July Phishing Attacks Ravaged North America

trimMail Network Advisory: Email-based phishing attacks intercepted by trimMail Inboxes across North America are up a whopping 271% this month, while viruses have receded by 58%. Forty three percent of all phishing attacks are aimed at PayPal customers, while another 10% target eBay. In the same period, phishing attacks aimed at banks have dropped over 25%.

Currently, over half of the intercepted phishing attempts target two sisters: eBay and PayPal. Both persist in sending HTML-formatted messages. While HTML may provide a modicum of eye candy, it allows attackers to easily hide dangerous scripts and URLs behind otherwise innocuous appearing copy. That's why HTML formatting is ridiculously inappropriate for messaging by financial and other security-sensitive services.

However, as it is unlikely that giant e-mailers will change formatting tactics anytime soon, administrators would be wise to intercept the beasts lurking behind HTML at the network border, before they get a chance to clean out their users.

About the Author:
Brian J. Gillette
Posted: 20-09-2005
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

What Spam Blocker is Best For You?

With the number of spam filtering solutions increasing each week it's getting tougher for consumers to make informed choices in their purchases.

There are 3 basic types of spam blocker:

1. Integrated
2. Standalone
3. Online

We'll look at each type of spam filter and at the end you should be able to decide what spam filter is right for you.

Integrated spam filters
This type of spam filtering software is the most common. Once installed it sits "on top" of your existing email software and installs a new set of buttons into your email software. In future when you collect email you'll see options for marking email as Spam, marking the email as Not Spam, Bounce the email back to sender, etc. The description and position of these buttons varies from one product to the next but their purpose remains the same.

Most integrated spam filters automatically place suspected junk email into a separate folder on your PC for you to review or delete later on.

The newer integrated spam filters are also "intelligent". They can basically learn the difference between what is spam and what is not and delete the junk email you don't want.

The most popular integrated spam filters are:

iHate Spam
Spambully
Spam Inspector

Integrated spam filters are most popular amongst people who want a one click solution to collecting their personal email and filtering junk email at the same
time.

Advantages:
One click solution.

Disadvantages:
Software specific. Some work with Outlook and Outlook Express only.


Standalone spam filters
These are less common than their integarted counterparts but that doesn't make them any less useful. A standalone spam filter is basically a separate piece of software installed on your PC that you use to check your email for spam.

Standalone filters have the big advantage of being able to preview your email on the mail server before it's downloaded to your PC. This one single feature has the huge benefit of allowing you to just download the email that you want as opposed to downloading all of your email, including the spam, and then sorting through it.

Using a standalone spam filter is a little more work simply because it's a separate piece of software that you have to run before you open up your email software. Most standalone filters do allow you to configure them so that your standard email application is opened once you've chosen what spam to filter. This suits some people and not others.

The most popular standalone spam filter is:
Mailwasher Pro

Advantages:
Doesn't rely on specific email applications to work properly.

Disadvantages:
Two step process. Load standalone filter and then your email application.

Online spam filters
There are really two types of online spam filters. One is for business use and one is for home use. A typical example of a business type product is iHate Spam server edition where the software deletes junk email directly from the mail server before the end user even sees it. Large companies employ this type of technology.

Home users will be using Spam Arrest or similar. Spam Arrest offers an inventive solution to spam whereby any email sent to the users account has a challenge request sent back to it which the sender must authenticate. The automatic junk email software used by spammers can't currently deal with this type of response.
Any failure to authenticate the challenge email results in the junk email being left to die in cyberspace. A user is authenticated with Spam Arrest only once for security just to make sure the software doesn't become a nuisance.

The most popular online spam filter is:
Spam Arrest

Advantages:
Users are guaranteed to only receive the email that they want or requested.

Disadvantages:
Any techncial problems with the Spam Arrest server and you have no defense against spam.

Now you've seen what spam filtering options are available to you just ask yourself which one suits you most. If you're still not sure drop by www.spam-site.com and check out our product reviews - we have something for everyone.

