Jaynes and his sister had gathered more than $24 million by offering fraudulent Internet offers of penny-stock tickers, non-existent FedEx refunds, cheap drugs and pornography through email. Jaynes forged Internet addresses and used confidential email directories stolen from ISPs to con users. He was able to receive in one month 10,000 credit card orders for $39.95 each according to the prosecution.

The case of the two defendants is the first conviction under a new state anti-spam law, considered the toughest in the United States. The Virginia jury convicted the defendants for sending untraceable junk emails to millions of customers of American Online, which is based in North Virginia. Jaynes will serve substantial prison time. The trial judge will not impose sentence until February but the jury has recommended 9 years. DeGroot, who was found to have played only a supporting role, was fined $7,500. A third defendant was acquitted.

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Latest Spam Scam Offers Free Training

The latest spam scam to hit the Internet and user’s mailboxes now comes with emails offering training and rewarding jobs in the financial sector.

According to news reports by theregister.co.uk and asia.cnet.com, this was announced recently to alert users of the sophisticated scheme, which attempts to steal money from innocent consumers. Masterminds of the devious scam are said to have originated from Russia.

The email, which claims to come from merchant bank Credit Suisse, offers a free two-week training course over the Internet. In reality, users who sign-up for the course are conned into helping transfer monies overseas from online bank accounts compromised by phishing attacks. Users can also be tricked directly themselves.

The fraud Web site, which has already been shut down, was hosted on a .de Internet address. The web site had been bought with a German credit card, believed to have been stolen and used by Russians. The website featured in the scam email is no longer available but web users are encouraged to be on alert of its reappearance.

Medical-Related Spam Volume Up In October

October saw a huge amount of increase in medical-related spam targeting UK mailboxes, according to Email Management Specialist Email Systems.

Spamfo.co.uk reported that unsolicited messages selling medical products that claim to offer people miracle cure to health problems such as weight loss, muscle relaxants, smoking, anxiety, allergies, pain relief and sexual health have increased tremendously throughout the last month.

In October, Medical email comprised about 48% of the total spam, a 90% increase from an average of approximately 25% in September.

Other categories of spam in October included pornography (15% approx.), gambling (11%), cheap software (8%), mortgages (9%), and others (i.e. travel/anti-speed camera kit/misc. 8%). Spam in general rose by 9% from previous month’s figures to an average of 82% for last month. It heightened at more than 90% of the email traffic on about 6 days during October, four of which were on Saturdays and the other two on Sundays.

Last month’s spam peaked on Saturday October 16 with spam comprising 94.38% of the email traffic while it reached the lowest point on Tuesday October 12 with spam comprising 75.01% of all traffic.

According to an official from Email Systems, Cold and Flu season were the main reasons behind the increase in medical-related spam. They’ve analyzed that most of the mails originated from countries such as Uruguay, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Moldova, Japan, India and Hungary.

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Two Australians Sentenced To Prison For Internet Scam

An Australian mastermind of a global Internet scam was sentenced earlier this month to at least 4 years behind bars. Nick Marinellis pleaded guilty to 10 counts of fraud and 1 count of perverting the course of justice over the so-called Nigerian or West African scam, zdnet.com.au reported.

The convicted robbed victims of about AU$5 million.

Judge Barry Mahoney sentenced Nick Marinellis to 5 years and 3 months jail with a non-parole period of 4 years and 4 months. As Judge Mahoney emphasized, the sentence was needed to discourage others from committing the same offense.

In another case, Robert Andrew Street, a Melbourne financial adviser connected in a Nigerian investment scam has also been sentenced to 5 years and 3 months’ jail after using AU$1 million of client’s money to pay fees required by the Nigerian scammers.

Street got involved with the Nigerian scam after receiving a faxed letter from a Reverend Sam Kukah. The letter told that the Reverend was a representative of a Nigerian government body and offered to transfer US$65MM to Street’s account upon payment of up-front fees. Street used majority of the funds from his clients to transfer to various overseas destinations as payment for the up-front fees, after which he would receive US$65MM. Street deceived his clients by informing them that their funds will be used to complete a number of investments project he was developing. As a result, clients gave Street a total of AU$1,039,910.

Street pleaded guilty to five charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception between September 2001 and August 2002. Consequently, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) accepted an enforceable undertaking from Street permanently excluding him from the financial services industry.

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At a workshop organized by the Office of Fair Trading and the US Federal Trade Commission, nineteen industry bodies from 15 countries, excluding Russia and China, agreed to the London Action Plan, which commits them to communicate and cooperate on enforcement action to counter spam.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development task force, currently vice-chaired by the UK, is working on a tool kit for best practice, and held a workshop in Korea aimed to help Asian countries. UK also entered into a memorandum of understanding with Australia to tackle e-crime.

