Those Annoying Spam Emails

Commonly referred to as spam, unsolicited commercial email is becoming a big problem today. If you’ve ever had your email address on a spam list, then you know how annoying it is to have to wade through dozens of advertisements to get to the mail you want to read. Although there are laws in place, it is unlikely that people who send spam will adhere to these laws so your best defense is to filter as much of it as you can through software and protect your email address from being added to more lists.

What Spam Looks Like

Usually the emails are from some fake looking name and many of them may have subjects that try to lure you into opening them by promising a stock tip, pretending to be your friend or acting like they need information for an application that you never filled out. When you get an email like this that seems suspicious it is best to just delete it.

How Did They Get Your Address In The First Place?

Sadly enough, most spammers got your email address because you gave it to them! Sometimes when you order something your email gets sold to a list, but most times it is harvested from a web site. If you have your email listed in an online advertisement, on a website or have published it in a forum, it is likely that it will be harvested for one of these lists.

Unfortunately, once your email address is out there you will not be able to get it removed from their “list”. There is no point in replying to the spam or trying to use the unsubscribe button as the spammer has no intention of removing you from his list and in fact, by acknowledging that you received his email you are giving him incentive to send you more mail and possibly sell your email address to other spammers. Your best defense is to get a good filtering software and filter out as much of it as you can.

Protect Your Email Address

One thing that you can do is get a second email and only give that out to people you want to receive mail from. Reserve the original email for use if you need to have an email to order online or subscribe to a site. Other things you can do include:

Not answering spam emails
Never have your email address visible on any web page
Do not use an auto-responder when you will be away from your computer
Do not pass along chain emails

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
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All About Spam

Spam is annoying. Period. Why people would want to send all of us stupid messages about buying prescription drugs or getting some outrageously good mortgage rate is beyond me. Well, not really.

You might ignore those emails. But not everyone does. And that's why they're sent. Emails cost so little (or nothing) to send. So sending out a million of them could be a cakewalk. Let's say one out of every 1,000 recipients falls for their ploy. Someone just got 1,000 new customers!

How in the heck did those spammers get your address in the first place? Well, they actually use a variety of techniques. They use programs called spambots to search the web and pick up any email addresses that could be listed on websites. They use what's called the "Dictionary" technique, where they take a well-known email extension (earthlink.net, for instance), and make up all kinds of possible user names to go with it. For example, with me they could try the usernames "kara", "kara1", "kara2" and so on, until they can confirm one of those connected to an earthlink.net extension is a valid email address. Kinda like going page by page through the dictionary.

Ever fill out a registration form on a website and find a little checkbox, probably near the bottom, asking if you want to receive additional information, newsletters, or something of that nature? Often the box is checked, and in order NOT to receive the info, you have to UNCHECK it (or else). Well if you miss those types of boxes on the wrong kinds of sites, your email addresses may be handed to spammers on a silver platter. Well, almost. Often a zillion email addresses are sold for next to nothing to spammers on CDs. (Couldn't you almost call those silver platters?)

Many internet service providers (those guys that keep you connected to the internet so you can send and receive email) use a variety of methods to block spam before it ever gets to you. Nevertheless, we all know that some spam inevitably gets through to our inboxes. That's when we need to take a proactive stance and install some sort of software to filter it out!
© 2005 by Kara Glover

About the author:
Kara Glover
For help on installing anti-spam software, check out this article on Kara Glover’s website: http://www.karathecomputertutor.com You can also find more articles, tips and tutorials on topics such as Microsoft Word., Excel, and PowerPoint there. Kara is a Computer Tutor and Troubleshooter.
Feel free to reprint this article in newsletters and on websites, with resource box included. If you use this article, please send a brief message to let me know where it appeared: kara333@earthlink.net
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Spam If You Want Jail Time

Spam is more than just an annoying, time-wasting nuisance that decreases business productivity, fills up server space and clogs bandwidth. It also includes attempted fraud on a grand scale via "phishing" emails, false requests purportedly from companies such as Ebay or Paypal, asking for credit card information.

Almost all email users worldwide receive spam, and despite all attempts to defeat it, this marketing method seems to be increasing. According to a study by IDC, in 2004 38% of the 31 billion emails sent every day in North America were spam, up from 24% in 2002. In August 2004, MessageLabs found that 84.2% of all emails scanned were spam. In a weeklong study conducted by the University of Texas, 56.2% of messages filtered through Brightmail were flagged as spam.

Because of the continual "arms race" between spammers and spam-blocker designers, no anti-spam software will catch every piece of junk email. Spammers continually discover new methods to evade anti-spam software, which often removes mail based on suggestive keywords. Emails are sent under official-sounding titles such as "server account information" which many internet users will open, only to be faced with lurid, deliberately misspelled advertisements offering miraculous remedies to enlarge one's private parts. To avoid giving away their physical location, spammers often hijack legitimate servers and use them to emit a barrage of junk email. Spammers also falsify sender and reply addresses as well as randomize the content of their email to increase uniqueness; approximately 85% of spam currently being received is unique.

Initially, internet users put up with the growing barrage of junk email, but finally legislation has been introduced to stop this waste of computer users' time.

In January 2004 Federal Can-Spam Act was passed for the purpose of “controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing” and the Wireless Telephone Spam Protection Act. The Can-Spam Act specifies that unsolicited commercial emails must be labeled and include opt-out instructions as well as the sender's physical address. It bans the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers. The Wireless Telephone Spam protection Act bans the use of wireless messaging systems to send unsolicited advertisements.