About the author:
Niall Roche
This article was provided courtesy of Spam-Site.com which reviews and tests spam blockers for the business and end user.
Circulated by Article Emporium

Does Your Website Host Fight Spam?

Virtually anyone with an email address knows what Spam is, and has, perhaps, considered giving up the speed, convenience, and simplicity of email because of it. Those who have their own websites are more vulnerable than the average person with a single work or home email address from their company or Internet Service Provider. Email addresses visible on a website can quickly become Spam magnets, as automated programs, similar in form to search engine spiders, roam the web, looking for addresses to which new broadsides of Spam may be fired. Website hosting companies generally provide their clients email accounts for use with their domain, but are you with a host that provides those email accounts with Spam and virus protection?

Local Blacklist Filters
Webmasters shouldn't need to seek out local filters for their site's contact email addresses. There are a variety of server level solutions a hosting company can offer to protect their users from unwanted emails. A most basic step is provision of a very rudimentary "blacklist" functionality to their users, allowing them to prevent future Spam emails from arriving from the same address. This type of filter is virtually worthless in today's Spam environment, though, as it is quite rare to see unsophisticated email arriving from the same address multiple times. Spammers have grown far more sophisticated than that. Blacklisting functionality is only really useful in avoiding email from other real people you don't particularly wish to hear from anymore.

Keywords and Regular Expressions
More advanced server level Spam filters are available. A small advance is accomplished using keyword filters. Keyword filters merely check for instances of a certain string of characters and deny the message if that string if found. The core problem with keyword-only filters is they can "over filter". Someone who puts "sex" on their keyword filter will find receiving local news and event announcements difficult if they live in a town named "Essex". Some filters attempt to address this deficiency by using "regular expressions" in order to build a sophisticated rule set to prevent Spam from reaching your inbox. Briefly, regular expressions are syntax rules used to identify certain strings of text or numbers. These rules can be set up to identify text patterns that are commonly used in Spam. They can become quite complex, but, as with most any filtering method, are not 100% bullet proof. Some filters that use regular expressions come with a basic set that can be appended by the user. Obviously this kind of feature is of little use to someone not familiar with regular expressions.

Bayesian Filters
Currently the most sophisticated filtering methods use Bayesian inferences. Bayesian filters take a large data set and determine the probability a message is Spam based on its similarity to previous Spam messages. The more emails that are processed and flagged theoretically make the filter more accurate. Services that provide filtering on an ISP or host level, like Postini's "SpamAway", filter billions of emails and provide the highest level of success and fewest "false positives". SpamAway is already highly intelligent about identifying Spam and doesn't require any "learning" commands or examples be provided. The online, browser based interface keeps flagged messages in an easily accessible "quarantine" and allows the user to check for any false positives. White list functionality is provided to aide in the prevention of future false positives. A hosting company offering such an advanced service takes Spam and virus filtering for their customers seriously.

About the Author:
Eric Lester
Mr. Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers. Established in 1999, Apollo prides itself on the highest levels of customer support. Click for more hosting articles.
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Two Main Groups Of Spam!

There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancellable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at lurkers, people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.

I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the way to do it. The Achilles heel of the spammers is their message. They can circumvent any other barrier you set up. They have so far, at least. But they have to deliver their message, whatever it is. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get around that. Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

The statistical approach is not usually the first one people try when they write spam filters. Most hackers' first instinct is to try to write software that recognizes individual properties of spam. You look at spams and you think, the gall of these guys to try sending me mail that begins Dear Friend or has a subject line that's all uppercase and ends in eight exclamation points. I can filter out that stuff with about one line of code.

