Anti-Spam and Unsolicited Email FAQs
Kamehameha Schools has a Zero Tolerance Stance on SPAM

1. I am receiving spam or porn from your site! Please stop this practice immediately!
2. Why should I believe that these messages are not coming from you?
3. How do I stop this in the future?!
4. What can I do about this?
5. What are you doing about this?

1. I am receiving spam or porn from your site! Please stop this practice immediately!
Most likely, you are not actually getting these messages from Kamehameha Schools or any system on Kamehameha Schools campuses. An increased number of incidents of spammers has been reported using our domain name as part of their mass-mailings. This has taken the form of forged server identifications (HELOs), From: and Reply-To: headers, and Opt-Out email addresses within the body of their messages.

2. Why should I believe that these messages are not coming from you?
If you look at the message headers of your email, you should be able to see the path that the message took from sender to your mail server. The various "Received:" header lines indicate the path the message took. If you see a line that says "Received: from ksbe.edu (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX)" the "X"s represent the actual IP address and the host name of the mail server that claimed to be "ksbe.edu." One can verify our email servers by performing an MX record lookup against the global DNS infrastructure. From the Windows or Unix command prompt, use these commands to show the name and IP address of our email servers:

nslookup
> set type=mx
> ksbe.edu

If they do not match the name and IP address in your email, they were forged. Most of the messages forwarded to us have IP addresses and names associated with overseas broadband internet service providers or ISPs, and are likely temporary workstations sending spam for mass-mailer companies.

3. How do I stop this in the future?
Spam is a growing problem, and we receive thousands of unsolicited messages ourselves. Using spam filters can help, but ultimately, there is no foolproof method for blocking all unsolicited email without also inconveniencing people that you wish to receive email from. For more information on spam, spam filtering, and spam blocking software, try the following links:

http://www.cauce.org - A spam information site
http://spamcop.net - SpamCop, a spam reporting and clearinghouse site
http://www.spamhaus.org - An anti-spam information site

4. What can I do about this?
Report incidents of spam and inappropriate mass-mailings to spam clearing houses, such as SpamCop (see above). They have the resources to investigate the problem and notify the appropriate people. You can filter spam by using spam filtering email clients or using ISPs that filter spam. You should NOT take direct action without investigating carefully to ensure that you are complaining to the correct individual. Kamehameha Schools does not advocate taking illegal or retaliatory actions against spammers; we strongly recommend that individuals use legal means of redress.

You can also attempt to reduce the spam coming to you or having your identity forged by spammers for use in their mass mailings just as we have. Do not publish your email address on public web sites, news groups, or other public forums without some means of obfuscation. For example, email-abuse@ksbe.edu could be listed as "email-abuse at ksbe dot edu" to make it less likely to be auto harvested by spammers.

You can attempt to determine where these messages are coming from. A useful tool is Sam Spade. You can find the tool at this address: http://samspade.org. This tool can be used to parse email headers and trace the original sender to a specific host or IP address, and can also determine to a certain degree where that host or IP address is located or who owns it. A specific tutorial for tracing spam can be found online here: http://www.internetprivacyfordummies.com/tutorials

5. What are you doing about this?
We investigate all incidents of spammers using our identity to forge spam message headers or envelopes. If you receive a spam message you believe to be from us, please forward a copy to email-abuse@ksbe.edu. Please remember to include all message headers; for without them, there’s nothing we can do to investigate the incident further. The From: and To: lines are not enough, we need the various Received: routing headers as well.

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