Residential Services FAQ

Spam is a generic term for junk email. It's sometimes referred to as UCE, or Unsolicited Commercial Email, but the common definition of spam now includes non-commercial junk email, including things like chain letters, pyramid and get-rich-quick schemes and so on. Spam costs the sender very little to send but can carry costs for the recipients or the carriers.

In the early days of the public Internet, some advertisers realized that by collecting email addresses from Usenet groups and other sources, they could inexpensively put together mailing lists for direct emails that would be delivered to large numbers of Internet users, much the same way direct mail sent through the postal service can blanket an area with items addressed to "Resident" or "Occupant". Later, email addresses were collected through online forms or registration pages and used in direct email lists.

Over time, spammers have grown increasingly creative in sending messages to multiple recipients, to the point now of creating lists of common usernames and sending to those names at any given ISP's domain, feeling confident that a good number of the messages will reach someone. That means that you're no longer safe from spam just because you don't give out your email address in forms on web sites or to anyone but friends.

"Email Spoofing" is a nasty trend in spam. Spoofing may occur in different forms, but all have a similar result: A user receives email that appears to have originated from one source when it actually was sent from another source.

Email spoofing is often an attempt to trick the user into making a damaging statement or releasing sensitive information (such as passwords.)

A common side effect of spoofing is returned email. If the spoofed message is rejected by the intended email, the return or failed to deliver message is sent to the email address the spoofer used.

The concept is the user simply changes their outgoing mail to another person's email address. This results in email(s) being sent that look like they have originated from someone else's email address.

Spoofers can retrieve email addresses by using viruses such as "MyDoom." The virus essentially grabs email addresses listed on the computer's email program, or stored in other places on the computer's hard drive. It then starts using the email addresses it retrieved as outgoing mail addresses to send spam/viruses onto others.

Here are a few steps you can take when dealing with spoofing:

1. Never respond to the spoofed email or to requests for personal information from email. Responding to the spoof also verifies you as an active email account and could result in more spam.
2. We strongly recommend you protect your computer from viruses by using a virus protection package.

First, make sure you actually have a virus. If you believe you have a virus because you received an email from someone telling you that they passed one along to you and they're sorry, you probably don't have one. There are many virus hoaxes that continually circulate around the Internet, causing people to worry unnecessarily and even delete files that aresupposed to be on their computer. Some good examples:

• jdbgmgr.exe
• sulfnbak.exe

If you aren't sure whether something is a hoax, try looking it up here: About.com's Virus Encyclopedia.

That site also includes great information about preventing viruses, repairing damage from a virus, and breaking news about new viruses.

Now, if you still believe you have a virus, you may actually have files at risk, so limit your actions on your computer until you can get it checked out. Many viruses aren't really damaging, but some can be, so either check your computer with anti-virus software or have someone at a computer repair center check it.

We strongly recommend that computers used to access the Internet and exchange files have anti-virus software installed on them. Also, do not accept email attachments from persons you don't know, and be wary of them from persons you do know if you weren't expecting them (or even if you were, just to be safe). Keep in mind that just reading a standard email message does not carry danger, but attachments in emails can be infected.

If you have specific questions about viruses, or believe your computer may have one but aren't sure how to confirm or what to do, you can call our Technical Support staff at 1.800.599.1000 for assistance. We'll be happy to help you assess the situation and plan a course of action.