But the real advantage of the Bayesian approach, of course, is that you know what you're measuring. Feature-recognizing filters like SpamAssassin assign a spam score to email. The Bayesian approach assigns an actual probability. The problem with a score is that no one knows what it means. The user doesn't know what it means, but worse still, neither does the developer of the filter. How many points should an email get for having the word sex in it? A probability can of course be mistaken, but there is little ambiguity about what it means, or how evidence should be combined to calculate it. Based on my corpus, sex indicates a .97 probability of the containing email being a spam, whereas sexy indicates .99 probability. And Bayes' Rule, equally unambiguous, says that an email containing both words would, in the (unlikely) absence of any other evidence, have a 99.97% chance of being a spam.

About the Author:
Camry James
Find out How Spam Blocker can save you Money at SpamBlocker.eask.info
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Spam Filters - Why are they Harmful for Marketers and How to Avoid Them

Have you seen this text often in websites these days?

'I ABSOLUTELY HATE SPAM and I will NEVER rent or sell your personal information to anyone anytime. Period'

Why do marketers use this text block at the end of opt-in form? Simple. They are afraid that their subscribers might be come forgetful and might accuse them of spamming, even though they are legitimate email marketers.

How does it affect you?

Spam is one of the most irritating words these days, especially for email marketers. It not only affects those who are at the receiving end but also those who SEND emails. To combat irritating junk spam filters of different Internet Service Providers (ISP) are outdoing each other in evolving out new ways to filter junk email. While this is good in weeding out real junk, even the legitimate email marketers are affected by it, because spam filters sometimes filter out legitimate emails as spam. So what happens is that if you have a large list and a lot of your emails are filtered out chances are that only 1% of your subscribers are reading your message.

The great 'spam' triggers!

While there are many words that will trigger spam filters(e.g., sexual phrases, money making opportunity), here are the most common "trigger" words that you may be using in your ezine:

*e-zine
*amazing
*cancel at any time
*check or money order
*click here
*congratulations
*dear friend
*e-mail marketing
*for only ($)
*for free
*great offer
*guarantee
*increase sales
*order now
*promise you
*risk free
*special promotion
*this is not spam
*to be removed
*unsubscribe
*winner

How to BEAT 'em

There are two ways to beat the spam filters. One is the hardest way to avoid all these "trigger" words, which I know is quite impossible.For example, when you are recommending a product to your prospects you might be tempted to use a "trigger" word like 'great offer" or "amazing" product, both of which can trigger spam filters.

I tell you of an easier way to avoid spam filters. Your second choice is to disguise these words and phrases in clever ways by inserting keyboard symbols within them and/or replacing a letter in them with a symbol. The trick is not to make it too cryptic - you want your readers to be able to understand what you're saying. For example, in my e-zine, I use "fr*ee" for free.

Some spam filters might penalize you for doing this in order to decrease your spam points, I can tell you that the points this tactic costs you penalize you much less than using the words and phrases themselves.

It's always a good idea to test out your e-zine before you send it out. The good news is that you can do it for free. Before I send out any article or e-zine to my prospects, I make sure I use Lyris's free Content Checker at http://www.lyris.com/resources/contentchecker/ to check if my e-zine will get filtered out or not. The content checker works based on the criteria on which Spam Assassin filters out email messages. It tells that your message scores a certain number of points. If the number of points is low, then it's good. If it's too high, it's time for some revision, because a high Spam Assassin point of 5 or more means that your message is doomed to be filtered out even before it reaches your subscribers.

The report will tell you exactly which words are costing you points.

Usually you should only be concerned if your score is over 5 points.If so, you can either delete those words or disguise them, as I mentioned above. Now suppose that you have checked out your message through the content checker but have found that your message has a lot of "trigger" words. Use a free tool that I recommend. All you need is just enter your article and not only does the tool format your article but also insert "special characters" within the 'spam trigger words" so that your e-zine doesn't get filtered.

I test and check each and every issue of my e-zine with this free content checker and formatter tool before I send out my e-zines. No wonder subscribers get to read most of my articles and promos that I send out. That's why I'm a happy publisher.

