What Should We Do About Spam?

How do senders of spam get their dirty hands on your email address, and will spam ever be stopped?

I receive over 50 emails per day. Usually, close to 45 of them are spam. For the uninitiated, unsolicited marketing emails are considered spam. The amount of junk email being sent has spiraled out of control. Some people receive over 100 unsolicited messages per day! For the purposes of this article, we are going to examine the different methods employed by marketers to steal your email address, and whether or not anything can be done to put an end to spam once and for all.

Most of the marketing messages I receive in my inbox are sexually explicit, but I still like to look at them because some of this junk is actually quite entertaining. My personal favorites are offers to purchase discounted Canadian Viagra, ads for pornographic websites, bogus work-from-home programs, or quotes for 50 year mortgages.

How do these idiots get your email address in the first place? One way they can get it is through opt-in email. When you order something online, as part of the subscription or service that you signed up for, you may have inadvertently or unknowingly agreed to receive offers via email from that company in the future. As a result, said company begins to send you offers via email. This is perfectly legal as long as the company provides you with a way to unsubscribe from their mailing list. If they do not provide you with a means to unsubscribe, then the emails they are sending you are considered spam.

To make matters worse, spammers will often sell your email address and any other information you submitted to them to hundreds of other companies who are looking for leads or mailing lists. Before you know it, your email address has been circulated far and wide to almost every online business imaginable. Once this happens, there is almost no way to protect your email address ever again.

Another common way senders of spam get their hands on your email address is by first purchasing a list of email addresses from someone else, and then sending a joke or an interesting cartoon to everyone on the list and ask that you forward it along to all your friends and relatives. Once you forward the message, the spammer actually has a program that can copy the list of addresses that the message has been forwarded to and send it back to him or her. So now, that person not only has your email address, but also has the email address of every one you forwarded the message to. Using this tactic, email marketers can grow their list of email addresses exponentially.

Another popular technique is known as harvesting. This is accomplished by writing a simple programming function that searches through every web site listed on a search engine for a certain keyword, and then quickly scanning each of those sites for any email addresses that are posted there, and subsequently sending them back to the spammer. An example of harvesting would be a program written to scan every website listed on Google for a certain keyword, such as real estate agents, and then recording every email address that is found on the web sites that come up in the search, and emailing the entire list of email addresses back to the harvester. Using this technology, it is possible to acquire thousands of email addresses in an hour or less.

Harvesting has become a legal dilemma, because the email marketing community feels that it should be allowed to harvest email addresses that are posted on public websites because, in their opinion, if someone has posted their email address for all to see, then other people have the right to contact that person and ask them questions or send them offers. However, web sites where email addresses are posted have threatened legal action against anyone that copies addresses and uses them to build mailing lists or send spam. Unfortunately, these web sites really have no way to prevent this email theft, and it will only get worse in the future.

Spam is here to stay, because it is nearly impossible to prevent. Both big businesses and small businesses have a strong incentive to send bulk email, because it costs nothing, and is a valuable tool for increasing their customer base. Sending regular mail or hiring telemarketers costs a lot of money and is ineffective. As a result, most companies would prefer to send massive amounts of email versus paying a telemarketer or spending money on postage to send offers through the mail. So, we should all expect to continue to receive enormous amounts of spam in our inbox for years to come.

About the Author:
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.
Submitted on 2006-11-09
Article Source: http://www.articlesarea.com/

Choosing Anti-Spam Software That Is Right For You

It is believed that on an average, an email user receives more than 2000 Spam emails every year! By certain accounts, an email user receives more than 77 percent of the mail as spam – which is around 10 out of every 13 emails you receive! More than two-thirds of the email passing through the air waves are pure junk – unwanted and unsolicited. It, therefore, becomes imperative that you chose the right anti-spam software that meets with your requirements.

Spam happens to be one of the biggest disadvantages of using communication channels through the Internet. There is every need to find ways to separate the wanted emails from the unwanted and unsolicited ones. Choosing the correct anti-spam software or Spam filter is the right way to cut down on the spam you receive.

Handling Spam

The amount of spam you can detect and delete depends on the type of screening your emails go through. Many anti-spam software have a multi-level of email screening, which is worth the money you spend. You can even select a trail version or free anti Spam software to sample what it does and then you can opt for a full version with enhanced features and full functionality.

One of the best places to trap and eliminate spam is at the servers that receive, forward, and send the emails. You, of course, have no control over the type of anti-spam handling done by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). To handle spam, there are particular services available to filter them. For a nominal amount each month, a particular service inspects and cleans your inbox. Another service involves forwarding your complete inbox to their servers, where the clean up occurs as emails arrive.

As personal spam blockers, a number of anti-spam software are available from reputed anti-spam suppliers, such as Symantec, McAfee, eScan, PC Mantra etc to name a few. Such software capture and inspect all emails coming in before allowing the clean ones into your inbox.

The type of anti-spam software you select will depend on the volume of emails you handle. It will also depend on the budget you allot to the anti-spam program. The best anti-spam software for you should have the following features, among many others:

It should allow you to see who the sender of the email is, the subject, and the attachment. You can then decide whether to delete the email or accept it.

A chance to preview the message before downloading it. This will enable you to delete if you do not like the message.

The feature that allows you to bounce back the spam email is a great way to let the sender think that your email address is no longer valid. This would probably make them remove you from their mailing list!

There are a number of anti-spam software available with a number of online suppliers that you need to explore, to select the best that is suitable for your needs.

About the Author:
Arvind Singh is admin and technical expert associated with development of computer security and performance enhancing software like Registry Cleaner, Window Cleaner, Anti Spam Filter etc. More information can be found at http://www.pcmantra.com. Related Information: http://www.pcmantra.com/SpamFilter.aspx?id=6
This article was posted on September 25, 2006
Article Source: articlecity

The Anti Spam Challenge – Minimizing False Positives

Email is the quintessential business communication tool, so when it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, business suffers. Anti spam software is designed to protect your inbox from unwanted messages, but unless your system is properly trained even the best software misses the mark and flags legitimate messages as spam. These messages are referred to as “false positives.”

While consumer and ISP anti spam products focus on blocking messages and even consider some false positives acceptable, businesses require anti spam solutions that treat their messages as very valuable. Failing to receive critical messages in a timely fashion can do irreparable damage to customer and partner relationships and cause important orders to be missed, so eliminating false positives while maintaining high anti spam accuracy is paramount to any enterprise anti spam solution.

What causes false positives?
Different anti spam solutions utilize different methods of detecting and blocking spam. Anti spam software typically uses content filtering or Bayesian Logic, an advanced content filtering method, to score each email, looking for certain tell-tale signs of spammer habits such as frequently used terms like “Viagra” or “click here.” Other anti spam solutions reference blacklists and whitelists to determine whether the sender has shown spammer tendencies in the past. A false positive can occur when a legitimate sender raises enough red flags, either by using too many “spam terms” or sending from an IP address that has been used by spammers in the past.

Minimizing False Positives
Although it takes a person only a moment to process a message and identify it as spam, it is difficult to automate that human process because no single message characteristic consistently identifies spam. In fact, there are hundreds of different message characteristics that may indicate an email is spam, and an effective anti spam solution must be capable of employing multiple spam detection techniques to effectively cover all bases.

