Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Information Technology

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There is no written Information Technology policy in regard to unwanted e-mail solicitations. As with most things associated with the Internet, there are several general steps that are usually followed:

First, send a reply to the originator requesting them to (a) stop sending unsolicited material and (b) remove your name and address from their mailing list(s);
If more material is received, send a note to the Postmaster of the host, or domain, associated with the originator. Look at the From: header record, and use the hostname shown (to the right of the AT sign);
If the unsolicited mail continues, send a note to YOUR postmaster, who in turn should send a note to the Postmaster of the originator's host/domain;
If this fails, then your postmaster should send a note to the Internic contact person (or DNS Administrator) of the offending host/domain, or a parent domain if said mail bounces. Work your way up through all the hosts found in the Received: header records (this is the SMTP audit trail);
If all else fails, contact the local State's Attorney's office, though it's not clear whether they could or would take action;

If the correspondence was threatening, or otherwise strongly illegal (not just a simple-minded "chain letter"), you could contact the local FBI office, but they are most likely not going to be interested in just simple undesirable contact;

As a last resort, inform the originator that you're going to file a complaint with Internic, who manages Internet domain names, and has specific legal authorities associated with that (the Internic could "shut down" the offender's Internet hostname, or their Internet parent's domain, which for an ISP, should be a real concern).

Without a central organization responsible for the usage of the Internet, there isn't any single organization that could be expected to provide the same protections that the USPS can. Most postmasters, however, are responsible enough that, when presented with a clear-enough violation of Internet etiquette, they will take action to prevent further violations (e.g., suspending a user's access account).

Update: Spamming Using Blind Carbon Copies

It appears that some "spammers" are using bogus originating and/or terminating e-mail addresses, while forcing their notes to real e-mail addresses as blind carbon copies (Bcc). Blind carbon copies are not seen in the header or SMTP audit records. By convention, all Bcc fields are removed as a note is generated for remote delivery so the stated recipient will not be aware of who else the note was delivered to.

This means that someone could generate "spam," but each recipient would have what appears to be a legitimate note. This explains how you can be spammed with a note that apparently wasn't addressed to you. If you get such a note, it is more than likely you were included as a Blind Carbon Copy. When the offended Bcc recipient replies, they may not succeed because the "From:" field is bogus. Recipients of this kind of "spam" should go to the Postmaster of the host where the mail originated from (or the domain if that fails).

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