Sidenote: Regardless of whatever tools you use, it's still pretty important to request your subscribers to whitelist your email address or domain name. If your subscribers care about your emails, they should have no problem doing this small thing. It will ensure that even if sometimes you feel compelled to use those "trigger words" in your e-zine, your e-zine will still reach your subscriber's inbox.

About the Author:
Arindam Chakraborty is an expert article writer and Internet marketer.Learn more about his email marketing tips and tactics by visiting: http://arinrecommends.com/
Article Submitted On: September 17, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Are opt-in email lists still valuable in this SPAM age?

One of the things that the introduction of blogs has done is to cause an exodus of sorts from email newsletters or ezines to online publishers simply publishing the information on their blogs.

It is not too difficult to realize why online publishers embraced blogs so quickly and enthusiastically. Actually the SPAM monster appeared to be slowly squeezing the life out of their online business. To meet the SPAM challenge most ISPs have set up SPAM filters that are so powerful that they quite often filter out mail that has been requested, especially mail of the massive opt-in kind. This has meant an increasing number of bounces and undeliverable mail.

With the arrival of blogs there was an easy way out of all this anxiety. Ezines could easily be posted on blogs and no ISP SPAM filter would touch it. And what is more the email aspect of feedback was not lost because readers could easily post a comment at the blog. The huge advantage over email here was that one could see another readers comment and quickly support or disagree with it. Blogs have actually revolutionized publishing the way no other tool has in the history of mankind.

So have blogs made email newsletters and opt-in email lists obsolete? The answer is a firm “NO”. Nothing would be further from the truth. Even when an online publisher delivers their weekly or daily content at a blog, what is the best way of sustaining and growing traffic to the blog?

Actually even with a website, there is no other more effective way of sustaining high traffic than by harvesting email addresses. This is done by offering and email newsletter or an email course of sorts. This builds up a valuable opt-in email list that you can use again and again to direct traffic to your site. You can even sell them something. As internet marketing experts often point out, the money is in the list.

This is the reason why experts advice affiliates to set up their own sites or blogs to play a key role in their efforts to market their affiliate site. This is simply because it is a huge waste to drive so much traffic to your affiliate site and end up having only a tiny fraction signing up for your affiliate program. By driving traffic through your own site, you have an opportunity to harvest emails and build up a huge, valuable targeted opt-in email list that you can still market the very same affiliate program to, later. In fact research has clearly shown that most people buy only after several repeated encounters of the same product or service.

Even with the introduction of the extremely useful blogging tool and the change of business models by many online publishers, opt-in email lists still remain the most valuable online marketing tool.

About the author:
Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. Her established writing skills coupled with experience in the website hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.
Circulated by Article Emporium

Email Anti Spam And Virus Protection For Businesses - There Is Hope

With anti spam vendors offering low cost licensing, businesses can now afford advanced email spam and virus protection with a simple to use interface at a much lower cost. The great thing about technology is that as it evolves it gets faster, additional features and economical. Over the past few years the same evolution has taken place with anti spam technology and services. In large part this can be attributed to the open source software community plus enterprising companies enhancing the capabilities of this software and packaging it into easy to use anti spam appliances.

It is not practical to have anti spam software running on desktops in a networked business environment. Managing all employee junk email software at the desktop is not realistic. It can be a nightmare and costly in terms time and licensing.

Spam appliances sit in front of your email server so that when email comes in it will first go to the spam appliance and the email will be scanned for spam as well as viruses. The filter will block the message if it identified as know spam. If the filter is not sure if the email is genuine it will quarantine and hold the email at the filter and it will be stored until the recipient deletes it, releases it to their email box, or they can white list a trusted correspondent so that future emails will not be held back. This will greatly reduce the load on your email server and reduce your bandwidth needs. We have seen anti spam systems block up to 83% of incoming messages. This could help extend the life of your email server and push back the need for upgraded capacity.

Most virus outbreaks occur via email and for little cost an appliance can block viruses before they reach your network and user’s inboxes. This provides an extra layer of defense in addition to your current anti virus solution.