A comprehensive anti spam approach involves examining both message content and sender history in tandem. By using a reputation system to evaluate senders based on their past behavior, a more accurate picture of their intentions and legitimacy can be discerned, and a solution’s false positive rate can be further lowered. Has the sender engaged in spamming, virus distribution or phishing attacks in the past? If not, the likelihood of their message getting past the email gateway just went up, and the chances of a false positive declined accordingly. If they have, an effective reputation system knows and flags the message.

Self-Optimization
In order to be most effective, anti spam solutions must learn based on a recipient’s preferences. While most of us prefer not to receive emails containing the term Viagra, some medical organizations might need to receive these emails in order to process patient data. In order to best learn your organizational preferences, anti spam solutions should put filtered emails into a quarantine that allows users to review and make decisions as to whether a particular message is spam. Making this quarantine available to the end-user lowers the administration costs and increases the accuracy of the anti spam system.

Each time a user makes a decision about whether a particular email is or is not spam, the system becomes more personalized and intelligent about filtering email for that individual in the future. Over time, users find that they rarely need to review their quarantines anymore because the system has learned how to identify messages that are important to that user.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
In conclusion, it is imperative that false positives be kept to an absolute minimum for business users. Although consumers may have more patience with incorrectly blocked email, businesses cannot afford these types of problems. An effective, accurate anti spam solution aggregates multiple spam detection technologies, combining the benefits of each individual technique to stop spam while minimizing false positives. It also puts suspected spam into a quarantine that is available to end-users, and learns how to better identify spam in the future.

About the author:
Dr. Paul Judge, CTO, CipherTrust, Inc. is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of enterprise email security. The company’s flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.
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The Spam Dilemma

Learn all about spam and whether it will ever be stopped.

We have all had this experience. You log into your email account and discover that you have some new messages. Fervent with anticipation, you open your inbox, only to find nothing but solicitations and spam.

Most of the spam that I get in my inbox is abhorrent, but I still like to look at it because some of it is quite entertaining. My favorites include subjects such as 95% discounts on Canadian Viagra, quotes for 80 year mortgages, and ads for practically every sort of pornographic web site on the net.

Those of you familiar with spam have probably noticed that the name of the sender that appears next to the message subject is usually either a strange email address or a bizarre name. Spammers do this because obviously they do not want to reveal their real email address or name. They have developed programs that can actually mutate their email address so that the recipient will not be able to track where the email came from.

So, how did these freaks get your email address in the first place? One of the ways is through opt-in email. At one time or another, we have all subscribed to or ordered something online. In doing so, as part of the subscription or service that you signed up for, you may have inadvertently or unknowingly agreed to receive offers via email from that company in the future. As a result, they begin to send you email. This is legal as long as the company provides you with a way to unsubscribe from their mailing list.

However, the most nefarious email marketers do not provide you with a way to be removed from their mailing list. To make matters worse, they will often sell your email address and any other information you submitted to them to hundreds of other companies who are looking for mailing lists. Before you know it, your email address has been circulated far and wide to almost every online business imaginable.

There are other methods that spammers will employ to get their grimy hands on your email address. Sometimes what they do is once they have purchased a list of email addresses from someone else, they will then send a joke or an interesting cartoon to everyone on the list and ask that you forward it along to all your friends and relatives. Once you forward the message, the spammer actually has a program that can copy the list of addresses that the message has been forwarded to and send it back to him or her. So now, that person not only has your email address, but also has the email address of every one of your friends and relatives. Using this tactic, clever email marketers can grow their list exponentially.

Another popular technique is something called harvesting. Harvesting is quickly becoming the most powerful, sophisticated, and most useful method for grabbing thousands or even millions of email addresses almost instantaneously. This is accomplished by writing a simple software program that searches through every web site listed on a search engine for a certain keyword, and then quickly scanning through each web site and copying any and all email addresses that are posted there and then sending them back to the spammer. An example of harvesting would be a program written to scan every website listed on Google for a certain keyword, such as mortgage brokers, and then copying every email address that is found on the various web sites that come up in the search, and emailing the entire list back to the person doing the harvesting. In this manner, a person could build a list containing thousands of email addresses of mortgage brokers in less than an hour.

Harvesting has become a legal quandary, because spammers feel that it is permissible to harvest email addresses that are posted on public websites because, in their opinion, if someone has posted their email address for all to see, then other people have the right to contact that person and ask them questions or send them offers. However, web sites where email addresses are posted have struck back with threats of legal action against anyone that copies addresses and uses them for the purpose of building mailing lists or sending marketing offers. Unfortunately, these web sites really have no way to block this email theft, and it is becoming more rampant every day.

Spamming and email marketing is here to stay, as it is nearly impossible to regulate or prohibit. Both big businesses and small businesses have a strong incentive to send bulk email, because it does not cost anything, and helps them increase their business. Sending regular mail or hiring telemarketers is infinitely more costly. Also, people tend to discard solicitations sent to them in the regular mail very quickly, and telemarketers are usually hung up on. As a result, most companies favor sending massive amounts of email versus direct mail or cold calling. So, you should not expect your inbox to be any less crammed with spam anytime soon.

About the Author:
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.
Submitted on 2006-09-15
Article Source: http://www.articlesarea.com/

Will The Real Spammer Please Stand Up!

If you have been using opt-in email marketing for sometime, I'm sure you might have got accused of spam at some point, even after doing everything right.

Yes, I'm talking about people who actually agreed to receive your email, blaming you for sending unsolicited mail.

According to me it's not their fault, as nowadays it's very easy to mistake an 'email marketer' for an 'email bomber'.

The web has grown so wide and huge in the last couple of years that it has become hard to differentiate between a spammer and a legal email marketer.

Spammers just didn't disturb a regular email users life but also wrecked havoc in the Internet marketing community.

Day after day it's becoming devastatingly difficult for permission based email marketers to use email legally and not get slammed for illegal mailing.

Even after making sure your email looks, sounds, smells and tastes 'Legal', you run a high risk of either getting blocked or being labeled as a spammer.

On the other hand, if luck favors you and your mail does make it to your subscribers' inbox safe and sound, what's the guarantee that it'll get opened and read?

It's a nightmare every marketer would love to avoid.

Well, you can stop worrying now and have a sigh of relief. It's about time all the hardcore spammers out there had their last laugh.

The Internet marketing world is abuzz with a brand new technology, which could finally send spamming back to the dark ages, big time.

If you still don't have a clue of what I'm talking about, it's called RSS and it's turning heads all over the web.

RSS, which stands for 'Really Simple Syndication' is a new technology, which enables anyone to syndicate his or her content online.

A lot has been written on what is RSS and how it works. So I would like to keep it short and sweet, as I'm sure you too wouldn't really want to get into the unnecessary technical stuff.

In simple words, RSS is a way to publish and receive content electronically. RSS files are XML based and are popularly known as RSS feeds.

What's revolutionary about RSS is, it can help you distribute your content directly to your subscribers, without any spam filters interfering.

To subscribe and read your RSS feeds, all your subscribers need to have is an RSS reader, also known as an aggregator.

What's more, they don't even have to worry about giving out any of their personal details to subscribe to your feed.

