404 Compliant
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Website that has been terminated for spamming. Refers to
a Page not found error (404 error).
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A |
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The department at an ISP which is responsible for
handling and acting on net abuse complaints.
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Anonymizer
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Proxy service set up to prevent websites from obtaining
information such as your e-mail address or your current IP
address from your browser.
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APNIC
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Asia-Pacific Network Information Center. APNIC registers
and maintains the registration information for domains in Asia, Australia,
etc.
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ARIN
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American Registry of Internet Numbers.
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Acceptable Use Policy.
Part of an ISP’s contract with its customers that usually defines what
is considered net abuse. AUPs state which activities are allowable and
which activities may get your account terminated.
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Response
from an Autoresponder
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Program which automatically responds to mail. Commonly used by abuse desks to acknowledge
spam complaints.
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B |
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Primary provider
of infrastructure such as trunk lines,
dial-ups and cabling for the Internet.
The “backbone” providers are the ultimate upstream providers.
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A measure of data transfer proportional to the amount of
data transferred in a given time.
Most common measurements seen by users are bits per second (bps). Larger, more complex files require more
bandwidth.
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Blind Carbon Copy field in an e-mail that is normally not
visible to the recipients. Used by
spammers to conceal their mailing lists.
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| Bit
Bucket |
Electronic
trash can for mail servers. |
Black Hat
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ISP that is non-responsive to spam complaints.
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Program used to perform a repetitive task
automatically. Most common bots are
designed to monitor IRC channels and search webpages or newsgroups for e-mail
addresses.
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Rejection of mail from the receiving e-mail server.
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C |
CAUCE
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Coalition Against Unsolicited E-mail.
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D |
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Usenet news posting and archival service.
Now known as Deja.com
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| Dev/Null |
From
the UNIX "null device". Colloquialism for deleting mail
(especially to abuse desks) without reading it.
See bit bucket. |
| DIG |
Domain
Internet Groper. Advanced DNS tool that returns all
of the available Resource Records for a given domain or host. |
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DNS
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Domain Name System. Locations on the Internet are
identified by IP addresses. Allows
users to type in domain names by translating domain names into the IP
addresses.
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Domain
Name
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Canonical (simple or registered) name of a given IP
address.
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Denial of Service Attacks. Attack on an individual or server that is aimed at preventing
normal use of the net. DoS attacks
include mailbombing, smurf attacks, etc.
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Drop Box
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E-mail address used by a spammer to gather responses to
spam.
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| E |
| F |
FAQ
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Program which can be configured to allow only data
meeting certain criteria to pass.
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Firewall
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Security program or programs that protect the system or
network from unauthorized use or access.
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| G |
| H |
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The act of gathering e-mail addresses from newsgroups or
websites, usually through the use of a bot.
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The “technical” data of an e-mail or post that identifies
the path or route the item took, the recipients, the sender, the point of
origin, time stamps, the client used, etc.
Many parts of the header can be forged.
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Hijacked
Relay
Hijacked Server
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A
mailserver used without permission to send spam.
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| Hop |
The
trip a packet of information takes from one router
to the next. |
HTH
|
Hope This Helps
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Hyper Text Markup Language. Programming language that is the basis of most websites. Browsers interpret this code to display
the site.
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I |
IANAL
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I Am Not A Lawyer
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Ignorebot
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Autoresponder that bit buckets spam complaints
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The
point at which spam entered the net. Can be a dial-up, mail server,
etc. |
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Internet Network Information Center. InterNIC registers and maintains the
registration information for “.net”, “.com” and “.org” domains.
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IP
IP
Address
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Internet Protocol.
System of identifying all computers on the internet with a unique
numerical address. Configuration for
an IP address is
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where each set of numbers must be between 0 and 255.
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Program (script) which identifies the computer and/or
owner or a given IP address.
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Forging an IP address of a trusted server into the
packets of information sent to a server in place of the real IP address.
Because the IP address appears to be that of an authorized sender, the
receiving server will act on commands it receives. |
| IRC |
Internet
Relay Chat |
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Internet Service Provider
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| J |
| K |
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Acknowledgement that a spammer’s account or site has been
terminated by the ISP or hosting service in response to an abuse report.
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L |
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LART
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Valuable anti-spammer weapon. Stands for Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool - tool of choice is often a clue-by-four.
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List Serve
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Program commonly used to distribute mailing
lists.
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Lumber
Cartel
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There
is no Lumber Cartel. |
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Lame
User |
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M |
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Sending a large quantity of e-mail to an address in an
attempt to prevent legitimate mail to get through. A form of DoS attack.