A European-wide database to hold all tricky sources was proposed all for the fight against spam.

According to MessageLabs, just by simply opening the email may be enough. MessageLabs, which discovered the new technique, is warning users and banks of this latest development. When the email is opened, a script is run which rewrites the host files of targeted PCs. In effect, the next time a user attempts to access online banking at one of the targeted banks, the new script redirects the user to fraudulent website which copies the site they were attempting to access.

MessageLabs reported that so far they have only seized a small number of new phishing emails in South America, where it is targeting Brazilian banks. However, this type of phishing scam could likely spread in other territories.

MessageLab official noted that currently the phishing technique would only affect users who have Windows Scripting Host enabled, certain ActiveX controls, and majority of users with up-to-date patches or most recent versions of Outlook. But it also warns that future iterations of such a scam may use Java script or similar means to create such vulnerability on users' machines.

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Opinion

Opinions From Inspector Mails Inspector Mails is the AI entity for Bigfoot's Anti-Spam Solution. He will be giving regular updates and opinions on current anti-spam trends.

Don’t Fall For This Anti-Spam Spam

Anne P. Mitchell, in her recent posting on The Spam Weblog (spam.weblogsinc.com), warned readers of a new spam making the rounds on the Web.

She wrote, thus: “The spam purports to come from an ‘official anti-spam corporation’ which controls all of the spam databases, and tells you that if you don’t ‘click on the link below’ to be removed from all of the spam databases, you will not have the right to complain about spam(!).

“Of course, this is a scam, designed to get you to confirm your email address (and who knows, ultimately, what else). But it’s entirely conceivable that people will be taken in by this, especially with the possibility of a ‘Do Not Email’ database being in the news recently.”

One of the versions of the email carries this subject line “(Username), Official Notification,” announcing: “We are an official anti-spam corporation and we aim to end spam by year 2005.”

The rest of spam text reads like this: “Your e-mail address has been determined to be included in several spam mailings. Even if you register a new email address, it will shortly be overwhelmed with unsolicited mail.

“We now maintain and control those junk mail databases and we are kindly asking you to remove your email address from those databases by clicking the link below.

“If you do not remove your email address, you will NOT have the right to complain about spam in the future and your email address will be treated as voluntarily participating in marketing mailings, also known as junk mail or spam.”

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Letters To The Editor

Whose Job Is It To Fight Spam? Your conclusion that the real spam problem is with users not doing their bit is extremely disappointing. Most people are not sophisticated enough to configure spam filters themselves. Most people are also not sophisticated enough to repair their own car engines. We go off to sell corporations, present legal cases in court, teach classfuls of children, and PAY people to do our spam filtering and car repair, just as you pay people to help you with corporate acquisitions, court cases, and your children's education. Wake up guys and gals - you are there to provide a service for a fee. If you don't like that, get out of the business. I've also been disappointed by my spam filtering - too much real mail is getting filtered (to the point where I have to ask several business contacts to fax me rather than emailing me), and there's still spam getting through. I will certainly not be renewing. The over-filtering is a particularly trying problem, and I'd much rather delete messages that I can tell are spam, rather than have to make special arrangements with people in order to get their correspondence. Best regards, Julia Lawrence

We agree that lack of user sophistication in software applications makes users unable to directly contribute to effective spam filtering, in terms of configuring anti-spam applications themselves. And it would be unfair to expect users to have that level of sophistication, as far as spam fighting is concerned. As the reader says, its not their job. That is exactly the reason why ready-to-use anti-spam services, such as Bigfoot Anti-Spam Solution, come into play - by removing the tasks of configuring, and updating filters away from the users. With Bigfoot Anti-Spam, all the user has to do is subscribe, while the task of updating filters rests on the service provider. On the other hand, what is being advocated especially here is for users to be responsible in terms of using their email addresses in a similar manner that you don't just give your home phone number to anybody you meet. The typical user activity of subscribing to mailing lists, services, or websites without scrutiny, and casually giving away their email addresses, contribute to making spam thrive. Regarding "over-filtering," or what is technically known as false-positives, this is fast becoming a painful problem for anti-spam service providers all-over. This especially becomes evident for service providers with a huge client base. The reason for this is spam is becoming more and more personal. The type of spam you get describes the type of Internet activity you have. This calls for more personalized anti-spam filtering. Though, considering the exponentially growing volume of email, on top of keeping a personalized anti-spam database, the storage and computing resources for this undertaking would be monstrous for any email service provider. But we are getting there.

We appreciate all of the comments and responses we have received about the newsletter. We will be addressing your concerns in the next issue. You may send your comments to antispam.review@bigfoot.com. Since we print some of the comments we receive, please advise us if you want your complete name and email address withheld. You may provide us with a first name, city and state, as an alternative.

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