And with a screaming bunch of RSS readers available on the web right now (most of them being free), it wouldn't be very hard to convince your subscribers to get there hands on one.

RSS readers are available in both versions, desktop and web-based, of which the latter seems to be the most popular.

Once your subscriber adds your RSS feed to their favorite RSS reader, you go 'live' and instantly establish a direct connection with your subscriber.

Whenever you have something new to publish, all you have to do is update your already
published RSS feed with your fresh content.

As soon you load your feed with new content, walla! Your feed automatically gets updated everywhere it's subscribed.

No mess, no fuss. Just content that works.

Pretty neat huh?

That's the beauty of RSS. No wonder it's currently being employed by web honchos like Yahoo! and MSN to deliver content to their users.

They even allow their members to add any RSS feeds of their choice to their members' area, making them perfect examples of web-based aggregators.

Syndicating your content can mean a lot to you and your business. By publishing your own RSS feeds, you could eventually end up with more leads, more subscribers and not to forget, more money in the bank.

Happy syndicating!

About the author:
Mustafa K. is the co-founder of http://www.rapidfeeds.com - a free online service that helps anyone deliver targeted content to their subscribers through RSS. Sign Up for your FREE account on his site to put an end to blocked messages and add more subscribers.
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Antispam. Aren't We All! Don't You Just Hate It?

Antispam. Aren't we all! Don't you just hate it? You've got enough to do without having to sift through a bunch of worthless, or worse yet, offensive junk e-mails in your Inbox.

So what can be done about it? What antispam procedures and software really work?

Spam filtering software is the first stop in your antispam campaign, but in some ways it's the easiest to subvert.

What this antispam tool does is tell your e-mail system to look for designated clue words - sex, nude, porn, for example - and to eliminate the messages that contain these clue words. Of course, there are easy ways to get around these antispam tactics. Did you ever see a message that comes through with the word sex spelled s*e*x? Well, that asterisk method has circumvented your spam filter - or the spam filter of your Internet and e-mail provider.

The other problem with this filter is that you could miss legitimate messages. A friend, for instance, who might mail you that she was "sick of porn sites popping up" might have her message deleted because it contained the word porn.

Two upgraded versions of these antispam filtering products are Bayesian and heuristic filters, which try to identify offensive messages through recognition of phrases as objectionable. SpamAssassin by Apache is probably the best known example of heuristic filtering. What these filters are doing that the more basic ones aren't is looking at the message itself rather than the subject header. Both Bayesian and heuristic filters have an Achilles heel in that they depend for their filtering on frequency. Were a spammer to send a short message it would get past.

To further complicate things by punishing the "good guys," major Internet service providers started simply considering batch emailing as potential spam. What this did, however, was to disrupt opt-in products such as e-zines and newsletters. So that didn't work well. The spammers themselves found a way around it anyway. As they sent out their batch messages they inserted a program that produced a variant in each heading. Perhaps a word that didn't even make sense, but still individualized each message enough to have the batching not appear as batching.

Some non-profit Internet watchdog agencies started keeping lists of the IP addresses of spammers. When these addresses cropped up in mail they were blocked. The way around this for spammers was simple - they changed IP addresses. The result was even worse, in that those addresses then got handed out to completely innocent folks who now had problems sending e-mail. Then the spammers got really aggressive and started creating and distributing viruses allowing them to hijack IP addresses that weren't on the "spam" lists.

Where the answer seems to lie for many businesses and their sites is to bypass standard email communication altogether and resort to online feedback forms for electronic communication. Which of course doesn't resolve the antispam issue for private individuals who have no Web site of their own.

About the Author:
Robert Michael is a writer for Lib Antispam which is an excellent place to find antispam links, resources and articles. For more information go to:
www.libantispam.com/
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

What Is Spam? How To Identify And Block It?

Almost everyone who used to communicate via e-mail has ever found in the Inbox the messages from people he doesn’t know proposing some services or products. All unsolicited and undesired messages you receive are SPAM. The emails of this kind usually offer pharmaceutical products, diet methods, sexual enhancements aid, and “get rich quick” plans. You can also meet bogus sales pitches, sales opportunities, and different types of scams. In addition to stock scams, in which spammers encourage you to invest money, a new spam-scam gambit called phishing is becoming very popular now. This scam is aimed to obtaining people’s private information such as user name, password, credit card details, etc. An example is an email coming from PayPal or Ebay asking you to go to the company’s web site and update your account. If you do it, the spammers will record your keystrokes and your private details will be disclosed to them. And have you ever received pitiful letters from a widow or a relative of the former ruler of Nigeria? Sure you have. It’s a famous Nigerian fraud that is still having a place on the Internet. Don’t be enticed by the millions they would promise you. All they want is your bank account details in order to rob you.

How do you identify spam among legitimate messages? You usually look at the sender’s name, which may be unknown to you or contain some gibberish. You also read the subject line of the message. As a rule the subject line of spam emails concerns gambling, pornography, or an offer to make a fortune in 24 hours. But the spammers are also able to create an email identical to legitimate one coming from a respected source. In other cases, the subject lines may indicate that the message is a reply to your email. A general way to distinguish spam is to read the To and From header fields in all the messages you receive. If you see strange, anonymous or scrambled alpha-numeric email addresses (for example, gt4590xx@domain.com) then you have spam. Some anti-spam solutions provide you with the capability to preview the emails. For example, in addition to a safe message content preview, G-Lock SpamCombat allows you analyze the message header in detail: From, To, Subject, Received and other header fields.

How to block spam? Remember, the point of spam is to have you open the email. Once you do it, the least trouble you may have is to let the spammer know that your email address is valid. It’s luck for a spammer. He can continue spamming you in the hope that earlier or later you will swallow the bait. Or, he can sell your email address to someone else. Also, be aware that spammers send millions emails at a time, so even a very tiny response rate is a great success for them. Let’s imagine that 100 out of 10 millions people invested 5 dollars each into a scam offered by a spammer. So, the spammer makes 500 dollars at a time.

If you are really suffering from a continuous spam flow, you can consider getting a new email address and disclose it to trusted senders only. Or, you can start clearing your inbox from spam right away using anti-spam software. Although not perfect, anti-spam filters are now very sophisticated and very effective at cutting out most of spam.

Anti-spam programs basically do one or more of the following things:

1. Check the senders’ email addresses and names against a blacklist of spammers they own and delete the message if the sender is on the blacklist.

2. Check the recipients’ email addresses and names and filter the messages according to certain parameters. For example, if the email is sent to a large group of recipients sorted alphabetically, the email is considered spam.

3. Analyze the message content and subject line and search for certain words or phrases, which are typically met in spam emails such as “Viagra”, “Cialis”, “Mortgage”, “Invest” and filter the spam email accordingly.

There are many kinds of anti spam solutions now. Software developers offer standalone spam blockers like Mail Washer, Spam Nullifier, G-Lock SpamCombat, etc. Most of the big, free email services such as Yahoo!, Google, MSN, and Hotmail also provide effective spam filtering. You just need to choose the right anti-spam solution that will serve you in the most effective way.

