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What About Spam?

 

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Spam - No Relief In Site

According to recent statistics, 75% to 80% of all Internet e-mail traffic is Spam!  The reason for this is simple - a spammer has virtually no cost of distribution.  E-mail, as opposed to snail (postal) mail, is free.  And since most spammers use botnets of infected computers to send their spam, there is no equipment cost, either.  A spammer will buy a list of e-mail addresses, a copy of spambot software to install on his botnet, and the cost associated with acquiring a good botnet from his friendly neighborhood cracker.  This might be, all told, a few hundred to several thousand dollars in up front costs.  For more information see the Wikipedia article.

The most common purpose for spamming is advertising. Goods commonly advertised in spam include pornography, unlicensed computer software, medical products such as Viagra, credit card accounts, and fad products. Many of the products advertised in spam are fraudulent in nature, such as quack medications and get-rich-quick schemes. Spam is frequently used to advertise scams, such as diploma mills, advance fee fraud, pyramid schemes, stock pump-and-dump schemes, and phishing.

There are three popular fake etymologies of the word "spam". The first, promulgated by Canter & Siegel themselves, is that "spamming" is what happens when one dumps a can of SPAM luncheon meat into a fan blade. The second is the acronym "sh*t posing as mail." The third is similar, using "stupid pointless annoying messages."  Spam could also be taken to mean a set of humorous English acronyms, including: Short/Stupid/Silly Particularly/Pointless Annoying Messages, Self-Promotional Advertising Material, Self Propelled Automatic Mail, Send Post All Members and Sending Persistently Annoying Mail. SPAM is also a portmanteau of "spew" and "scam".

Protecting Yourself From Spam

Outlook and Outlook Express Users

Unfortunately, spam cannot be blocked.  It can be filtered, though, and all of the popular Internet Security Suites have spam filtering options.  When installed and enabled, this will create a Junk Mail folder in your e-mail application (Outlook or Outlook Express).  The application will add everyone in your Address Book to a whitelist of allowed senders.  Using a Bayesian filter, possible junk mail is moved from the Inbox to the Junk Mail folder. 

You will need to train your filter by review the junk mail for false positives, mail you really want, like e-mail news letters and other legitimate mass mailings from companies and organizations that you want mail from, and using the provided Unjunk button, move it back to your Inbox.  The filter will note the senders address, and add it to the whitelist of allowed e-mailers.

Junk mail that slips through the filter can be sent to the Junk Mail folder, and the sender of that mail will be added to the blacklist of blocked senders.

Microsoft Outlook 2003 has built in spam filtering capabilities that I have found as good as any software solution.  It is available as a stand alone purchase, or as part of the Microsoft Office suite of productivity applications.  Both are available at a significant discount from retail on my Software Store.

Web Mail Users

If you are using AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, GMail, and similar products, you are using web mail.  Web mail uses a web browser, like Internet Explorer, to read e-mail, instead of a special e-mail application.  Your options are limited to the capabilities of your service provider.  All the major web mail players provide some level of spam filtering - so use it.  Go into your account and set up spam filtering if it it not already enabled.

Upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 will also protect you from many of these threats.

All Mail Users

There are things we all can do to reduce the amount of spam we receive:

  • Remember how we set up log on credentials for each computer user?  Give everyone their own e-mail account, too.  At least you only will be dealing with your own spam.

  • Take advantage of spam filtering offered by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as Comcast, Qwest, EarthLink, Net Zero, etc.

  • Create a separate e-mail account to use when you register or sign up for stuff on line.  If you e-mail address is later sold, you will be able to filter your spam more easily.

  • Avoid signing up for sweepstakes and free offers, unless they are from companies you know and trust, and you are positive that it is not a phishing e-mail.  We discuss phishing next.  This is one way spammers develop their mailing lists.

    Once, just to test this point, I filled out a survey that promised a free iPod on completion of the survey.  This was back toward the end of 2001, when the iPod was released.  I used the e-mail account ipod@wyzguys.com for this experiment.  The survey asked a lot of marketing type questions, about product and service preferences and the like.  Toward the end of the survey the application "crashed mysteriously."  Never did get the iPod.  But to this day I get about 20-40 e-mails addressed to ipod@wyzguys.com.

  • Never, ever attempt to unsubscribe, even if the facility is offered in the e-mail.  This promotes your e-mail address from "potential" to "verified" status, and you will get even more spam.

  • Never, ever respond to spam.  Never!  If you are foolish enough to fall for one of their offers, your e-mail address is promoted from "potential" to "known buyer" and there will be no end of spam for you.

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