Businesses have two options if they use an appliance based solution for their spam and virus control. They can purchase and administer their own filter. This is a good option if you have a large number of employee mailboxes to protect and the technical staff to administer the spam appliance. Businesses also have the option to outsource their spam control as a hosted service. This is a good choice for smaller companies and if information technology is not your specialty.

If you purchase your own spam filter, a subscription to updates may also be required. Make sure you get upfront pricing for the add-ons that you will need. If you have more than 100 email users and the technical staff to maintain the spam appliance, buying your own filter may be your best option. Generally the basic model will work for most organizations. Large organizations with thousands of users will require a spam filter appliance with increases capacity and features. Spam appliances are designed to work with all mail systems but some do have specific enhancements for Exchange server Microsoft’s popular collaboration software and mail servers that support LDAP (light weight directory access protocol). Spam appliances use the LDAP protocol to verify recipients before delivering messages to your email server, this avoids consuming server resources.

If your business has five to one hundred employees, then an outsourced anti spam and virus filter service is going to be a good economical choice for your organization. Fees are based on the number of users and you only pay for what you use. You will not have hardware to buy, maintain, and upgrade. The upfront cost is minimal and most email filtering providers will let you try the service for free at first. Another added benefit to outsourcing your spam control is redundancy. It is important that you choose a provider that has their spam and virus filters collocated at secure internet data center facilities. Data centers provide redundant network connections and power, so if your email server or internet connection is down unexpectedly the spam appliance will hold your email until your email server becomes available, minus spam and viruses.

Anti spam technology is constantly improving and the costs are getting lower. With increased productivity and an added layer of defense against virus attacks, an anti spam appliance or service is something your business can not afford to be without.

About the Author:
John Tourloukis is the founder of Fast PC Networks an internet consulting company and anti spam and virus filter service firm.
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

What the Best Web-Based Email Marketing Solutions Offer

If anyone thinks that email marketing has gotten easier in the past few years, they couldn�t be more wrong. For starters, the majority of people get a lot of SPAM in their e-mails every day, making them more aggressive with the DELETE button (even with legitimate offers and newsletters that they’ve elected to recieved). And of course CAN-SPAM compliance issues make the entire web-based e-mail marketing process ‘asier said than done’ to say the least. That’s why choosing an e-mail marketing service should be done with a bit research and a lot of care. Here are a few things to look for while you seek out your ideal service.

1. Easy Set-up and Management. Your ideal service will be easy to use, maintain and configure, with enough options to give you what you need from the very beginning. Be sure that there’s adequate customer service and support available to you when you need it.

2. ‘Smart’ Tracking Features. This is mandatory feature, enabling you to know instantly which autoresponders and messages are pulling in the most, as in direct marketing you really need to be able to track everything you possibly can. This way, you can easily figure out which offers and messages are working the best and eliminate the ones that aren’t performing.

3. Database Access. The ability to access and manage your database of prospects is imperative to any successful e-mail marketing plan. You should be able to add subscribers, view removals, update messages, etc. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (when it’s convenient for you, not your service provider).

4. The ability to ‘get it in’ Messages from many e-mail marketing solutions will have a tough time getting through ISPs, let alone staying out of the ‘bulk’ folder. The best email campaign on the net won’t do anyone any good if it gets deleted before it can be read. Ensure that any prospective solution actually gets a high percentage of messages through to recipients.

Of course there are other features you’ll certainly want, like CAN-SPAM compliance (to keep you and your autoresponder out of legal trouble), SPAM-Check (to analyze your message and tell you how to improve it so your message gets to the recipient’s inbox, not their bulk folder), and the ability to attach files to your messages. While these special features might not seem critical to you now, one day in the future they may just be a necessity, so be sure that your e-mail service can expand to meet the needs of your growing business.

