11 What should I do about these "Spams"?
http://www.cauce.org is a web site for the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mails (CAUCE). Visit this site if you want to do something constructive to stop spam. This site is lobbying for legislation that would make junk e-mail illegal, just like junk FAXes were outlawed recently. In my humble opinion, this seems like the best solution to a problem that is getting worse and worse over time.
A message distributed across multiple newsgroups or list servers, usually for commercial purposes, is known as a Spam. Some examples of Spams that have hit STAT-L/SCI.STAT.CONSULT are the green card lawyers, information about lonely women in Russia, and blueprints of the original atom bomb. First, keep in mind that often it is not the original spam messages that are so conspicuous and potentially intrusive, but rather the inevitable threads of discussion which seem to result from them. Please do not complain to STAT-L about a spam. The person who sent the spam is almost certainly not a subscriber to STAT-L and will not see your complaint. Other victims of the spam will see your complaint though, which multiplies the annoying effect of the spam.
There are constructive steps that you can take to discourage a spam but be assured that hundreds if not thousands of people have probably already done this on your behalf. You can do nothing and still be assured that others are looking out for everyone's interests. So the best course of action is to shrug off the message. You might want to get in the practice of recognizing a spam by its subject line and deleting it unread.
Here are some constructive steps you can take to discourage inappropriate use of Internet resources.
http://www.glr.com/nojunk.html and http://kenjen.com/nospam/ are two sites that you can register at to notify bulk e-mailers that you do not wish to receive commercial e-mail. Some of the more "responsible" bulk e-mailers work with these sites to clean their address lists. Note that while some e-mail advertisements offer a way to remove your e-mail address from their list, there are some reports that doing this might actually increase the amount of spam that you get (see the CAUCE web site for more details).
net-abuse@nocs.insp.irs.gov is an e-mail address within the United States Internal Revenue Service. Because of the volume of e-mails that this address has been getting, the owner has asked that this site be restricted to instances of off-shore money laundering, "cheat the IRS" type UCE mailings and anything dealing with "hate mail" directed towards the IRS and its employees. They cannot investigate spam, unsolicited commercial e-mail, or e-mail pyramid schemes.
http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/ is a page from the web site for the U.S. Postal Service. This particular page explains why chain letters (including Internet chain letters) are illegal and who to notify. The U.S. Postal Service has the power to impound all incoming mail to an address or post office box that is listed on a chain letter.
http://www.fraud.com/ is the web site of the National Fraud Information Center. They investigate reports of fraudulent uses of the Internet. They also have a toll free number 1-800-876-7060.
http://www.clark.net/pub/rolf/mmf/ is a humorous web site that publishes the name, address, phone, and e-mail accounts of people who foolishly participated in Internet chain letters like "Make Money Fast."
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~cbrown/BL/ is a blacklist of Internet advertisers. Find out how to get someone added to the blacklist and ways that you can show your displeasure to advertisers on the blacklist. Be cautious, however, of some of the suggestions made at this site which, in my opinion, go beyond a constructive approach. The author, himself, notes that some of his suggestions may not be legal in some jurisdictions.
http://www.cm.org/nocem.html, http://www.compulink.co.uk/~net-services/spam/, and http://www.mmgco.com/nospam/ offer different software solutions to filter out spams.
news://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet and news://news.admin.net-abuse.email are two USENET newsgroups with information about abuse of the Internet.
10 What statistics resources can be found on the web?