About the Author:
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like AATools, Advanced Email Verifier, G-Lock EasyMail, Junk Email Filter http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/ More information can be found at Anti-Spam Software Resources http://www.glocksoft.net/sc/.
This article was posted on November 21, 2006
Article Source: articlecity

The Hidden Dangers of HTML Email

As a veteran Internet user, I can honestly say I remember a time when HTML email was not possible. Back then RTF wasn't available either and for that matter, email programs did not even wrap lines for you or allow file attachments.

Today however, I receive a steady and annoying stream of email in all shapes, colors and sizes. Almost all promotional advertisements and many newsletters come in Html format.

Now, Spam is annoying, Spam in droves even more so, but Spam with "twirlygigs" is intolerable -- and dangerous. HTML is for websites. I visit them all the time and enjoy their various amusements. Email however, is a tool. A communications method used for getting work done. I get plenty of regular email, hundreds of pieces a day usually, due to the support, consulting and writing services I provide. If all of those emails are in HTML format then I'm stuck looking at potentially hundreds of web pages and thousands of graphics.

HTML email takes extra time to download, and for me it takes extra time to read. You see I don't trust HTML email. I've coded many websites in my day and I know that scripts can be hidden in the pages. Now when you couple that fact with the daily news about viruses and worms being sent, well that's just downright scary, so I do not allow my email program to automatically open HTML formatted email. Now I rarely use Outlook and Express (sorry Microsoft but they feel just a bit too dangerous to me now days) however I'd rather be safe than sorry no matter which email program I use. So, I have my email software configured to show all HTML messages as attachments.

Having the email converted to an attachment allows me to immediately see if there are any other files included with the message. And let me tell you, this has saved my butt time after time! I've lost count of how many times I've gotten email with the HTML attached, and malicious code, worms and viruses attached right next to it. If my email program was configured to "conveniently" display HTML as a web page, then a lot of those attached files would have opened on their own and done who knows what to my system.

So, if you receive a lot of email yourself, be careful what you allow to come in. If you run a newsletter or Email update service of any kind, please be courteous and at least ASK before sending HTML formatted email. And when you do have permission to send HTML email, don't include heavy graphics, scripts or other file attachments.

Text may not be as glamorous, but it's a heck of a lot safer and much easier for your readers to glance through.

(c) 2002 Kathy Burns.

About the author:
Kathy Burns-Millyard
Want a Fully Operational Web Site Business in Less than 15 Minutes? Check Out The TurnKey Niche Profit Sites! http://www.GuruGazette.com/TurnKey-Profits/
This article is provided courtesy of The Guru Gazette Niche Marketing Blog - http://www.GuruGazette.com - You may freely reprint this article on your website or in
your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.
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Anti Spam Software - How To Gain More By Installing It

Spam or unwanted / junk email is an attempt to force a message on recipients who often will choose not to receive it. It is flooding the Internet with commercial advertising on dubious products. Is anti spam software a solution to solve the problem?

Spam has become a worldwide problem and is expected to increase exponentially over the next few years, as regulations of spam through legislation have been mostly ineffective and slow. To put it in another way, we may say that the numbers of spamming methods have increased and improved over time and legislators have had a hard time to handle them. However, we can counteract this by installing an anti spam software in conjunction with an anti-virus software as well as internet security software into our computers. We can also learn how to fight against it at various anti-spam websites.

Anti spam software is a program that filters out spam email. It is an easy and powerful way to stop unwanted email. Most anti-spam software works at the network level, that is, protecting the user's inbox from spam before it even reaches the computer. The anti-spam software uses fuzzy logic and filtering to analyze each email as it arrives and warns the user if it is suspected to be junk mail.

Most anti-spam software also allows the user to preview the unwanted mail before deleting them. The user is able to deal with it effectively before the mail gets to the computer.

Some anti spam software can even be programmed to adapt to the user's personal preferences by learning the kind of email the user wants to receive. This intelligent software uses advanced learning filters to deliver an efficient approach in solving the problems of the user.

The unique up-to-date system of the anti-spam software ensures that the user is protected against the latest spam threats. This is a good way to stop mails with viruses or large unwanted attachments.

Most of the anti spam software is simple to install with easy to use steps so that the user do not have to waste too much time mastering it. It usually comes with a comprehensive guide, which normally includes some useful animated tutorial materials and frequently asked questions in the DVD software pack or the downloaded software. If you need further information before your purchase, check up the online help desk of the manufacturer.

The user is able to add the email addresses of business and, e-commerce associates as well as friends to a personalized list. Emails sent by them are always recognized when received. At the same time, the anti spam software uses another customizable list of blacklisted email senders to filter out their messages. As the unwanted email will be bounce back to the sender, he will think that the recipient's email address is not valid and this may reduce future spam. It also allows the user to restore accidentally deleted emails.

In addition, most of the anti spam software runs well on the various operative systems such as Windows 95, 2000, NT and XP and is able to work with many existing email programs including Netscape and Microsoft Outlook.

About the Author:
Article by Ske Chay of http://www.broadbandbusinesssolutions.com Providing some comprehensive information on Anti Spam Software at http://www.thesoftwarebank.com
Posted: 11-11-2006
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

How To Determine The Origin Of Spam?

Spam will continue spreading as far as it makes profit. If nobody buys from spammers or acts upon their scams, spam will end. This is the obvious and easiest way to fight spam. You can ignore and delete spam emails you receive. But you can also take vengeance on the spammer by complaining to the spammer's Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ISP will block their connection and maybe impose a fine (depending on the ISP's acceptable usage policy). Spammers beware of such complaints and try to disguise their messages. That's why finding the right ISP is not always easy.

Let’s look inside a spam message. Every email message includes two parts, the body and the header. The body is the actual message text and attachments. The header is a kind of the envelope of the message. The header shows the address of the message sender, the address of the message recipient, the message subject and other information. Email programs usually display these header fields:

From: shows the sender's name and email address.
To: shows the recipient's name and email address.
Date: shows the date when the message was sent.
Subject: shows the message subject.

The From: field usually contains the sender's email address. This lets you know who sent the message and allows you easily reply. Spammers, of course, don’t want you to reply and don’t want you to know who they are. Therefore, they put forged email addresses into the From: lines of their emails. So the From: field won’t help you if you want to determine where the spam email comes from.

Tip! With G-Lock SpamCombat you can easily preview not only the message text but also all the fields of the message header . You can choose the preview format by yourself. You can view the message as HTML, decoded message, or message source.There are also several Received: fields in the header of every message. Email programs don’t usually display the Received: lines but the Received: lines can be very helpful in tracing the spam origin.

Just like a postal letter goes through a number of post offices before it’s delivered to the recipient, an email message is processed by several mail servers. Each mail server adds a line to the message header – a Received: line – which contains

- the server name and IP address of the machine the server received the message from and
- the name of the mail server itself.

Each Received: line is inserted at the top of the message header. If we want to reproduce the message’s path from sender to recipient, we start from the topmost Received: line and walk down until the last one, which is where the email originated.

Just like the From: field the Received: lines may contain forged information to fool those who would want to trace the spammer. Because every mail server inserts the Received: line at the top of the header, we start the analysis from the top.

The Received: lines forged by spammers usually look like normal Received: fields. We can hardly tell whether the Received: line is forged or not at first sight. We should analyze all the Received: lines chain to find out a forged Received: field.

As we mentioned above, every mail server registers not only its name but also the IP address of the machine it got the message from. We simply need to look what name a server puts and what the next server in the chain says. If the servers don’t match, the earlier Received: line is forged.

