From time to time, anyone with an email address will receive offers or advertisements for services in their inbox. It seems to be only a mild nuisance and something that can be taken care of with just a push of the delete key. For most email users, however, these advertisements can become a serious problem - even to the point of causing the loss of important data. Think of your physical mailbox. What would happen if it became so clogged with junk mail every day that your bank statement ended up in the ditch or a letter from your mother lost forever? This is what happens to those whose email address ends up in the hands of a spammer.
Spam is a common term used to define Unsolicited Commercial Email, or UCE. It is email that is sent en masse to large numbers of email addresses without the owners' consent. There are several reasons why spam is different from, and more dangerous than, regular parcel post marketing. The primary reason that your physical mailbox does not get filled to overflowing with printed junk mail is the cost of traditional marketing. Direct mailers and coupon fliers must be designed, printed, and then mailed via the US Post Office. If it could all happen for free, you would need a wheelbarrow to get your mail. The very nature of email and the internet has provided a way to make this happen. While not totally free, spamming email addresses is as close as you can get.
Spammers steal machine time and bandwidth to do their deeds. In a study released by Ferris Research in 2003, the cost to US businesses was estimated at $8.9 billion. The sheer volume of spam generated is the reason why. Roughly half was tied up in lost productivity as it takes the average person 4.4 seconds to deal with a spam message. The other half was a real cost to corporations in IT staff time, server and software upgrades, and tracking down the source of the attack. In the same way, spammers steal from you at home. You pay for the bandwidth they send their messages on, you have to take the time to filter or add blocks and rules to prevent the influx, and you have to deal with the loss of any data that might occur as a result of their efforts
Another reason that spam is unlike regular mail is in the content of the advertising. Pyramid schemes, chain letters, and fraudulent scams are federal crimes, especially when perpetuated through the US Post Office. X rated material has laws governing the method in which they are sent. Computer viruses cannot be physically mailed to you, but they can come in spam. While these laws also apply to email, the internet is not a government office. There is no postman available to look for violations of that law. When an Internet Service Provider, or ISP, shuts down a spammer's account, they merely open a new one elsewhere.
Spam can be generated from untraceable accounts that give the spanner anonymity. Regular mail has postmarks that identify the location from which it was sent, even if the return address is a false one. Spam can come from anywhere in the world, outside of the jurisdiction of most policing agencies where the receiver lives. This just emboldens the spammer to continue. If you are the victim of spam that contains advertisement of extremely lurid and offensive content describing acts that are, in most societies, illegal, the offender is likely in another country. If it originated within the United States, you could - and should - turn it over to the FBI.
Why, then, do they do it? Money, pure and simple is the answer. No matter how many people they anger, they only need a small percentage, 0.0001% by most estimates,
Heuristic Filters
Until 2002, most spam filters were Heuristic, or rule-based. Heuristic simply means a common sense rule or set of rule...
heuristic-filters.php
Secret Addresses For Safe Browsing
Secret addresses are, well, secret. The idea is not to simply remove your name from the ...
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Signature Based Filters
Signature-based filters compare incoming email with email known to contain...
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Recognizing Spam Scams
Most of us have heard of Pyramid schemes, also known as Ponzi schemes after the Italian immigrant in the 1920s wh...
recognizing-spam-scams.php
Protect Your Email Address
Do not give your email address out willingly over the internet. Your email address is ...
protect-your-email-address.php
What To Do When Spam Arrives
To begin with, do not respond to the spam - ever. There are usually t...
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Mail Server Blacklists
A mail server is designated as having an open relay when mail is processed in...
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Understanding Spam Law
In December of 2003, the United States Congress passed ...
understanding-spam-law.php
Identifying Spam
Identifying Spam as soon as it occurs is the first step to preventing ...
identifying-spam.php