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| Frequently Asked Questions |
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This section describes Pathway's spam control service and answers commonly asked questions. You may click on any link below to go directly to a specific topic. |
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What is spam?
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“Spam” is defined as unsolicited bulk or commercial e-mail. In other words, it is e-mail you do not want to receive and did not sign up for. Spam usually contains unwanted advertisements, solicitations to visit websites or buy products or services. The volume of spam is mounting and has grown to the point where up to 40% of all email on the Internet today is spam. This will likely continue to grow to the point where the volume of spam will shortly overtake that of legitimate email. It is also expanding beyond computers to cell-phone text messages.
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Spam is a serious problem, and imposes heavy costs on Internet users, companies with email systems and ISPs. It wastes vast amounts of time, can be highly offensive or fraudulent in nature and consumes valuable Internet resources and bandwidth. Several Internet users are forced to change their e-mail addresses because they receive so much spam. Most spam is also deceptive. The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. recently examined spam forwarded by consumers and found that nearly two-thirds contained false information. In 2002, the FTC found that only about one-third of requests to be taken off spammers lists were honored.
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Why is spamming growing? Because it pays the spammer. Spamming is far cheaper than conventional mail and spammers can broadcast a million messages for as little as $200. If even a few recipients buy the product advertised, the campaign is successful. |
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How does a spammer obtain my e-mail address?
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Does Pathway sell my e-mail address? |
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No we do not. In the interest of ensuring your privacy, Pathway has never, and will never, in any way, publicize your e-mail address or any other subscriber information. All such data are kept strictly confidential. |
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So how do spammers obtain my e-mail address? |
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In the past, most spammers obtained email addresses from postings on Usenet newsgroups or chat rooms. Most, if not all information from these sources, is available to the general public. For example, posting to a newsgroup will easily expose your email address worldwide in a matter of hours. Such email addresses are easily accessed by spammers. |
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The most common method currently used by spammers is to obtain your email address from web pages. If your e-mail address is listed on a web page anywhere on the Internet, and especially if that page can be accessed by a search engine or directory, spammers will find it fairly quickly by using software tools called scanners. |
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Scanning software automatically, and very rapidly, searches web pages and retrieves vast numbers of email addresses. For example, scanning software can ask a search engine for all web pages that have the word "cat" in it and then harvest all the email addresses off the pages returned. This leads to a "targeted" list of people with a presumed interest in cats. It takes only minutes to gather thousands of these addresses. Of course, how "targeted" such lists are is a matter of opinion. Nevertheless, spammers do not really care if you are interested in their message or not. They are generally paid for sending out vast amounts of email. |
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Email address can also be compromised by subscribing to newsletters or by entering your email address on websites without reading the site privacy policy. Several websites include clauses, which allow the site owner to pass your email address on to "email marketing companies". I do not publicize my email address, yet I receive spam OR My spam appears addressed to an alphabetical list of my company/ISP's customers. |
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Spammers also use another method, called a "dictionary attack" to obtain email addresses. They use software, which sends messages to a large number of recipients at a company or an Internet Service Provider in simple alphabetical order. The software sends a message to every email address within a specific domain (for example, starting with aaa@domain.com, aab@domain.com, aac@domain.com and so on). The more complex your email address, the less the chance of it being within a spammer's dictionary. Undeliverable messages (with no valid email address) usually bounce back to the sender within a few hours. By removing these incorrect guesses from the original list of alphabetical names the spammer is left with a list of valid email addresses. This may explain why you sometimes see spam targeted at an alphabetical list of customers or why you receive spam when you never published your email address. |
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Mailing lists of are often re-circulated within the spamming community. Thus, if you are receiving spam now, you will likely to continue to receive it for as long as your email address is valid. |
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What is Pathway doing to stop spam?