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Organized group of users, which have agreed to receive
regular mailings on a particular subject.
Most legitimate mailing lists will require the subscriber to confirm
by responding to an initial e-mail.
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MAPS
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Mail Abuse Prevention System
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MLM
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Multi-Level Marketing.
Scheme based on the old pyramid marketing scams. MLMs are illegal in the United
States. Sometimes called Make Lots of
Money scams.
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Munge
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To obscure an e-mail address to prevent harvesting by
bots
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Anti-Spam Bill proposed by Senator Frank Murkowski of
Alaska, often cited by spammers. The
Bill has not passed Congress and is not law. It requires users or ISPs to
opt-out rather than opt-in. It is
being fought by most anti-spam organizations in favor of stronger opt-in
legislation.
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N |
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news.admin.net.abuse.e-mail Newsgroup.
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NANAU
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news.admin.net.abuse.usenet Newsgroup.
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O |
Open Relay
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Mail server which allows mail to be forwarded from the
originating server through it to the destination server.
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| Opt-in |
Procedure
by which users must make a request to be on a mailing list. |
| Opt-out |
Procedure
by which users must make a request not to be on a mailing list. |
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Open Relay Behaviour-Modification System. Database which tracks SMTP mail servers
which permit third party relaying of e-mail.
Confirmation that the relay has been used by spammers is
not required, making ORBS somewhat controversial. Database can be used as a
filter to prevent a mail server from
receiving mail from a listed domain.
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P |
| Packet |
A
self-contained bundle of data used to transport information. |
Parse
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To break a header up into parts in order to determine the
sending server.
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Packet Internet Groper.
Program that can determine if an IP address exists, is operational, and is able
to accept commands.
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Point
of Presence. Point of access to the Internet. Commonly associated with
modem banks used for dial-up access to an ISP. |
Port
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Location
for connection to a device. Ports may be physcial, such as a parallel
port or logical. |
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Logical
port associated with an SMTP mail server. |
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Mail
server configuration that prevents a user on one server from connecting to Port
25 on another server. ISPs use this block as a
means of preventing a user on their system from relaying
spam through a secondary server. |
PTB
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Powers That Be
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| Q |
| R |
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Realtime Blackhole List. Filtering
system that prevents ISPs from receiving mail from listed IP
addresses.
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rDNS
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Reverse Domain Name System. Provides the domain name for a given IP
address.
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Forward e-mail through a mail server.
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Relay check
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To test a server to determine if it allows third party
relaying
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RIPE
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Regional Internet Registry for Europe and surrounding
areas.
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Rogue
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An ISP that does not enforce its TOS
or AUP.
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| Router |
Determines
the next location a packet should be sent to on the
way to its destination. May be hardware or software. |
| RRSS |
Radparker
Relay Spam Stopper - is a list of open email relays which have been used to send
spam. Database can be used as a filter to prevent a mail server from
receiving mail from a listed domain. |
|
S |
| Smurf
Attack |
DoS
attack consisting of a large number of pings
directed to a specific IP address. |
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Terms that refers to the same thing over and over.
Originally applied to massive Usenet crossposting, but
now expanded to include most forms of net abuse. The term
"spam" is most commonly used to refer to unsolicited e-mail and
usenet abuse.
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Domain
that exists to support spammers. |
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News Server based software which removes Usenet
Spam from
a newsfeed.
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Spamtrap
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An
e-mail address set up for the purpose of collecting spam for research.
Sometimes to test newsgroups for harvesters,
remove addresses for legitimacy or check domains to determine if they are spamhauses. |
Spamware
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A
program created for the purpose of net abuse. Most commonly used to
refer to bulk mail programs and e-mail lists. |
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Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. TCP/IP protocol typically used for sending e-mail.
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See
IP Spoofing |
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T |
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An
ISP account set up to send spam, with the knowledge that the account will be
terminated by the ISP for this activity. Often free 30-day trials are
used for this purpose. |
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(1)
An e-mail account set up by a user to function as a valid address with the
intent of discarding it when it starts receiving spam.
(2)
An e-mail account set up by a spammer to function as a reply to or remove
address in order to protect the spammers real account. Mail is often
forwarded from these to the real account. |
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Terms of Service.
Contract of an ISP or hosting service with its customers. Defines the terms under which the provider
and the customer will operate. See
also AUP
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Account closed for a violation of the ISP's Terms of Service.
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Action on the part of a user which is in violation of the
ISP's Terms of Service and can cause the account to be terminated.
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Relay through a server when neither the sender nor the
receiver has a legitimate presence on that server.
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