| What is Spam? |
Spam - What is it?
Spam is the term used to describe unsolicited email.
It covers:
-Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)
-Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE)
-Usenet Newsgroup abuse where they submit advertisements to the group and submit mail that is not appropriate to the newsgroup.
However, it is important to remember that we are exposed to Spam everyday as we collect our Postal Mail from our letterboxes at home or indeed at our company premises; Flyers, Free Newspapers..the list goes on.
For some companies up to 50% (and sometime even more) of their received email messages are Spam. This imposes a huge burden on human resource time, Internet connection time etc.
When you pay for your connection time to the Internet and have limited bandwidth, Spam becomes your worst enemy. So you see, unlike Postal Spam, the most annoying thing about Internet Spam is that you are paying for information you don't even want to receive.
The worrying thing is that it now seems to be completely out of control and effective Spam legislation has yet to catch up.
Interestingly the word Spam originated from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Where do Spammers collect their email addresses from?
Usenet Newsgroups
Spammers use software robots to scan the Usenet Newsgroups for email addresses.
Your Website
Spammers use Web Crawlers to pick up email addresses from your pages.
Mailing Lists
While you are signing up to a particular Mailing List spammers are doing the same and extracting email addresses from the list.
Commercial Marketing Databases
These Spammer-compiled lists are sold on to other spammers and the chain goes on.
Software
Spammers have software code that generates random email addresses. They then add on ISP's to them in the hope that they create meaningful addresses. Then they start mailing to these addresses.
How can I stop Spam?
Install Anti-Spam Software.
Avoid sending emails to Usenet Newsgroups with your real email address and don't include your real email address in the body of Usernet news postings. You will still be able to view responses to your postings on the newsgroup.
Avoid sending your real email address when sending postings to mailing lists.
Avoid giving your email address to commercial marketing companies.
Examine the body of the message for e-mail addresses to reply to. Send a complaint email to the postmasters of those sites. You should use the following prefix on the email address e.g. abuse@yahoo.com. Also, ensure you send the header as well.
You should possibly inhibit your email system from sending 'read receipts' as any Spammer on receiving this will immediately know that your email address is valid.
Surely having a Firewall installed will protect me against Spam?
While Firewalls protect your system against unauthorised users (hackers), they do not scan the content of incoming and outgoing emails.
I received a Spam mail giving me the option to be released from its mailing list. What will I do?
Spam mail can sometimes inform you that if you wish to Unsubscribe from their mailings, you should click on a 'Remove' field or perhaps write back with the words 'Remove' on the email.
NEVER REPLY TO A SPAMMER. NEVER click on 'REMOVE' or NEVER send them an email with 'REMOVE' written on it. If you do, they have confirmation at their end that your email address is a valid one and they will probably pester you for life!
Books on SPAM
Click on the following link to find a list of books on SPAM.
http://www.abuse.net/books.html
DAILY SPAM NEWS:
http://spam.abuse.net/
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/full_coverage/tech/spam_wars/
User Comments
What is Spam?
|
|
There are no user comments for this topic.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Additional Info |
General Information
Article No. 2
Created: 11:15 AM 01.20.04
Author: Wizard
Attachments
No attachments.
Did this help you?
 Yes  No
Statistics
 
Other Options
Print Article
Email Article
Related Articles
There are currently no related articles.
|
|