The origin of the email is what the server immediately after the forged Received: line says about where it received the message from.

Let's see how determining of the spam email origin works in real life. Here is the header of a spam message we’ve recently received:

**************************************************
Return-Path:
Delivered-To: press@mydomain.com
Received: from unknown (HELO 60.17.139.96) (221.200.13.158) by mail1.myserver.xx with
SMTP; 7 Nov 2006 10:54:16 -0000
Received: from 164.145.240.209 by 60.17.139.96; Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:53:35 -0500
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:48:35 +0200
From: Pharmacy

Reply-To: umceqhzjmndfy
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Message-ID:
To: press@mydomain.com
Subject: Cheap Med*s V!agra Many Med_s QnNXpRy9
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
**************************************************

At first, look at the forged From: field. The email address in the From: and Reply-To: lines doesn’t exist. So, the spammer took care about directing bounced messages and all the indignant replies people may send to a non-existing email account.

Secondly, the Subject: line. It contains the variations of the “Meds” and “Viagra” words that are known to be met in spam messages. Plus, the subject contains a range of random characters. It’s obvious that the subject line is skillfully tailored to fool anti-spam filters.

Lastly, let’s analyze the Received: lines. We start from the oldest one - Received: from 164.145.240.209 by 60.17.139.96; Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:53:35 -0500. There are two IP addresses in it: 60.17.139.96 says it received the message from 164.145.240.209.

We check if the next (and last in this case) mail server in the chain confirms the state of the first Received: line. In the second Received: field we have: Received: from unknown (HELO 60.17.139.96) (221.200.13.158) by mail1.myserver.xx with SMTP; 7 Nov 2006 10:54:16 -0000.

mail1.myserver.xx is our server and we can trust it. It received the message from an "unknown" host, which says it has the IP address 60.17.139.96. Yes, this confirms what the previous Received: line says.

Now let’s find out where our mail server got the message from. For this purpose, we look at the IP address in brackets before the server name mail1.myserver.xx. It is 221.200.13.15. This is the IP address the connection was established from, and it is not 60.17.139.96. The spam message originates from 221.200.13.15. It’s important to note that it’s not necessarily that the spammer is sitting at the computer 221.200.13.15 and sending spam over the world. It may happen the computer’s owner doesn’t even suspect of being sending spam. The computer may be hijacked by a Trojan, which is spreading spam without the machine’s owner knowing it.

We hope this information will help you identify the spammer's ISP and report them about spam so they can take proper measures.

About the Author:
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like AATools, Advanced Email Verifier, G-Lock EasyMail, Anti-Spam Software Blocker http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/ More information can be found at Anti Spam Filter Resources http://www.glocksoft.net/sc/
This article was posted on December 01, 2006
Article Source: articlecity

The Trouble With Spam Is....

Each day we all face the same challenge. Spam. It doesn't matter if you're a home computer user or the head of IT for a multinational limiting or totally preventing the distribution of junk email to your computer(s) is now a daily chore.

The sheer frustration that spam causes combined with the number of lost man hours adds up to junk email being a very real problem for all involved. You have to filter through all the junk to find your own personal or work email. This on its own is annoying enough. When you consider the security risks from spyware, trojans, diallers and attempted identity theft spam becomes much more than just an annoyance - it becomes a minefield for any computer user.

So what can you do to block spam? The first step each user should take is to simply limit the number of people who know your personal email address. If you have a work email address then just use it for work. For home users only distribute your email address to people you know and trust. This simple move can cut your spam problems by 50%.

But what about all those online forms I need to fill in? No problem. Use a free email service like Hotmail or Gmail for this purpose. Treat it as a throwaway account that you can use as a buffer between your true personal email address and the rest of the world. Let it fill up with junk email and then just login once a week and delete everything you see.

Your password. It's amazing how many people set the password for their email account to abc123 or something similar. These passwords are incredibly easy for spammers to guess and would give them easy access to your mail account. The password for your email account should follow corporate standards of being 6 - 8 characters long and be alphanumeric (a mixture of numbers and letters). Make it longer if you can. Using a weak password is just asking for trouble.

If you're already receiving a ton of spam then you'll need to invest in a spam blocker. There are free spam blockers you can download and also also their paid equivalents. A great spam blocker can cost you as little as $30 and you'll see an immediate reduction in the amount of spam you're receiving.

Over and above installing software on your computer (especially for Mac users as your choices are limited) you could sign up for one of the web based challenge response spam blockers like Mailblocks or SpamArrest. Both of these services are ideal for somebody who's on the move a lot. Also because they're web based there's no software to install so they're perfect for Mac or PocketPC/Palm users.

Taking a pro-active anti spam stance is the next step. If you get junk email from people then check the mail headers and report any offensive email to the hosting company or ISP involved. Never, ever reply to spam directly. This simply confirms to the spammer that your email address is active. Also never click on any hyperlinks in any junk email - this again confirms your existence and can lead to a virus being downloaded directly onto your PC. Filter the spam, report the abusers, delete the remaining junk email.

Spam can be stopped. Not by some corporate giant or genius programmer. It can be stopped by each of you individually. Spammers rely on the widespread availability of email addresses and for people to reply to these emails or click on the links within the emails. The sooner people stop reacting emotionally to spam and simply filter, report and delete the offensive mail itself the sooner the lucrative market of bulk email will dry up for the spammers.

About the author:
Niall Roche
This article was provided courtesy of Spam-site.com which reviews spam blocker software and other anti spam utilties.
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A Quick Look At Email Spam Filters

You must be eagerly finding for a way out to stop receiving Spam mails in your inbox. Take a quick look at email spam filters to get some idea on how to check spam. There are a number of email spam filters that you can use in your computer. For official purposes, you have anti server software spam where the spam filter is located in the server level to trap all email spam. They prevent them from reaching your inbox. The email spasm not only slows down the performance of the server, but also occupies a lot of storage space. Emails are the easiest and the best way for these viruses to spread.

Working of Spam Filters

Anti spam software and anti spam solutions are essential to aid you in getting a clean inbox. The server spam filter or anti spam server is a software application that scans all the incoming email messages. With the help of their configuration, they identify Spam and prevent them from reaching your inbox. The spam mails not only eats away the storage space and make selecting your personal emails difficult, they also can contain viruses. Using anti spam filters is necessary as it saves both your time and money. But even when you are using anti spam filters, it is recommended to check the messages just to make sure that no personal message has been marked as spam. Even the server spam filters marks email as “false positive” to those that are identified as spam, but in reality they are valid messages. There are various anti spam programs that identifies Spam and sends it to the junk mail folder.

Not all spam filters work in the same way. Some of them are pre programmed where the know spammers are inserted. They accordingly block them. Some of the programs filter the emails based on the keywords used in the mails. Some of the email spam filters are configured and you can easily customize it or the network administrator can also customize it according to the requirement of the company.

About the Author:
Oliver Turner
We have made a research to find the best acne treatments. Find it only on the best spam blockers source. All about spam blockers on LeanderNet - www.leandernet.com
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

What To Do When You Get Spam

When you go to your mailbox and find pieces of junk mail mixed in with important correspondence, you throw it out. It is a mild nuisance and you probably don't even give it a second thought. Unfortunately, most people do the same when spam arrives in their inbox. They just delete it.