About the Author:
Stewart Hayden recommends that you visit http://www.getresponse.com/ for more information on email marketing.
Published 08/28/2006
Article Source: http://www.EzinePlug.com

Common Spam Emails

Spam comes in many forms and spammers will pull out all the stops to try to trick you into clicking on their email and hopefully making a purchase. Below are some of the most common forms that spam comes in – how many of them do you recognize?

Application Accepted – These emails are supposed to make you think that your loan or other application has been accepted. Of course, you won’t be fooled by this if you never applied for anything online.

Business Opportunity - These are the emails that claim you can make thousands with little effort. Like most anything else, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Chain Letters - Do you have a friend that relentlessly forwards you these emails? Not only do they suck up internet bandwidth and disk space, but they can potentially be a way for spammers to get your email address.

Magical Health Products - Magical diet pills and miracle cures are just hype and the products don’t usually match up to their claims.

Free Stuff - You’ve probably figured out by now that nothing in life is free. Usually these free offers require you to join a site with a monthly fee or have so many restrictions that you never actually get your “free” gift.

Loans and Credit Repair - You can apply for your own loan and repair your credit yourself. No one else will be able to work any special magic that you can’t do on your own.

About the Author:
Lee Dobbins
Visit http://www.spam-canned.com to find out more about spam and how you can protect your email address. Browse the free article database at http://www.spam-canned.com/spamarticles1.html
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Even The War Mongers Have Gotten Into Spamming

Everyone has had their fair share of junk email in their inbox. The topics are an entirely eclectic mix--from recommendations to buy stocks to sex performance-enhancing medicines to outright scams. The people behind such spam emails are usually unscrupulous marketers and entrepreneurs out to make a quick buck. But nowadays, even the war mongers have resorted to spamming as a venue to address their deceitful propaganda.

One of my most obedient friends recently forwarded an email to me with the subject line reading "Justice", all in uppercase. I consider her very obedient because the moment she sees the phrase "pass this on to all your friends" in the body of the email, she does so without question, brushing aside all dangers that may come to infect her personal computer for the sake of obedience.

Normally the emails that I receive from my obedient friend end up in the trash bin. But for some reason I decided to open this one. The email opens by describing an eight-year-old Iranian boy caught stealing bread and Islamic laws decree that he should loose (sic) the use of his arm. Then it asks "Is this a religion of peace and love?" The email even contained Arabic translations of the content. Having noticed how the author of the email misspelled a word as simple as "lose" and seeing Arabic translation, alarm bells immediately went off inside my head. I thought to myself this seems to be a well planned out email aimed at stirring up the reader's emotions.

I decided to scroll down the message and there were a series of five pictures graphically displaying how an adult probably in his mid-30's holding down the little boy's left arm while a truck slowly drives over it. I thought I had seen everything on the internet but I spent the next five minutes or so in front of my computer monitor being extremely shaken, confused at whether I was being overcome by pity or unbridled rage.

After those long five minutes which seemed like an eternity, I gathered myself and decided to head over to the Snopes website. For the uninitiated, Snopes is the preeminent website in debunking rumors, hoaxes, urban legends and the like. Using their search facility, I quickly found the page relating to the grisly images of the Iranian boy. It turns out that this email has been circulating since 2005. The email being circulated conveniently left out the last picture in the series, where the boy is resting and unhurt. The pictures were actually taken from one of those stunts that street hustlers perform to generate some easy money. The illusion that unfolds is that the young boy's arm is driven over by a truck but he escapes unhurt. It is not unlike the popular game that street hustlers play involving three inverted bowls with one hiding a ball and the onlookers are challenged to find where the ball is after the illusionist masterfully shifts the bowls around. The hustlers always win of course.

I calmed down after learning the truth but this time, I was overcome by extreme sadness. In this case, just like the hustlers that they are, the war mongering propagandists/liars have won. "How?" you ask. To answer that question, I will pose another question--how many people who receive this junk mail do you think would actually take the time to search for the truth the same way I did? At the end of the email, it says to pass it on to all for public awareness. I would go out on a limb and say that 99.9% of the recipients did just as they were told. In effect, the lie has been spread, the truth buried. The whole process of deception was indeed well planned out, well organized and well executed.