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At Pathway, we have been concerned about filtering out spam for a long time. On average, we filter out approximately 2.1 million spam messages addressed to our clients each month! |
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Spam control is a key part of our service and we are constantly looking for new and improved ways to deal with this menace and we are currently taking several steps to filter out spam: |
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Black hole lists: The ISP community retains a list of known servers from which spam originates. Spammers however, "hijack" un-secured mail servers i.e. those that are left open for anyone to use their built in email relays. Hence, this "black hole" list is constantly changing. We filter out mail originating from servers on these lists. |
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Key-word filters: Pathway also filters out a large amount of spam based on key-words that are, typically, found in most spam email. Our software scans the subject and the content of email messages to identify and remove email with offensive content. Our users have the ability to turn these filters off and to harness additional filtering power by using their email client software. |
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Pattern identification: We have also configured our mail servers to automatically notify our mail administrators whenever certain "patterns" are recognized in any large number of incoming mail messages. For example, if a large number of messages with substantially the same Subject header, or of the same length, or numerous groups of messages are all sent to the same number of recipients, these are flagged as potential "spam". These messages are reviewed by our staff and are either accepted or rejected based on their content. By watching for such patterns, we are able to stop a large number of unwanted messages from reaching our customers |
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Why can you not block all unsolicited email addressed to me?
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Spammers are constantly coming up with ways to defeat spam control systems. For example, spammers now send text messages in the form of pictures - which bypass text filters. It is therefore impossible to stop all spam completely. Besides, the more stringent the filtering rules, the greater the danger of "false positives" - i.e. the identification of legitimate mail as spam. Since legitimate email is our top priority, our goal is to prevent the maximum amount of spam from reaching customers with no false positives. |
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How does Pathway's new TrueMail™ spam control system work?
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Effective September 3, 2003, Pathway is implementing a new and greatly improved spam screening system - called TrueMail™. This new, robust system is based on state of the art software and is effective in blocking up to 99% of spam. In addition to the methods described above, TrueMail uses three other methods for spam control: |
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DCC (Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse): DCC is a public repository of thousands of clients and more than 150 servers that collects information relating to emails deemed as spam. In essence, the DCC keeps track of the unique "checksum count", a specific signature, of email that has been sent in bulk on the Internet. Any email that is sent in large volumes on the Internet indicates that it may be spam. Pathway's software reports the checksums for a mail message to a DCC server and is told the total number of recipients of email with that checksum. If the number of such emails is higher than a threshold set by Pathway the message is treated as spam. |
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Bayesian analysis: Pathway's TrueMail system uses Bayesian analysis to identify email as spam. TrueMail calculates the probability of a message being spam based on its contents. Unlike simple content-based filters, Bayesian spam filtering is highly accurate and "learns" from the spam and valid email it sorts out, becoming more accurate as the number of mail it filters grows. This results in a very robust, adaptive and efficient anti-spam system that returns very low false positives. |
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LastLook™ - eliminating false positives. False positives are innocent emails that are mistakenly identified as spam. Missing legitimate email is much more serious than dealing with spam. Since no software can identify spam with 100% certainty, Pathway has integrated a "last look" by a Pathway employee into every email identified as spam. No other provider anywhere offers this service! Because a human being can almost immediately identifiable spam as such, this virtually eliminates false positives. |
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How do I use TrueMail?
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With TrueMail, Pathway offers you two choices to deal with spam: |
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Spam quarantine: By default, Pathway will set its new system to quarantine all email deemed as spam at the source - i.e. before it reaches your mailbox. With a low false positive rate and with LastLook we are confident that this will suit the needs of almost all our users. Quarantined spam will be retained in a special spam folder for a period of 28 days, after which it will be deleted. You may log in to view your quarantined spam at any time via a web interface and retrieve any email you wish. This system prevents spam and other offensive material from ever reaching your mailbox and eliminates the need for you to manage spam yourself. |
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Spam tagging: If you would rather manage spam using filters in your email software (this is quite easily done), you may choose to have your email tagged rather than quarantined. Under this option, Pathway will tag all email deemed to be spam by inserting the label ***SPAM*** in the subject line of each message delivered to you which is identified as spam. You may then set your local mail filter to divert all such tagged messages to a "spam folder" and review and eliminate these messages yourself. |
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What happens to the earlier Generic Filters that were set? Do I need to bother with these now?
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The Generic Filters you set earlier will continue to function. We believe that the TrueMail spam control system is superior to the previous system used by Pathway to block spam and will result in less spam getting through to you. You are welcome to use the Generic Filters in future, as an additional screen to weed out legitimate email, which you do not wish to receive, or to block spam, which may get by TrueMail. |
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I'm happy with the quarantine option, but how do I review and, possibly, retrieve my email?
