Controlling Spam
What is SPAM?
Spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail. Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger group of messages, all with almost identical content. Click here for information on the SPAM act in Australia.
aaNet does not sell or disclose your email address to any third parties. Your best defense is to be very, very careful about giving out your email address – especially online.
How to stop spammers getting hold of my email address
1) Never reply to a spam email – you are just confirming your email address is live.
2) Never forward chain emails – in most cases these are hoax emails and spammers can get hold of your email address via this method.
3) Never open an email attachment if you’re not sure who it’s from. Most viruses and Trojan Horses are transferred this way.
4) Don’t allow your email address to be seen by the general public on social networks. You can edit your settings on the social site to prevent this.
5) When ordering online – make sure you read everything on the order page, especially when it has a tick box. Most companies want to send you promotional emails, and in most cases you probably want to receive these. However, if they also want to send your information to third parties, check that you know who they are.
6) Use blind copies (bcc) when you’re emailing a group of people – this will protect their email address.
7) Don’t use the preview pane option in your email software. An email displaying graphics will often contain a unique reference code. When you read the email you are potentially telling spammers that your email address is valid. You should turn off the option to display images in emails and if you know an email is from a trusted source you can view the images.
8) Be suspicious – If you receive an email regarding suspicious activity on your bank account or a popular website don’t click on any links in the email. If you are not sure, manually find the company website via a search engine and use this website address, and enquire about the email. If a complete stranger walked up to you in the street and asked you to give them your credit card details because of a problem with your bank, would you?
Good practice against SPAM
1) A good rule of thumb is only give your email address to those who you would also give your home address.
2) If the person you want to email does not fit into the 'home address' category, create a new email address for this purpose. You have 15 free email addresses with your aaNet account. You can setup a new email address via your members section.
If you already have a SPAM problem
If you already have a SPAM problem with one of your aaNet email addresses, you can configure your aaNet anti-SPAM settings to try and reduce the amount of SPAM you are receiving. aaNet's anti-SPAM settings are already set to a 'Default' level, however if you need to increase the security levels to reduce SPAM further, you can login to your members section and edit your SPAM settings following the steps below.
If all else fails and your still overrun with SPAM, you can setup up a new aaNet email address and let your legitimate contacts know your new email address. You can then delete your old email address.
Configuring your aaNet anti-SPAM settings
Step 1 - Log into your members section by going to the homepage www.aanet.com.au and entering your username (your ADSL telephone number) and password in the circled area.
Step 2 - Click on 'manage email accounts' (circled)
Step 3 - Under the 'Change Anti-Spam settings for Email Address'; select your email from the drop down box. Then click 'Edit'
Step 4 - You will see the default spam setting which are applied to your email. You can edit your settings by selecting 'Advanced' from the tick box (circled). Press 'Process' to apply
Step 5 - Once you selected advanced you can select which spam settings you want to apply by ticking the boxes. Press 'Process' to apply the settings you have selected.
Spam settings glossary
Grey listing - Grey listing works on a server level. When the aaNet mail server receives an email which isn’t in its white list, the mail server sends an error message back to the sending server. The error message sent by aaNet requests the sending server to re-send the original email to validate it. When the same email is sent back to aaNet’s mail server it will then be delivered to your email inbox. After 24 hours the process starts again. It is assumed that a spammer will not re-send the original email back.
DNS Blacklisting - these are lists of domains which are known to be spammers. aaNet offers a range of blacklists to use, each maintained by third party websites which are listed on the anti-spam page.
SpamAssassin - this is a third party program which has been installed on the mail server and is designed to combat spam. It uses a variety of techniques including blacklists, DNS based and databases.