And so, here is another sad tale in a very long list of how the power of email was used and abused in order to spread harmful lies. A small positive did happen to me personally--I have not received any junk email from my friend in over a month. I am now wondering if her blind obedience in forwarding junk email has something to do with it.

About the Author:
F. Aldo
Webmaster of Virus Protection For Beginners and just happy to be of help! Come and share your computer security articles with us.
Article Submitted On: October 03, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

The 4 Ws of Junk Email

Junk e-mail or spam has become the scourge of the modern computer world. It eats bandwidth. Spam is like a disease. It doesn’t care about age, religion, wealth. It doesn’t discriminate. Junk e-mail affects us all.

There are 4 keys to the junk mail question
– Who, What, Where and Why.

Who they are
The typical profile of a junk mail sender is as follows. Male, 18 – 30 years of age, single, technically competent and with little regard for their status as a public nuisance. There are female junk mailers out there but, unfortunately, this is predominantly a male preserve.

What they use to send spam
There are many tools available to the spam merchant. The main ones are e-mail extractors, newsgroup harvesters and CD lists. E-mail extractors are programs which wander around the Internet gathering e-mail addresses from websites and often from web based forums (unprotected forums). A “good” e-mail extractor can gather 15,000 e-mail addresses per hour. Newsgroup harvesters are programs which search through newsgroups for valid e-mail addresses. Most newsgroups users are aware of this and take measures to counteractthese harvesting programs. Despite these measures a newsgroup harvester application can gather 20,000 – 30,000 e-mail addresses in an hour. CD lists are one of the worst sources. 90 million e-mail addresses available on a single CD for as little as $20. A lot of the addresses on these CDs would be junk (many would no longer exist) but an equally large number of theseaddresses would be valid. A CD like this is a junk mailers dream.

Where they do it from
Those involved in sending out bulk e-mail are “entrepreneurs” or at least they think so. The vast majority of those involved in the spam business are self-employed and work from home. Sending spam is almost the ideal home based business. You name your hours and the business itself is almost automatic. Maximum gain from minimum effort.

Why they do it
Their motivation is money. Considerable amounts of cash actually. Each spammer who sends out 1,000,000 junk e-mails is certain of approximately 100 sales. Many of the products they sell are worth $50 - $100 dollars to them in commission. Yes. Shocking isn’t it? The average bulk mailer earns in excess of $100,000 per year!
Maximum return for minimum effort. Unless of course you get caught and get jail time.

About the author:
Niall Roche
This article was submitted courtesy of Spam-Site.com which reviews spam blockers and also offers advice on stopping spam for free.
Circulated by Article Emporium

How to Remove Your Name From a Mailing List

We’ve all found our name on a junk mailing list at one time or another. It’s frustrating to continuously receive unsolicited and unwanted mail that only ends up becoming landfill. If you’re not interested in receiving piles of catalogs and solicitations in your daily mail, you’ll be happy to know that this is easily remedied.

One way to remove your name from a mailing list is to go directly to the source. Contact the business or individual and request your name be deleted from their files. You can do this over the phone, but it will probably better to do this in writing since it’s a good idea to have a paper trail.

You might also be able to go to the businesses’ web site and request removal. Request confirmation that this has been done. If a business continues to send you mail after several requests, you might be able to file harassment charges, so it pays to keep good records.

There are also organizations in which you can register to have your name removed from multiple mailing lists. The Direct Marketing Association is one of those organizations. Since it handles mailing lists from hundreds of different companies, you can go to their website and request removal. This will keep your name off of their junk mailing lists for five years at which time you can put in another request. If you submit the form online it will cost $5.00. To submit your request for free, you can send it the old fashioned way to the P.O. Box listed on the DMA’s website. If you’d like to be removed from junk or spam email mailing lists, you can also do this at the DMA’s website.

