Email SPAM, IT topic

[yangfan]

http://s4.invisionfree.com/lexusaltezzaclu...?showtopic=1012

Some members are worrying about email spam.

***Here is some information about email spam from my helpdesk notes.

What is spam?

Spam is simply online junk mail. It is email that you didn’t ask to receive and don’t want.

Email spam

Email spam is typically unsolicited – you haven’t asked for it or registered to receive it – and it is usually refers to the same message being sent to many different addresses.

It only sounds vaguely annoying, until you realise that:

•spam actually accounts for millions of emails per day.
•spam can be graphic, inappropriate and offensive.
•spam wastes webmail mailbox space and clogs mail networks.
•individual spam levels can grow explosively – from just 4 or 5 a day to over 500 a day.

Long considered unethical, spam is now illegal in several countries, including Australia.

However, the kinds of people who resort to spamming are often pornographers and scam artists. So they aren’t too worried about ethics, and they will find ways to avoid the law.

Virus-generated spam

Some viruses produce huge volumes of junk emails, just by fulfilling the functions that the author wrote into them.

Worm viruses, for example, will usually forward themselves to every contact in every email Address Book that they infect. The email volume that results are enormous.

Where does spam come from?

Spam can actually come from a number of sources.

Spammers

Most email spam comes from companies or individuals who have decided that email is a good way to spread unsolicited messages.

Some companies send out junk mail with the best intentions. But more often, they are professional spammers with no interest in the honesty, appropriateness or decency of their messages.

In either case, it’s still spam.

The majority of spammers are based outside Australia. So, while the ISP Acceptable Use Policies and Australian law both ban spam, not much can be done when it is being generated in a foreign country.

Virus spam

Some viruses generate emails in order to spread themselves. In these cases, the ‘spam’ may actually come from a friend or colleague. These viruses have the ability to turn your computer into a spammer too.

How do you end up getting spam?

ISP does not sell or disclose your email address to any third parties. However, that doesn’t stop spammers. Your best defence is to be very, very careful about giving out your email address – especially online.

Newsgroups and lists

Whenever you post a message to a newsgroup or chat site, your email address is automatically attached to your post. (You need to specifically configure your newsreader program to stop it from doing this.)

It is easy for spammers to harvest the email addresses from the tens of thousands of usenet messages posted every day.

It is also possible, although not as easy, for spammers to harvest email addresses from discussion groups and lists.

Spammers now have sophisticated and powerful computer programs that sift through thousands of newsgroups every day, to extract the email addresses form from them.

Chat services

If you’ve ever registered with a chat service (like IRC) and entered your email address in the personal information area, you may be displaying your address every time you use the service. It’s easy for spammers to capture your address from this source.

Online contests and surveys

If you’ve ever entered an online contest or survey that required you to submit your email address, your address may have ended up with a spammer. In fact, capturing email addresses is the only reason that many online contests and surveys exist.

Viruses

Once they have infected your computer, some Trojan and other viruses will send your email address to another computer. The owner may either be a spammer, or will sell the captured addresses to spammers.

Bad luck

Spammers have also developed powerful software that lets them probe millions of possible email addresses at random. By generating random letter combinations and adding “@yahoo.com.au”, it is only a matter of time before the software strikes a real address.

Other spammers

Once a spammer has your email address, there’s a good chance of them selling it to other spammers.

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I use Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Norton NIS.

Microsoft anti-spam technology is much better than Norton.

Norton's software has their footprints everywhere, so many attacks (worms, viruses and other) aim at Norton software.

Good luck with your computer and email account!

General information only. PM me if any other problems with your computer.

Thanks.

[greeneyes]

Just when I thought I started a car club!!!

[yangfan]

[FLEX]

dude dude dude -
as much as we all hate spam -
it is just as annoying reading about it ...

we get the pic ... i notice u also like to waffle on alot . no offence but keep it short and to the point - all your typing takes up alotta space on our server !! LOL

[yangfan]

he he, all my helpdesk notes (my hard-work, my job) are already there... ctrl+c, ctrl + v...

Altezza club is important, members are important... so I don't mind...

More information on SPAM and other is available too (huge size), AxZ bank people steal my notes...

Thanks.