Types Of Spam Virus Type Attacks - They may look like an advertisement (spam) or a message from someone you know. Email is the most common way that viruses, worms and trojan horses are spread. When one gets into your computer, it searches for email addresses in contact lists, word processing documents - everywhere. Then it sends the infection to every address. The more computers that have your email address, the more vulnerable you are. How important is your information?Unwanted Marketing - Many online stores hide permission to share your information in their terms and conditions, or you may have filled in a web form. Spammers get email addresses from many sources including dictionary attacks - sending millions of emails with various letter/number combinations to find valid addresses. Valid email addresses are valuable. Yours will be sold again and again. Personal - Email from people you know. You're on their list for jokes - anything they're interested in. Do you know how well protected they are from viruses? They may be among the millions of people who pass along viruses without knowing it. Instant Messaging (IM) users are under heavy attack and are extremely vulnerable. Do you get email from any IM households? |
Removing and Avoiding
Asking To Be Removed
“Remove me” links can control newsletters that you intentionally subscribed to. For any other situation, they may or may not honor your request. Unfortunately, you can’t know in advance. Conclusion - It will probably make it worse. Complaining To Legitimate Companies That
Are Sernding You Spam
Changing Your Email Address
Black Listing
White Listing
Spam Filters
Now for the good part - SpamBayes lets you decide what you consider to be Spam. One person's Spam is another's Ham If it makes a mistake, just drag the misfiled message to where it belongs, and SpamBayes learns. In less than a week, there will only be a few suspects a day, and almost no errors. Very very cool. Let me know if you want it and I'll send you the program. I'll also send you the instructions that I wrote. |
Why There Is Marketing Spam
One Person In Ten Has Purchased Something From Spam
The only way spam can be stopped is for everyone in the world - yes, the world - to stop buying from spammers until it becomes unprofitable. It’s not likely to happen. Anti-Spam laws have made it worse, and always will, because all laws have loopholes. Conclusion - For the big picture, it’s hopeless. |
Four Things You Can Do
Be sure the message text of email doesn’t automatically show. If it does, they’ve got your address. Different programs have different ways to change this setting. In MS Outlook, turn off
"preview pane" and “auto-preview”.
More than 20% of all email is never received. If an email looks suspicious – just delete it. The worst thing that can happen is that you delete a legitimate message. If a sender asks, "Didn’t you get my mail?" you can reply, "No, please send it again. What's the subject line, so I can look for it?"
Educate yourself and those around you about giving out email and other personal information. Get SpamBayes or some other filter. Conclusion - Take precautions and don't let it get to you. |