No one wants their mailbox clogged with unwanted catalogs and solicitations from banks, credit cards companies and others. If this is happening to you, you can take steps to prevent this from happening. Not only will you save your home from clutter; you’ll protect the environment as well.

About the Author:
James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest.
Read more at www.best-mailing-lists.info
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

SPAM I AM? Squash the SPAM Monster Invading Your Inbox

Email is the quickest, easiest way to communicate with friends and family, getting to them in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the regular postal service which takes days. Just like regular mail, you are bound to get junk mail, SPAM that you have to sort out and throw away.

What is so bad about SPAM - I am? SPAM is detested because it wastes our time. Who cares about the umpteen mortgage offers, online prescriptions, Viagra, some stock market tip, etc? We have to be relentlessly savvy about our email. We all know that if it didn't come from someone we know or trust, or some cool newsletter we signed up to receive, that it probably isn't worth looking at.

So how do we fix this SPAMMING problem?

1. Take some personal responsibility. Stop subscribing to every popup advertisement that catches your eye. If you did this with QVC or HSN you would go broke, but you think nothing about signing up for a FREE X-BOX 360, FREE COUPON to eat at some local restaurant, if you fill out this survey, etc. We have all seen the flashing lights and colorful advertising and they trigger something deep within our brain to react. SPAM Solution --Click on the "x" in the upper right-hand corner of that window and close it!

2. Another SPAM killer is to create filters for your email that scan EVERY email as it comes in. If email contains certain keywords (you can spell them the same as they appear in the emails) the action deletes them. Or you can create a Junk mail folder, and have them sent there instead, then you only have to scan that folder to decide whether they are legitimate or not. This is already partially done for you in the latest versions of Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express.

3. Create a FREE email with Yahoo!, MSN Hotmail, Google's GMAIL or another such type and if you NEED to subscribe to something questionable, use that email address and leave your personal email private.

4. Don't forward a "Forward" from someone else. I DON'T CARE HOW CUTE IT IS or HOW FUNNY or HOW "IMPORTANT" you think it is. If you must forward it on, take the extra moment to copy and paste the text of the message to a new email and send it. Why? Viruses. If your email is included with dozens of others, eventually someone is going to get their hands on that list, usually due to a virus being on the computer that receives the email and the virus reads the email addresses and sends itself back to you or on to someone else and it looks like it came from you. THIS IS NOT GOOD!!!

5. You could invest in SPAM filtering software or check with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and see if they offer SPAM filtering as part of their service. NOTE: Experience has taught me that SPAM filters, although they work relatively well, tend to block legitimate email and can cause you to miss an important meeting, event or offer that would have been worthy of reading or knowing about.

6 Whatever you do, DON'T reply to SPAM email. This entices them to send you more. Up to that moment, they are not sure that your email address is a valid one, but the moment you reply back to them, WHAM!!! live body. Your email address goes into another list that can be sold as HOT email addresses and you get bombarded with MORE!!!!

Bottom line is, be smart, be courteous and be conscientious about how you handle the messages that come in. If you don't want to read it, DELETE it. If it's a Forward and you think it's cute, remember that ALL the people in your address book might not think it is so. Be selective. Follow these Six SPAM Tips and you will be well on your way to squashing the SPAM monster in your inbox.

©2006, Blue Mountain I.T. Solutions. Permission granted to reprint this article as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and that the content, by-line and hyperlinks remain unaltered and functional.

About the Author:
Dave Baughn, owner of Blue Mountain I.T. Solutions, is a computer guru revolutionizing networks in the Tri-Cities area of Northeast Tennessee with Blue Mountain I.T. Solutions. He created How To Use My PC for the "non-techies" at home who want to learn how to use their computer at home. Dave will send you the hottest computer tips, tools and ideas when you sign up at www.ComputerSupportTips.com for his FR*E Ezine.
Submitted: 2006-09-20
Article Source: GoArticles