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By default Pathway will automatically quarantined spam for everyone. All mail addressed to you will be dumped into a special spam folder located at Pathway. Your spam messages will retain for a period of two weeks after which they be automatically deleted. You may log in to view your quarantined spam at any time using your web browser and retrieve or delete any email you wish. To access your quarantined mail, please login at Plan Services and then click on the ‘Spam Mailbox’ button in the main menu. |
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What should I do with spam that gets by TrueMail?
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 the headers from the email into the body of the email (these are normally erased when you forward email using Outlook). Pathway will use this email to further "train" the software we use so that future incidents are reduced. |
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What will TrueMail spam control cost me?
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Nothing! TrueMail™ is completely free for all Pathway clients who use our email servers to receive mail. This includes dial up, hosting and high-speed clients. This new service represents our continuing commitment to providing our valued clients with unsurpassed service at all times. |
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Do I need to enroll for TrueMail spam control?
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No you do not need to enroll. You are automatically enrolled for this service if you are a Pathway client who uses Pathway's mail servers to send and receive email. Effective August 30th 2003, your email will be filtered using the TrueMail™ system, with spam automatically quarantined at Pathway Communications. |
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We are corporate high-speed clients with our own mail servers. Can we use the TrueMail service?
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Yes, you may. For your own convenience, we will only offer you the spam tagging option. To use this service, you will need to make changes on your email server. Please, contact our Technical Service Department at 416-214-6363 (Toronto) and 905-570-8789 (Hamilton) for instructions on how this can be done. For those who are interested, Pathway also offers a combined spam and virus control appliance that sits on your network. Please, contact our Corporate Sales department at 416-214-6363 for more information on this exciting new product. |
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How can I unsubscribe from spam that I receive?
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a. Should I follow the spammer's instructions to remove my name from the mailing list?
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No, you should not! The best thing to do is to simply delete the message without reading it. Using the 'remove me' link (or e-mail) is never a good idea, unless you requested to be on the list in the first place (in which case your mail is not really spam). Most of the time, a "remove" request will just not work. However, when it does, you are simply letting the spammer know that you are reading and responding to their e-mail. As a result, you will probably be deluged with more spam. |
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b. Should I write to the spammer and complain? OR "I try to reply but the message is returned to me." You should not reply to spam. Most spam contains fake "From", and "Reply-To" message fields. Thus, trying to respond to the address in the "From" header results in your message being "bounced" back to you as undeliverable. |
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What can I do to avoid spam?
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While nothing we do will entirely eliminate spam, if you are currently receiving large volumes of spam, we are hopeful that our new spam control measures will help. There are several things you can do to avoid being a target for spammers in the future: |
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Always guard your personal and official email addresses carefully. Use a separate address when you post messages to newsgroups and chat rooms or if you list your name on a website. |
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Read the "small print" when you fill out online forms. Avoid agreeing to have your email address passed on or used in any manner other than for the express purpose for which you are completing the form. Always uncheck "check boxes" that grant the website permission to send you any further nonessential material or "updates". |
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Never sign up with websites that promise to remove your name from spam lists. Most sites are owned or exploited by the spammers. |
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Avoid using an easy-to-guess e-mail address such as "JimSmith@isp.com." Instead, choose a longer email address, possibly, with digits embedded in it, such as Jim8mith2@isp.com. |
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Do not open email if you don't know whom it's from. Check the subject line carefully. If both, the subject and sender appear suspicious, delete the email. Spam is often designed to send a message back to the spammer since the recipient has opened the email, thus confirming that your email address is being used. If your e-mail program has a "preview pane," disable it to prevent spam from reporting to its sender that you've received it. |
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Avoid forwarding chain letters, petitions or virus warnings. All these could be a spammer's ploy to collect email addresses. |
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Never purchase products or services advertised by spammers. Remember, they only send these mass-mails out because it is profitable for them when people purchase their products. If spamming were no longer profitable, spammers would stop. |
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If you receive a spam that promotes a brand, complain to the company behind the brand over the telephone - remember not to provide your email address over the phone either. |
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Pathway SecureNet
Pathway SecureNet
