Showing posts with label Spamware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spamware. Show all posts

Thursday, February 01, 2007

How Spammers Obtain Your Email Address And Why They Send Spam

You probably know that Spam is unsolicited and undesired e-mail message. Spammers are the people who send Spam. Spam is a serious problem. It is important today as never before because almost every other email message we receive is Spam. So, the question arises how spammers get your email address and why they send you Spam. Spammers can obtain your email address in three ways.

One way is to guess a mailbox name for a publicly listed domain name. Many organizations have the email addresses where the first part of the email address is a general word such as "info", "sales", "accounts", "support", etc. People often use the email addresses beginning with their first name, for example, John, Sandra, Julia. Spammers simply put the first names before the @ symbol followed by a domain name, and get possible email addresses.

Secondly, spammers can gather email addresses from the Internet. They use programs that search web pages looking for email addresses. If there is your contact email address in your web site, or if the email address is embedded into your profile, your email address will be obtained by spammers. The third way to get your email address is to buy email lists. Some dishonest companies can make money by selling the customer's information to spammers. Spammers can also bribe unscrupulous employees of companies to get a copy of the email list.

Once spammers got a list of the victims' email addresses, they start spamming. They do it to make money. In general, there are two kinds of spam messages:

1.Offering trashy and fraudulent goods or services (e.g. Viagra, Cialis, medications, fake Rolexes, software programs, etc.)

2.Stock scams working on "Pump and dump" schemes. Spammers encourage you to invest in a particular company's stock, in order to quickly inflate its value and enable the spammers to make a fast profit.

By sending their undesired messages spammers have for an object to contact thousands or even millions people in the hope to hit one or a few dolts who actually will buy their crappy products. No dolts, no spam. But out of a million people, you will always find one or two.

Most of the Internet protocols that computers use to talk to each other are anonymous. Your email server thinks that any email server connecting to it over the Internet is giving its name properly and that the email it sends is legitimate. Spammers abuse this trust relationship to send you their garbage. The Internet protocols cannot be changed in a moment so we need another solution to the problem of spam.

Legislative attempts produced no effect. It's not easy to track a spammer located in USA sending spam using a mail server from Russia to mailboxes in Australia. Spammers are also known to use Trojans to hijack one's computer and make that person send spam on behalf of the spammer. The "victim" doesn't even guess about it. These people would be caught up in any comprehensive Spam legislation.

However that may be you can take some measures to protect your inbox against spam flow by yourself. There is a wide choice of anti-spam products available on the Internet. You only have to choose the right one to block Spam before it reaches your inbox. There is no guarantee that you will get absolutely no Spam but at least you will reduce its amount.

About The Author:
Julia Gulevich
Author is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like AATools, G-Lock EasyMail, Spam Blocker. More information can be found at Anti Spam Filter Resources
Submitted: 2006-10-26
Article Source: GoArticles

Monday, January 22, 2007

Handling The Web Spamming Disease

Perhaps one of the overall discomforts that most people have to deal with today is web spamming. People who have their own blogs and sites that contain guestbooks or allow visitors to place their own comments with regards to the site content or topics being discussed. It is quite easy to spot web spamming. For one, they are in no way related or saying anything about the website content and its overall essence. Comments such as purely placing information that would want to inform other visitors on certain websites or available information on the web is a clear case of web spamming. A lot of these can be seen in blog sites, especially the ones that do not use strict moderation of the comments that are placed beforehand.

There are two common types of comment spam generation techniques, manual and automatic generation. The first one does not really need deeper evaluation since as it connotes, they are manually inputted by visitors to any website or blog site that they come across and would resort to copy and paste the pertinent information in them while using alias names or names closer or related to the information that they are spamming. The second one, the automatic comment generation spamming, automated tools scour the web looking for comment like or guest book forms that allow anyone to automatically post bogus content on them. A lot of these have been going around and web spamming has become uncontrollable today. While blog sites have developed the option of comment moderation to fight off these web spamming practices, this provides an additional load for the blogger or webmaster who maintains the site. However, more load or not, the safety from maintaining the site and retaining its essence and the people who are inclined to properly place comments that are related to the theme of the site is more important above anything else.

As with all spamming efforts, this type of spamming is not that different from the main purpose of the others. Either to create mischief or promote sites that is yearning for attention to be able to earn profits through hits and visitors. Such is the main concern of most sites today, the race towards the most number of hits to be able to establish their sites and make them more visible and searchable in the web. For the, web spamming may seem to be a good way to achieve this, but considering that it is at the expense of innocent sites that are simply up for their own rational reasons, web spamming is really something that is disheartening and despised by people.

Other webmasters resort to testing their scripting techniques to answer the challenges made by web spamming. Programming for websites are done in various ways, and while each type of methodology may have their own special way of tackling this web spamming conflict, there is no doubt that unique ways of handling this problem will altogether provide headaches to the misdemeanors of web spammers over the web. This is why people take various courses in programming, to be ready for such challenges posed by mischievous web spammers present today.

