The Library

Local Documents

SamSpade.org Frequently Asked Questions
A FAQ about this website and the services offered
IP & DNS
A tutorial on IP addresses and domain name servers
traceroute
A whimsical description of traceroute
Decoding JavaScript
How to deal with webpages obfuscated using JavaScript
news.admin.net-abuse.email FAQ
A few frequently asked questions that aren't covered elsewhere
ISO 3166 Country Codes
Need to know where in the world http://www.vatican.va/ is?
Tools
A short list of tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

Email Abuse
Abuse of email, including mailbombs, unsolicited bulk email.
Email Abuse Resources
Currently unavailable
Internet Abuse
Another list of documents
Net Abuse
Most of the FAQs about the news.admin.net-abuse.* usenet hierarchy
Procmail
A mail filtering system for unix
Frequently asked questions about spam
Legal and ethical issues with online advertising
Deciphering E-mail and Posts
A huge list of resources
Tactical Net Abuse
Dealing with online trolls
Dealing with Trolls, Crossposting and Flames
How to protect your newsgroup from vandals.
Teergrubing
Building tar pits to slow down email. Generally ineffective.
CAUCE FAQ
About the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email.
Address Forgery
How to break your email address. Doing this at all when sending email is extremely rude. Doing this the wrong way on usenet, ditto. This document will tell you the right way to do it when posting to usenet - then it's only somewhat rude.
Filtering Mail
Filtering mail on unix systems using procmail, mailagent and the elm filter
news.admin.net-abuse.*
All about the news.admin.net-abuse.* usenet hierarchy

RFCs

RFCs are the working documents and rules of the Internet. They are the authoritative answer on any internet related technical question.

Some relevant RFCs:
Netiquette
RFC 1855
Internet Protocol
RFC 792, RFC 1122
Private Addresses
RFC 1918
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
RFC 821, RFC 2821
Mail Format
RFC 822, RFC 1138, RFC 1148, RFC 1327, RFC 2156, RFC 2822
Post Office Protocol (POP3)
RFC 1939, RFC 1957
HTTP/1.1
RFC 2068
Site Security
RFC 2196
Mailbox Names
RFC 2142
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
RFC 977

Other Resources

Usenet

news.admin.net-abuse.email
News.admin.net-abuse.email is a forum for discussion of possible abuses of e-mail. Possible topics include mailbombing, denial-of-service attacks, "listserv bombs", unsolicited and/or unwanted mail, email address lists, mailing list abuse, large-scale mailings in general, chain letters, "email viruses" such as Good Times, filtering software such as procmail, and so forth.
High noise. Moderate signal.
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
News.admin.net-abuse.usenet is a forum for discussion of possible abuses of Usenet. Possible topics include spamming or Excessive Multi-Posting (EMP), Excessive Cross-Posting (ECP), Usenet chain letters such as MAKE.MONEY.FAST, forged or third-party cancellations, broken Usenet gateways, forgery of another user, forged approvals in moderated groups, massively crossposted "flametrolls", abuse of the newsgroup creation system, general purpose netiquette, and so forth.
High noise. Low signal.
news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
News.admin.net-abuse.sightings is a forum for reports of sightings of net abuse.
alt.spam
Originally intended for the discussion of SPAM it's now mostly discussion of email and occasionally usenet abuse. A kinder, gentler news.admin.net-abuse.email, the signal level is lower, but so is the noise level. A good place for newbies to ask for help and advice.

Mailing lists

SPAM-L
SPAM-L is a LISTSERV mailing list created on August 18th, 1995 and is dedicated to "Spam prevention and Discussion". That means discussion of spam-prevention, not debating the merits (or lack thereof) of spam. Tips, tricks, procmail recipes, resources forfighting spam, etc. are all welcome. In addition, many people copy SPAM-L on their response to a given spam. This is OK, within certain guidelines.
Spamtools
The spamtools mailing list is dedicated to software tools that detect and process unsolicited bulk e-mail. Tools for any platform are of interest, although most user-level tools are written for Unix and for Windows, and most server-level tools are for Unix.
Freemail
Hosted by the Forum for Responsible and Ethical Email it's a good place to kick around ideas, call for local help, bitch about the website, etc.

Other Documents and Websites

Spam fighting at abuse.net
Lots of good stuff hosted by abuse.net, the net abuse clearinghouse. Includes lots of ways of filtering spam of all flavours from your account or an entire site.
S.P.(U.T.U.)M.
Primarily about usenet spam rather than email spam. Well worth a read, particularly SpuTools®
Tracking the source of email spam
Ed Falks fine description of what the different lines in an email header mean, and what to look at to trace the source of a spam
All about spam
Introduction to spam, and a few ways to reduce the amount you get
The Anti-Spam HOWTO
Good, short introduction to the basics of decoding headers and finding the right postmaster to complain to
The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
Lots of background, history and politics
Death to Spam!
Some good advice on retaliating against spam. Be very careful about threatening Denial-of-Service attacks against the host ISP, though. Doing it is illegal in most places, threatening it may be illegal in some.
Jason Walter, have a nice day!
One case study in spammer hunting.
Yahoo - spam
Lots more resources at Yahoo!

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