While that does get rid of an individual email, more needs to be done to control what can become an overwhelming problem. Liken spam to cockroaches; see one in your cabinet and you know that you likely have an infestation that needs to be dealt with swiftly.

To begin with, do not respond to the spam - ever. There are usually two ways that spam recipients make this mistake. First is the opt-out clause that appears at the bottom of the email. It appears to be a legal statement giving you the right to remove yourself from this mailing list. Unless you legitimately authorized the company to send you mail, in which case this is not spam, do not follow this link. Most often this link is simply a way for the spammers to identify your email address as valid. Now they can sell your address to other spammers and thank you for making their work easier by continuing to send you the spam you didn't want in the first place.

The second manner in which this error occurs is when, out of total frustration, you reply to the sender with a firm statement of your disgust. This usually happens when the spam is pornographic material and despite your best efforts, keeps appearing in your inbox. Sometimes the reply will not work because the sender's email address is a fake one and it will just bounce back to you as undeliverable. Count yourself lucky because the alternative means that they now have a confirmation of your address.

Next, read the email header. The header contains the full path of computers through which the email passed to get to you. Most pieces of email pass through at least four computers - the spammer's, their ISP, your ISP, and finally yours. Since the stated from address is usually a fake one, this is the most reliable way to track down the spammer's ISP, at the very least.

Each computer that the spam travels through will add lines to the header stating who they are, who the mail came from, and where they are sending it. Headers can seem complicated, but in most cases you will be able to at least recognize other ISPs. If your mail is through Yahoo and you see "juno.com" in the mix, then you know that you can report the spam to Juno.

When reporting spam, you will need to cut and paste the full header path into the email to give the experts the opportunity to track down the offender. To read an email header, you typically just right click on the email and then choose properties, options, or header depending on which email program you are using.

Finally, forward the spam to a number of authorities. The first would be the spammer's ISP. If you cannot tell who that may be, send the spam to your ISP. Additionally, several websites are available to help you report spam, like spamcop.net.

Second, forward the spam to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov. While they will not take action on your behalf, they will add the spam to a database compiled on known UCE (unsolicited commercial email).

If the spam is a "419 Scam", or Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud, fax a copy of the email and its headers to the United States Secret Service. You will know this spam when you read it - an exiled African leader of some sort needs your help and bank account information. These scams have defrauded many and need to be taken seriously.

Now you may delete the spam.

About the Author:
Lewis Leake
Posted: 20-09-2005
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

Spam Guard Your Business

Have you started or are you thinking in starting an easy home business?

Then be carefull because spam guard may harm your business!

I bet that you know that the bulk e-mail marketing technique it's widely used on Internet, it's free, it's easy and it's fast...

But on the long run it can cost you more than you will gain with it!

Many people identify bulk e-mail with spam. Spam used to be referred about posting or broadcasting ads to unrelated discussion groups, but now this term has grown meaning "any unsolicited e-mail" or "any e-mail sent to people that didn't ask for it". And the Internet Service Providers are taking steps in order to spam guard themselves, that can be very dangerous to your business if you decide to use bulk e-mail as your promotional tool.

If the people that receive your unsolicited e-mail, complaint to your ISP and or your virtual host service, you may end up loosing one or both of them. This means that your web site will be shut down, and you will lose your connection to the Internet.

Of course that you can get another ISP and virtual host server, but this will harm you in three ways:

* It will be a waist of time

* It will cost you money

* It will damage your reputation

So this free medium for online promotion, can be the source of too many problems, and the best that you can do, is to do not get involved with it.

But SPAM GUARDS can give you problems...

EVEN WHEN YOU DON'T WANT TO SPAM!

And this brings us to our next topic...

FREE SPAM GUARD CHECKING

Let's say that you're about to mail out your e-zine...

You can't have an idea of how many will actually REACH your subscribers and how many will get filtered, junked, trashed, or stomped by ISPs, HotMail, Yahoo! Mail, etc., along the way.

Why?

Simple answer... spam guard software.

You know how important e-mail is to YOUR business, right? What if I told you 10%, 20%, maybe 50% or more of it is not getting through?

Spam has reached epidemic levels. So much so that ISPs have been forced to combat it with filtering spam guard software.

Alas, many legitimate marketers are getting caught up and hurt, even though they are not the target.

Now, instead of JUST hoping for the best...

With our spam guard checking feature, you can know exactly what to do to reduce the "spamminess" of your e-zines and promotional e-mail!

As a result, you will know that your e-mail and newsletters are being delivered directly into INBOXES of your clients and affiliates...

... and NOT sent by spam guard software into the Junk Mail Folder.

It's no longer just enough to send the mail...

You must be sure that you can reach the INBOX!

What should you do to protect your honest business from being recognized as spam by spam guard software when it is not?

Send your marketing letters and e-zine issues to my special autoresponder, and you will get a Spam Guard Check Report.

Even if you don't have an ezine or newsletter you should check your e-mail signature file!

Why?

Simple answer... the average marketing sig file can contain enough "spam triggers" to throw you into Yahoo! Mail's Junk Mail folder.

STEPS TO SPAM CHECKING YOUR MARKETING TOOLS

USE THE SPAMCHECK TEST

Send an e-mail to spamcheck-RB@sitesell.net with the word TEST (in caps, no quotes) preceding your subject in the Subject line.

I repeat, because it's important...

* Start the subject line with... TEST .... or the spam guard software will assume it's spam, and follow up with your usual e-mail or ezine's Subject

i.e. if your Subject is:

"The best home business"

you should write:

TEST "The best home business"

* On the body of the e-mail put your ezine's issue content or your marketing e-mail's content

* Send it to: spamcheck-RB@sitesell.net

And that's it, that's all there is to it!...

You will receive an Instant free spam guard checking, and a free Report telling you the results. :-)

Written by Dr. Roberto A. Bonomi

About the Author:
Dr. Roberto Bonomi is a successful e-book writer that shares his home business ideas at: http://www.easy-home-business.com. And you can post free your own articles, or find free articles for your web site or ezine at http://articles.drbonomi.com.
This article was posted on September 05, 2006
Article Source: articlecity

Do Your Autoresponders Drive Your Customers Crazy?

Writing chained auto-responder messages to sell a product is a good idea in principle, but in practice it can LOSE you clients just as well if you don't get right.

A chained auto-responder is a sequence of emails that gets delivered automatically when someone subscribes to this autoresponder.

It is used in marketing to deliver mini-advertisements, teaser courses, demo extracts, testimonials or stepped sales letters, and all of this is designed to get the client eventually to click on the "buy me now" link for the main product that is being promoted.

There are three main problems with chained auto-responders. Avoid these, TEST your linked auto-responders before you inflict them on the general public, and you should see significant increases in your sales.

Problem No. 1 - No Content Beyond Selling

This is THE most VIOLENTLY annoying class of chained autoresponders - message after message from the same place, trying to sell you something, in so many different words. YUCK!

What marketers who don't THINK seem to forget is that folk who own and manage PCs and email aren't that stupid.

They can read and write, you know, and they are not IDIOTS.

After two or three repeats, they will immediately delete such messages from their inbox and probably put a spam block on the sender domain for good measure.

