2004.09_No More Spam-Make Time for the Things You Want to Do by Automating Spam Management.pdf

No more Spam Intro

COVER STORY

No more Spam!

When I switch on my computer in the morning, it seems that the red light district has taken over my mailbox. The

Internet is full of hackers, viruses, Trojans, and miscellaneous malware. BY PATRICIA JUNG

puter “outside your door”? Just like

in real life, the answer is yes, assum-

ing that you are well-informed and have

the right kind of protection. Even so,

there is no such thing as 100% protec-

tion against unexpected attacks.

Although you can drown in the bath-

tub, most normal people feel safe

enough leaving their homes and ventur-

ing out into the streets, although there is

always the danger of a murderer hanging

around on a park bench, a pickpocket in

the subway, or an inattentive driver not

braking in time. The situation in the vir-

tual world is quite similar. If you surf the

Web, there is the danger of malware

infection. If you have an email account,

you are bound to be spammed sooner or

later. Also, if you connect your machine

up to the Internet, you might be hacked.

Bad enough, but no reason to con-

demn the Internet, ignoring its

advantages and hankering for the good

old days before the rise of public net-

works. Malevolent and criminal activity

seems to be inevitable wherever people

meet. It does not make sense to bury

your head in the sand. Instead, you

should work on developing self-defense

and self-assertion techniques.

In the case of viruses, worms, and Tro-

jans (see page 20), simply using Linux

may be the answer. On the one hand, the

Linux operating system provides a cer-

tain degree of protection, assuming that

you use a non-privileged account to

access the Internet. On the other hand,

Linux, and the software applications that

run on Linux, are not the most attractive

of targets to malware authors (or have

not been thus far). The article on page

20 tells you how to harden your sys-

tem sufficiently to safely surf the

Internet.

tive approaches are typically beyond the

reach of mere mortal network users, but

at least you can react. On page 26, we

reveal the techniques that can help you

keep your own mail address hidden from

spammers for as long as possible, with-

out having to do without email entirely.

Just to keep your adrenalin level as low

as possible while checking your mailbox,

you might prefer to be more circumspect

about the type of messages you down-

load (page 30).

■

Immune, but not

inactive

Although Windows viruses

cannot attack Linux soft-

ware, responsible Internet

citizens will try to avoid

exposing unsuspecting

Windows users to nasty

surprises. There are many

approaches to doing so:

regularly scanning the

Windows file servers

on the local network

for viruses, checking

the message from

your neighbor for

infection before you

forward the MS

Word attachment

to another Win-

dows user (page

35).

Finally, that

leaves us with

the exasperat-

ing subject of

spam. Proac-

COVER STORY

Protection ............................. 20

Hardening your computer and minimizing

the risk of attacks from intruders who are

intent on harm.

Spam-proof Homepages ... 26

How to design and implement spamproof

homepages. Avoid the email address har-

vesters, and reduce your spam load.

POP3 Antispam .................... 30

Save your hard disk space for your needs. Kill

the spam on your ISP’s POP3 server before it

ever gets downloaded to your machine.

Clam AV Antivirus ............... 35

Fight Windows viruses on your Linux box

and safguard your entire network with the

antivirus tool ClamAV.

www.linux-magazine.com September 2004

Hardening your computer, defending against malware and spam

I s it really a good idea to set up a com-

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