What You Can Do Against Internet Abuse
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Contents |
What EDPNet Does
The following measures taken by EDPNet show what the company tries to do to prevent Internet abuse.
Preventive
Antispam and antivirus filters on our mail servers
Spam remains an annoying thing for one and all who use Internet. And indeed, about a half of all incoming emails on our mail servers are typical unsolicited bulk emails, in other words, spam. It goes without saying that computer viruses bring forth total disaster. That is why all EDPnet mail servers feature powerful antivirus filters and a balanced adaptable antispam system.
The antispam system on the mail servers checks every incoming and outgoing email for spam on the basis of various spam attributes. If a message has a certain spam feature it receives a spam score. This spam score is added to the message subject in the form of ‘Spam:***’.
The number of asterisks following the word ‘Spam’ shows how high the spam score of the message is. For example, if you see 2 asterisks, which is a low score, it is possible that the message is not spam. If you see 7 asterisks, most likely this is a spam message. Thus, the more asterisks there are the higher the chance is that it is a spam message. Messages with the spam score of more than 9 asterisks, which is very high, are rejected by our mail servers.
Certain newsletters can actually score quite high as spam messages, as they show a lot of spam features. This spam score is purely informative and must help you to tell spam messages from usual emails.
You can always disable these functions in our webmail. Go to ‘Options’ - > ‘Spam Settings’.
Reporting Spam and Other Forms of Internet Abuse
If you receive messages, which you consider to be spam, you can forward them to submit-spam@edpnet.net. Make sure that these messages always contain a complete spam message header.
If you receive messages, which were, according to you, wrongly marked as spam (for example, newsletters) or if the spam filters block your outgoing emails, then you can forward them to submit-nospam@edpnet.net. In this way we can ‘teach’ our spam filters that these emails are not spam. Make sure that these messages always contain a complete spam message header.
You can report about all other forms of Internet abuse at abuse@edpnet.net. As usual, such a complaint should contain the precise time and the ip-address of the responsible person.
Repressive
Sometimes EDPnet receives complaints concerning Internet abuse by one of its customers. We will only process such a complaint if it originates from a well-known, reliable institution or organization, such as the police, SpamCop, etc. Then EDPnet will inform you about it in accordance with the standard procedure:
- At first, after the first violation, EDPnet registers the complaint (at least, the parts of the complaint, which contain reliable information) under your name in a My EDPnet ticket. Then EDPnet sends you the first written warning via email.
- Then, after the second violation, EDPnet contacts you over the telephone, explains the situation to you and sends you a copy of the new complaint.
- And finally, after the third violation, EDPnet calls you again and tries to explain you the gravity of the situation and gives you an ultimatum. Such an ultimatum gives you a period of at least 36 hours to take specific measures to eliminate the cause of Internet abuse and to inform EDPnet about it. If you are not able to meet the requirements, EDPnet will block temporally your Internet access or the service related to Internet abuse.
What You Can Do Yourself
Preventive
- Install an antivirus programme and make sure that it gets all updates automatically, so that it would function effectively against the most recent viruses. Regularly (at least, once a week) scan you computer for viruses.
- Install one or several anti-spyware programmes (for example, Hitman Pro), keep it/them updated and regularly scan your computer.
- Keep your computer updated by downloading automatically (Windows Configuration Screen) security updates or by visiting regularly the websites of Microsoft or Apple and installing all available updates manually.
- Enable your firewall or, if your operating system has no firewall (for example, Windows Millennium Edition), then install one. The golden rule of using firewalls is: if you do not know the programme/the host, which asks you to allow it using your Internet connection, do not let it do it.
- Protect your wireless network: preferably with the help of the WPA2 encryption; if not WPA2 then with WPA, and if not with WPA then with WEP, all together with mac-address filtering.
- Be on the alert while you surf on the Internet, open emails from unknown senders, download files and install programmes, etc. The idea behind it is: unless I am sure that this website, email or file contains viruses or other malware, I do not visit/open it. A great number of virus or malware contaminations are the result of being careless while visiting unreliable websites, opening attachments, installing programmes, etc.
After Abuse
- If your computer was contaminated with viruses, other malware or hacked, we recommend you to read through the above-mentioned preventive measures and, if necessary, to take corresponding actions.
- Ask specialists for help: your PC distributor, the Microsoft helpdesk or other helpdesk.
- Report spam, hacking attempts or other forms of Internet abuse to the responsible Internet provider. You will need the ip-address of the sender/the responsible person and the precise times of the attempt. In case with spam messages, you can get this information from the headers of the corresponding emails. In all other cases you can get this information from log-files of your firewall or other software.
- Then you can use this ip-address to find the contact information of the responsible person (via, for example, the whois function of DNSstuff.com and via Abuse.net) and to make a complaint. You can report spam very efficiently via, for example, SpamCop.
- If you have received a warning from EDPnet concerning Internet abuse arising from your Internet connection, then keep EDPnet informed about the measures you take and send EDPnet all possible proofs of such measures, for example, log-files of your antivirus programme or other information, which clearly show that you have eliminated the malware from your system. Inform EDPnet about it, preferably via the relevant My EDPnet ticket.
Links
SpamCop FAQ: How do I get my email program to reveal the full, unmodified email?
Antivirus
Paid
Microsoft Windows Live OneCare
Gratis/open source software
Antispyware
Hitman Pro (recommended!)