That's not what the marketeer had in mind, I should wager ...

Problem No. 2 - Too Little Content

I remember one "mini course" which contained nothing but teasers and virtually no useful information whatsoever.

Once again, look, marketeers!

If you want people to "try" the product, you need to give them at least a little taste of it.

Don't hold the glass with the sample wine under their nose, and when they reach out, oops, that'll be $875 dollars please ... but we do have a "money back" guarantee ...

This is just ANNOYING, it's even dishonourable and an angry person does not make a good customer.

Problem No. 3 - Too Much, Way Too Much ...

I subscribed to another auto-responder teaser mini course just a few days ago, and here, the folks in charge had done a 180' U-turn on the two points above, most likely because they got it that those content less/content poor efforts don't work to sell more of their product.

In their desire to have it be known how marvellously content packed the main item was, they created this huge long document, of at least 20, 25 paragraphs for the first instalment of their chained auto-responder.

Gee.

Now I don't know about the rest of the planet, but I'm actually quite a busy person and I get STACKS of emails every day.

I try and cut down the time I spent on dealing with email because it does get out of hand, and on this occasion I was into something else anyway.

I took just *one look* at the plethora of writing and went, "Oh god, I don't have time for that right now ..." and left it.

Have you ever left a non-priority email for later ...?

Yeah, you know what I mean.

But then, the very next day, the 2nd instalment arrived. I opened it and damn me, there's another REAM of goodness knows what, but now I've missed the boat because this is No. 2 and I haven't read No. 1 yet!

I hastily closed it, feeling guilty and moved on.

But then, No. 3 arrived - another book length instalment. I just couldn't handle it anymore.

I deleted the lot.

Now that's a terrible shame because there may have been valuable information I never got, and the guys who wrote this spend AGES doing it.

So, here are my suggestion for chained auto-responders copy.

1. Head it with, "Busy? Save me! I contain important information!" or words to that effect.

2. Keep it SHORT. Pick out ONE USEFUL thing and just - tell me THAT. So I can glance at it and say, "Hey, that's useful! Cool! Thanks, guys!" When I mean short, I mean anything above three paragraphs is way, way too long for an autoresponder email in this day and age.

3. Keep it TOTALLY FOCUSSED on the product you are selling. I'm on autoresponders where you wouldn't begin to guess for all the waffle, testimonials, side tracks and "personal messages" what I'm supposed to be BUYING at the end of the day!

4. Give people a chance to keep up. Space your messages three days, don't inundate us. Or better still, test this for yourself. One hell of a lot of "internet marketing wisdom" is completely out of date now because it was researched back in the days when we got four emails a week, and not fourteen thousand each. Time has moved on and requires NEW thinking, and different strategies.

My last tip on chained autoresponders is as follows.

Subscribe yourself to OTHER PEOPLE'S efforts.

Don't look at them as a marketeer would, but as though you were a human being in front of their computer, if you know what I mean by that.

You can learn what pleases and what works, and what doesn't.

Mark out to yourself what you like and use this in your own efforts, and avoid what really turns you off.

Lastly, keep working at your chained autoresponder copy until you have something that really works, and really brings in lots more sales.

They are a great resource - if handle them right.

About the author:
Silvia Hartmann is the author of MindMillion and you can get a FREE course, delivered by autoresponder (!), the 60 Second Wealth Creator, at http://mindmillion.com/60/
Circulated by Article Emporium

Mail Server Blacklists and Spam

A white-list is a list of email senders whom you trust and would like to receive mail from. Conversely, a blacklist contains those that are not to be trusted. Blacklists need to be configured and administered on a server, at the ISP (Internet Service Provider) level or on your network. If you do not have such access, and most people do not, you can use the blacklists by choosing email services from companies that use such blacklisting techniques.

A mail server is designated as having an open relay when mail is processed in a location that is not local to either the sender or receiver. The mail server is unrelated to either party, and as such, has no business processing that email. Think of driving from your home in Washington, DC to your friend's home in Boston. If you pass through New York City on the way, that is to be expected. However, if you stop in Dallas, the route becomes suspect. An open relay mail server, whether intentional or not, is allowing mail to be routed through it that shouldn't be. In this way, spammers distribute large volumes of junk email in order to disguise their actions. Open relays used to be very common, like public mailboxes. You can drop a letter into any one without any notice of who you are. Spammers ruined this by using open relays to surreptitiously send spam without identifying themselves. When blocked by the administrator or ISP, they simply move on. They regularly scan IP addresses looking for open relay servers. When they find one, they exploit it.

Blacklists contain a database of open relay mail servers and those known to be a source of spam, and are used to filter email coming from those machines. The sender will receive a bounce message or mailer deamon telling them that their email is undeliverable. Often, the sender does not realize that they are on a blacklist or that their server is an open relay. They find out only when they attempt to send mail to someone who is uses a blacklist to filter for spam. If the sender is a spammer, the process is working. If the sender is you, the process is also working because it will force you to take steps to close that open relay or complain to the company who is handling your mail. By closing the holes in the email relay network, the spammers will be forced to stop sourcing their spam in this way. This is but one way to slow down, not stop, the spammers.

Blacklists have a very high probability of false-positives if used in blind faith. Depending on those that maintain the blacklist, email sent in good faith could land innocent people and mail servers on a blacklist. This usually happens to one of two ways. The first is through the procedure most blacklist providers use to find open relays. They simply do what the spammers do and scan IP address to look for a server that will allow them to connect and send mail. Once the program finds an open relay they add the server to the blacklist. The system administrator of the server is usually never notified. There can be mistakes made in this process leaving the administrator with a huge problem when mail starts getting lost or bounced back. Second, you may receive an IP from your provider that was previously blacklisted, even though it may no longer be an open relay. To avoid this, check the IP address against the known blacklists and ask your provider for a new one if it indeed appears.

Do you know whether your ISP maintains an open relay? If you discovered that your employee was doing work for someone else while on your time, you would certainly put a stop to it. Open relay mail servers are doing exactly that and need to be confronted. A mail server should be configured to only relay messages from authenticated users on the network. If properly protected, the server will simply tell the sender that they do not work for outsiders and bounce the message back. More and more, administrators of servers are blocking the open relay. This has been instumental in slowing down spam.

About the Author:
Keith Londrie II is a successful Webmaster and publisher of spam-resources.info A website that specializes in providing tips to help eliminate and avoid spam. Getting rid of spam that you can research on the internet in your pajamas from the comfort of your own home. Visit how to combat spam Today!
Submitted on 2006-09-15
Article Source: http://www.articlesarea.com/

Spam Scams: How Not To Become A Victim

All spam emails we receive every day in tens or hundreds are annoying and disgusting. But the worst of them are scams, hoaxes, and illegal schemes aimed at defrauding you of your money, private information, and even your life. Being aware of how the spam scams work you will be able to protect yourself against the spammers-fraudsters and not to become a victim of their fraudulent schemes.

