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What SPAM
Means: “Stupid People Annoying Me”
Title
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What SPAM Means: “Stupid People Annoying Me”
English, German, Italian - It’s All SPAM To Me
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Has anyone else noticed the sudden blast of unsolicited e-mail
(spam) loaded with url’s for the unsuspecting and curious
Internet surfer to click on?
What’s even better, the bulk of this SPAM is in a foreign
language. I was at a neighborhood party this weekend and you
can’t imagine the number of people who asked me for assistance
with this. They have no idea what to do.
The sad fact is there are a lot of Stupid People who have
nothing better to do and can’t seem to find a better way of
making a buck than Annoying Me and everyone else subject to
their stupidity with spam. I guess that’s a little harsh. Not
really.
How Does The Average Person Deal With This
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I wrote in a previous article how bad a feel for the average
person having to deal with such things. It is increasingly
becoming a nightmare for all to deal with. For the technical
among us, it’s not as bad given that we deal with such things on
a technical level almost everyday.
Given this current flood of SPAM I thought I would post an
article I wrote quite some time ago. It’s a short article, and
may be old news for some, but I can tell you that many people
still don’t follow the basic’s when dealing with SPAM.
How You May Be Helping Spammers
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I can’t imagine that anyone with an e-mail address has not
received unsolicited e-mail or spam in one form or another. What
do you do when you receive these types of e-mails. Do you delete
them right away, respond to them informing the sender you do not
wish to receive them, or forward them to a friend whom you think
might be interested in the information?
When the Internet as we know it was very young and most
unsolicited e-mails where either by accident or the result of
opt-in subscriptions, you could respond with the word
“unsubscribe” in the reply subject and your name was taken off
the list. That quickly changed once people found out how
powerful a marketing tool e-mail was. Now, most of the time you
respond to unsolicited e-mails you are letting the sender know
that your e-mail address is active or alive. Instead of being
taken off the list you are targeted more aggressively. The
sender of the e-mail may also sell your e-mail address to other
e-marketers, substantially increasing the number of unsolicited
e-mails your receive.
WHow Do Spammers Get My E-mail Address
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Well, there are quite a few ways, but one of the ways spammers
get hold of your e-mail address is literally by guessing. For
instance, say your e-mail address is part of the domain
“-notrealdomain-.com”, and your e-mail address is
“me@-notrealdomain-.com”, the spammers have programs that will
generate thousands of combinations of names / domains i.e.
“me@-notrealdomain-.com”, “you@-notrealdomain-.com”,
“them@-notrealdomain-.com” hoping that somewhere along the line
the target e-mail address exists. It’s really not difficult to
do, since a computer can do this over and over again. If you
receive one of these e-mails and reply to it, you have just
informed the sender that they did indeed find a live address.
It’s all downhill from there.
Spoofing E-mail Addresses
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Another interesting tactic is to send someone an e-mail and make
it appear as if it came from your address. Have you ever
received an e-mail from someone you don’t know and don’t have in
you contact list asking you to stop sending them unsolicited
e-mails? Many people experience this problem. Basically, the
spammer made the recipient of the spam think you sent it to
them. This is called e-mail spoofing and is relatively easy to
do. The spammers use mail servers that allow something called
“mail relay.” This allows them to send e-mails from any source
address (even yours) to any target address.
Conclusion
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A few things to keep in mind when dealing with unsolicited
e-mails and spam:
If you are starting to receive SPAM in alternate languages,
check your e-mail client for the ability to filter / block SPAM
by specifying language types.
If you only speak English, and don’t expect to receive e-mail in
German, then block it;
If your SPAM filter downloads data from your vendor for known
SPAM sites make sure to perform and schedule the download to
happen frequently;
If you receive e-mail or spam from someone you don’t know, do
not respond to it, just delete it;
If someone informs you that they are receiving spam from your
e-mail address, inform them that it was not sent by you and most
likely came from a spammer who spoofed your address. Tell them
to just delete it;
Never give out your e-mail address unless you are sure the site
or organization will be responsible for it’s privacy;
If you are going to sign up for something like a news article or
other information, read their privacy statement, agreement, and
disclaimer before doing so; And
Review the entire privacy statement to make sure there are no
check boxes or radio buttons on by default. You never know what
you are agreeing to.
These are just a few of the things you can do to help prevent
SPAM from becoming a huge burden. You will most likely not be
able to prevent all SPAM from getting to your inbox, but you
sure can decrease the number.