About The Author:
Judge Paul
Want to know more about Handling The Web Spamming Disease
Article Submitted On: October 11, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Free Article Directory Submissions Without Being A Spammer

Successful free article submissions to directories on the internet is an effective way to market your article and get more traffic to your websites. Submitting to an article directory is a great way for people to find a free article written by you. There are a few problems with this system but you can overcome them and become more proficient in marketing articles. The trick is to submit your articles without being considered a spammer.

The weakness of the article submitting techniques is that it is very time consuming. I have submitted articles in three different ways: by Hand, and with Article Submitter and Instant Article Submitter software. Many directories require a login, ID and password, so each directory must be visited and a login established before submissions are accepted.

When submitting by hand, you have to cut and paste each section of the article into the individual directories. There are a lot of sections; first the Title, then the Category (very important, I'll get into this later), Author, Author email, Website Address, Keywords, Article Summary, Article Body, and About Author box. That is nine cut and pastes to submit to ONE article directory. If you wish to submit to 150-200 directories, a good part of your time is spent doing grunt work which does not allow you to pursue other avenues of traffic generation.

Now we come to the "semi-automated" submission software programs. Yes, they are easier, some more than others, but you still must go to each directory individually. It is crucial that you select a Category for your article. If this is not done the article directories will know you are using automatic submitting software and will treat your article as SPAM. Many directories especially frown on the "Automated Article Distribution Services" for just that reason. Therefore you will not be published and not only have you wasted your time writing your article but you may be classified as a spammer.

Within the "Article Submitter" Software, they have 138 auto fill and 25 manual fill directories listed. A visit to a majority of the directories must be done first in order to establish a login. You have the option of adding other article directories on your own, which is a nice touch.

The software will open to a page that is a form for "User Information". There are typical information requirements you would find in any sign up sheet like, name, company, email, website, etc. Then hit the tab for "Articles" where you will place the article for submission. You will fill in the Title Section, Article Body (including About Author), Summary and Keywords. Then choose the "Websites" tab. You can "select all" or pick and choose. Click on "Auto Fill" and it will take you to your first directory. A flaw here is that you can only have one article posted in the article section at a time.

Sounds easy, right? Well with "Article Submitter" you must be very careful. Once you have chosen your Category check each section. This software does not always put the right information in the right box and leaves some boxes blank. Again, if the directories feel you are using software carelessly they will delete your article. The manual sites are just that, manual top to bottom. It took me a full day for each article so it is still a time consuming process.

Then my partner found "Instant Article Submitter" which I have tested thoroughly. It is by far the easiest and quickest available at this time. Set up is still a bit tedious, once again you have to establish your logins, but only once. And I found them much more accurate in filling in the necessary submission forms. Yes, you still must choose your Category but only once for each niche.

They have 100's of Article Directories listed but there is a tab where you can mark your "Favorites". At first I was a little intimated but it is easy to follow and saves you a lot of time. I submitted to over 150 directories in about 4 hours and that was my first time using the software, so I was on the learning curve. Be careful not to hit the "Next Site Button" until after you have the confirmation that your article has been acknowledged.

So that has been my experience with these three systems for submitting articles to a Article Directory. I do not recommend hand posting, it is much too difficult.

For me the most convenient and least cumbersome was Instant Article Submitter for getting my articles out there to many Article Directories in the least amount of time.

About The Author:
Mary Hanna
Visit Mary Hannas websites at:
Web Marketing Reviews
Cruise Travel
Submit Articles Fast
Article Submitted On: October 20, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Adware Alerts

Adware is a type of program that is usually attached to freeware and shareware. It is responsible for displaying pop-up or pop-under advertisements on your computer, even if you are not browsing the Internet. Programmers will attach these programs to certain software to offset the cost of its programming. This is also the way they make money from software that they give out for free.

Adware may be a necessary component of the software it is attached to. Removing it can violate the license agreement of the software and prevent it from functioning properly.

You may wonder if adware programs are dangerous. In general, these programs are harmless. However, there are types of adware that can prove dangerous to your system, such as spyware. Spyware can gain access to your private computer information and channel it to third parties, often without your knowledge or consent.

Having an up-to-date anti-adware program is the best way to protect your computer from such malicious programs. It will alert you if your computer contains adware, so you can remove it effectively and without harming your system. It will also remind you to conduct regular virus and adware scans.

Different kinds of adware-removal software are widely available in the market. You can even download free versions over the Internet. All of these are useful in alerting you of the presence of adware. If you run your anti-adware software regularly, you will be able to prevent adware from infecting your computer.

If you do not want to run the risk of getting your computer infected, be careful not to download any freeware or shareware that contains adware. There are websites that offer adware-free software. There are also websites that will warn you of certain programs that contain adware or spyware, so you don’t run them or download them by mistake.

Adware provides detailed information on Adware, Adware Alerts, Adware And Spyware, Adware Filters and more. Adware is affiliated with Best Pop Up Blockers.
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About the Author:
Josh Riverside
Article Source: ArticleWarehouse