A lot of spam scams arrive in the form of a great investment offer. It usually works as a Pyramid scheme. Spammers ask you to pay money for a membership, goods, or simply to "invest" promising you much money as revenue. Your revenue will come from those people who will invest after you. Your investment is distributed to those who joined before you. At some point the pyramid ruins because there are not enough new investors to keep the money flowing. The spammer is at the top of the pyramid and he is the only one who benefits. The scan may not always look like an investment offer. The spammers can ask you to distribute some advertising letters to a list of email addresses, for remuneration. Although they will tell you that the list contains only opt-in email addresses, it’s not true, and you will be sending spam directly from your computer.

Another fraudulent scheme you may meet looks like a letter coming from a company that you do business with. Usually the spammer asks you to follow a link within the message supposedly to update your account. But actually this is done to worm you out your personal and financial information. If you click on that link, you will be brought to a page that will look like a company’s web site. While you are logging in or filling the form in, the program is recording your keystrokes and all your private information – account number, user name, password, social security number – is disclosed. Never click on the links included in such emails. Just open a company’s web site in a separate window and check your account details out.

Nigerian spam is one of the most dangerous email scams. The mechanism of the scam is simple. The spammer sends you a badly spelled letter on behalf of a government official, deposed ruler, or relative of a ruling family asking you for help. They have some goods, money, or jewels that they cannot access due to political reasons. They ask you to allow them transfer large sums of money into your bank account. They promise to remunerate you for your kindness, or even leave all money to you. Attractive offer, isn’t it? Don’t be a dolt, don’t believe them. They tempt you into a trap. Their object is to obtain your account number and bank transfer information. They also may ask you to send them a fee to bribe some corrupt government officials. Further you may receive additional officially looking letters where you will be asked to provide further documents, private information, and money. When they have “played” with you long enough, or believe that you may suspect to be led on, they will rob you and quite.

Take care! Don’t react upon any spam message whatever tempting offer it contains. Delete it at once, or let an anti-spam filter delete all spam before you download it into your inbox.

About the Author:
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like AATools, Advanced Email Verifier, G-Lock EasyMail, Spam and Junk Email Filter http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/ More information can be found at Anti Spam Filter Resources http://www.glocksoft.net/sc/.
This article was posted on November 27, 2006
Article Source: articlecity

Why Your ISP Takes Bribes From Spammers

The lifeblood of the spammer is email. They need to be able to send lots of it on an ongoing basis to stay in "business". High profile spammers can send 80 million pieces of junk email every single day. Yes one single person.

ISPs all over the online world have vowed to stop spammers sending such vast amounts of email through their mail servers. Do they really keep their word? All the end user sees is that the spam keeps coming. There must be a loophole there somewhere. There is.

In the soft white underbelly of the internet there exists something known as a pink contract. The term pink contract comes from the color of the famous tinned meat that junk email gets its name from. A pink contract is simply a business agreement between the ISP and the spammer. The spammer agrees to pay the ISP to turn a blind eye to the junk email passing through their mail servers.

Surely this is bad business for the ISP? Well the answer to that is both Yes and No. Yes it's bad news for the people who receive the junk email and No it's good news for the ISPs bank balance. A monthly pink contract can pay the ISP amounts from $10,000 upwards. Bearing in mind that the average work-at-home spammer averages $100,000 net per year the above figure is small change fo the bigger junk email vendors (the guys who earn $200,000 - $400,000 per month.)

But..... the CanSpam Act 2003... surely that's going to make a difference? Of course. Any ISP in the United States can get in serious, serious trouble for signing pink contracts. Problem is that there's a whole big world wide web out there and the vast majority of pink contracts are signed with overseas ISPs where US authorities have no jurisdiction - China and Russia being perfect examples.

There's no moral to this story. Spam is a huge problem that's finally being taken seriously by Governmental bodies. However until they start imposing prison sentences or seizure orders on those individuals and companies in the pink contract business the problem can only continue.

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.
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Spam Fighting Strategies for Webmasters

Battling spam is just like fighting any other activity that is illegal and needs to be fought in many areas. There are some easy steps that you can take to minimize the impact of spam in your email, as discussed in Part I. However, the webmaster of your email service has many more tools they can use to fight spam.

The effort would be small if a spammer had to collect email addresses one by one. This is why they take advantage of programming that is automated, such as using a spambot. A spambot is a program that looks through Internet websites for legitimate email addresses. These addresses are then "harvested" and put into huge lists.

The best way to deal with spammers is by raising their cost without putting too much of your own effort into it. Some of the techniques described in Part I can also be used by a webmaster.

CAMOUFLAGE

A spambot will only do what it has been told to do through a program. Many times a spambot will pass you by simply if you've disguised your email address. This is because a spambot is usually programmed to search for character strings that look like this: Jane_email@emailaddressdomain.com. You can fool a spambot by changing the email to Jane_email_at_NOSPAMemailaddressdomain.com.

Should the disguised email address be harvested by a spambot it will still need to "scrubbed" before it can be used. A program for scrubbing can be difficult to write since there are many variations that are possible, such as NO_SPAM and no*spam. Try to be as creative as possible.

There is a disadvantage to the above method: you need to remember to take out the extra letters as well as put in th@ sign.

You can make an email address impossible to harvest by putting it into a graphic instead of plain text or mailto:. Not many spambots are smart enough to translate a graphic and understand the pixel pattern as text that is usable. This is particularly true since graphics can have many shapes. Again, this method can be inconvenient because you won't just be able to reply to this address or copy and paste it.

Another approach is to get rid of the accessbile and visible email address completely. You can use a form for feedback that stores data in areas where a spambot can't search. You can also store the data inside of easy to write code that is difficult to decipher due to encryption. An example of this would be javascript.

BARRIERS

Communication becomes more difficult between trusted sources when visible email addresses are hidden in graphics or banned from visibility. You want to hinder the spammer by putting a block on any spambots that are known.

Many times they will have a signature that is easily seen through an IP address that is well known or a process name (and sometimes both). Other times they can search for User-Agents that are a non-browser form.

Webmasters can easily block IP addresses as well as block any unwanted processes. The webmaster just needs to begin a cron job that will scan the network for the name of a process and then terminate any IDs that are associated with the process.

A more experienced webmaster will have a daemon that will sleep until that time when a process name is noticed. The daemon will then "wake up" and terminate the process before any spam harvesting can occur. Sample programs, which are only a bit harder to implement, can be used and are available online.

You can get traps for spambots that will block any request that is incoming simply based on search patterns and behaviors. This method to fight spam is slightly more difficult to set up and attend to because it needs certain patterns to define it, changing the pattern slightly for different spambots. How-to information and sample perl programs are available online.

RAISE THE PRICE

After time most spammers will tire of trying different variations in programming just to get email addresses, making the reward much less than the effort. This is what you want to do: make the spammer cost much higher than the reward which will make your reward much more than the effort.

A spammer won't give up until there is no profit in the effort. US legislation, such as CAN-SPAM, has only seemed to deter businesses that are legitimate and that were never the guilty ones to begin with.

There are, however, some things being done to reduce the problem of spam to just an annoyance: there are penalties for sending spam, filters for junk mail are becoming smarter, and there are proposals underway that include needing a mailer ID.

This is all bad news for the spammer while at the same time is great for the rest of us computer users.

About the Author:
Paul Wilcox writes about internet security solutions for the Internet Cyber Security website. Sign up for our free newsletter at http://www.internetcybersecurity.com
This article was posted on September 15, 2006
Article Source: articlecity