The nation's first anti-spam prosecution occurred in April 2004, when Daniel J. Lin made a plea bargain deal to serve a minimum of two years in prison. Lin was charged along with three others for illegally using well-known company and government computers, including those of Amoco, Ford Motors., Unisys, the U.S. Army Information Center and the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, to send junk e-mail that appeared to be legitimate. In March 2005, the FTC settled civil charges against Lin and the three accomplices, along with their company, Phoenix Avatar LLC. The defendants agreed to pay a $20,000 civil penalty.

Another notable prosecution under the Can-Spam Act occurred in November 2004 when a brother and sister who sent junk e-mail to millions of America Online customers were convicted. Jurors found Jeremy Jaynes, 30, and Jessica DeGroot, 28, guilty of three counts each of sending e-mails with fraudulent and untraceable routing information. This team of rogue internet marketers peddled useless products such as a "FedEx refund processor", a work-at-home scheme hat supposedly allowed people to earn $75 an hour. In one month alone, they received 10,000 credit card orders for the processor, each for $39.95. They amassed a net wealth of $24 million peddling worthless products like the refund processor and other products like a "penny stock picker" and an Internet history eraser. The jury recommended a nine-year jail sentence for Jaynes and a $7,500 fine for DeGroot. This case is still under appeal.

By the beginning of 2006, than 30 cases had been brought under the CAN-SPAM act by state and federal law enforcement, along with 20 enforcement actions by the FTC.

In addition to the Can-Spam Act, the Computer Owners’ Bill of Rights is being proposed by the FTC, which would create a “do-not-email” registry of addresses, similar to the "do not call" list affecting telemarketers, of internet users not wishing to receive unsolicitated commercial email messages. Another proposal is to force advertisers add “ADV” in the title of any commercial email. Probably a better idea would be to fine the companies that employ spammers, as they are easily located by the content of the email. a practice already being used in Australia. ISPs could also start terminating accounts of websites that are advertised via spam.

About the Author:
J Schipper
J Schipper loves Spam Blockers Accounting Software Business Software Disk Recovery
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Spam Is Now Dead Meat.

Other than the canned meat sold by Hormel, the term spam is used to describe unsolicited bulk email. It is rumored that the term Spam came from an old Monty Python comedy sketch about a restaurant where every item on the menu came with an order of Spam. Certainly this is an accurate comparison due to the ubiquitous nature of junk email, which first started to appear in bulk in the early 1990s. The usual definition of spam is email that is unsolicited, without prior permission or business relationship, transmitted in mass mailings and containing commercial content.

As the Internet became used increasingly in homes and businesses, marketers did their best to promote their wares through this new medium. Email, unlike postal mail that requires a separate postage charge, can be sent out in bulk just as cheaply as it can be sent to one person. Therefor, bulk email became an irresistible way to advertise for Internet-based marketers. Their only difficulty was to find valid email addresses for recipients.

Bulk marketers began to compile lists of known email addresses and sell them to other advertisers. Consumers often sign up on mailing lists to be notified of sales or product promotions, even from companies the openly pass their clients' email addresses on to other companies. Spammers get email addresses off publicly available web sites and user groups. Spammers have even been known to hack into businesses' customer databases to harvest even more addresses for their lists.

It did not matter if some of the addresses had expired; if an address is not valid, email is simply not delivered. Millions of simultaneous email messages could be sent out at little or no cost to the marketer, so customer targeting was no longer necessary. Spam was lucrative for marketers, as any response rate at all would bring in profit from this essentially free advertising.

Much of the spam advertised goods and services of dubious quality, such as pornography, get-rich-quick schemes, multilevel marketing, stock promotions, quack health remedies, and of course the services of internet marketers offering to send out even more spam on behalf of the email account holder.

Internet users, however, were less pleased with spam than were internet merchants. Many consumers resented receiving advertisements through what is to be considered a personal electronic mailbox. Finding legitimate emails became a time consuming process of sifting through hundreds of unwanted messages. Furthermore, some of the spam contained viruses. Constant flow of spam used up bandwidth and filled up server space. Parents objected to pornographic pictures being sent to family websites which were accessed by children.

Spam is costly to the business world. It takes up bandwidth and server storage space. Legitimate email may be lost, inboxes fill up and staff spend office time deleting unwanted email. A study published in May 2004 by Radicati Group shows that large businesses (with approximately 10,000 employees) which do not use spam filters lose $2,923.20 per user per year or a total of $30 million annually in terms of email productivity. As Bill Gates said, "The torrent of unwanted, unsolicited, often offensive and sometimes fraudulent email is eroding trust in technology, costing business billions of dollars a year, and decreasing our collective ability to realize technology’s full potential.”

Aside from being an annoying, time-wasting nuisance, spam also includes "phishing" emails, false requests purportedly from companies such as Ebay or Paypal, asking for credit card information.

The total savings for businesses which do install anti-spam filters is approximately $19.9 million per year. (Claburn, 2004). Filtering software looks for tell-tale signs such as an invalid or spoofed "From" address, invalid host name in the “From” or “To” address, similarity to previous emails, direct SMTP transmission from a host without a fixed IP address, receipt of the email from an unrestricted mail server, an IP address, netblock or domain matching that of a known spammer or “spamhaus”, and unique headers created by spamming software.

No matter what kind of anti-spam system you employ in your home or office, from the most basic to the most thorough, it's bound to save you time and money.

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J Schipper loves Spam Blockers Accounting Software Business Software Disk Recovery
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