Spam FAQ

What is spam/UCE?
Spam or UCE (unsolicted commercial e-mail) is simply unrequested e-mail or newsgroup messages which are sent out to more than 4 recipients to advertise a product, service, website or view. Most Internet users receive a number of pieces of spam per day. Spam is the same as all that junk mail you receive everyday to your home. While it inevitably ends up being thrown away, it is a hassle for people to have to sort through on a constant basis. Unfortunately, much spam is adult-oriented and is inappropriate for children.

How did I get on a spam list?
It is rather quite easy to get your e-mail address placed onto a spam list. Spammers typically cull their target lists from newsgroup postings, discussion web sites and any other on-line medium which contains a large collection of e-mail addresses. The more you use the Internet, the greater the likelihood that you will be spammed.

What should I do when I get spam?
First of all, DO NOT REPLY to spam! Many spammers use this as a method to verify that your e-mail address is valid. Most people simply delete the unwanted spam e-mails and move on with life, however, if you are being spammed repeatedly with the same (or similar) message please forward it with complete headers to our Galaxy Abuse Department at abuse@gis.net. Our Abuse Department will take the necessary steps to report this abuse.

What if Galaxy's customers send spam?
Galaxy has a very strict "two-strikes" policy regarding spam/UCE being sent out from anywhere within our network. The first time we receive complaints about a user's spamming activities, the user's accounts will be suspended until the user contact's one of our technical supervisors. After the second time we receive complaints about a user's repeated spamming activities we will permanently revoke the user's service. We feel that spammers are the lowest life-form on the food-chain and need to be exterminated. Also, be aware that concurrent with our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), we will impose a service fee of $1/message for every piece of spam mailed out from within the Galaxy network.

Why are "full headers" so important?
The only way that we can track down the origin of a piece of spam is by analyzing the header information included in every e-mail. The header information contains all kinds of information about the e-mail message, including who its from and how it got into your mailbox. Many spammers try to disguise their identities and intentionally try to "fake" header information to make their spam e-mails untraceable. Full header information looks like this:

Return-Path: 
Received: from cdgsvr.waltdisney (ppp37-58.gis.net 
        [216.41.37.58]) by mail2.panix.com (Postfix) 
        with ESMTP id 02A8F15676 for ; Wed,  6 
        Oct 1999 13:03:39 -0400 (EDT)
Received: by CDGSVR with Internet Mail Service 
        (5.5.2448.0) id ; Wed, 6 Oct 1999 12:53:19 
        -0500
Message-ID: 
From: michelle drolet 
To: information 
Subject: Security/Virus Alert V1.4
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 12:52:23 -0500 
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0)
Content-Type: text/plain;charset="windows-1257"

........Message........

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