Jul 17 2008
Knowing about Spam
Spam is annoying. Period. Why people would want to send us all stupid messages on the purchase of prescription drugs or getting some outrageously good mortgage rate is beyond me. Well, not really. You can ignore the e-mails. But not everybody does. And that is why they are sent. The e-mails cost so little (or nothing) to send. Thus, sending a million of them could be a Cakewalk. Let’s say once in 1000 recipients is their ploy. Someone just got 1,000 new customers!
How the hell to do spammers get your address in the first place? Well, they use a variety of techniques. They use programs called spambots to search the web and pick up any e-mail addresses that could be included on websites. They use what is called the “Dictionary” technique, where they take a well-known email extension and to make all sorts of usernames can go with him . For example, with me, they could try usernames “kara”, “kara1″, “kara2″ and so on, until they can confirm one of those linked to an extension is a valid email address. A little like going page by page through the dictionary.
Never fill out a registration form on a website and find a little box, probably down, asking if you want to receive information, newsletters, or something of that nature? Often, the box is checked, and in order not to receive information, you have to unchecked. Well, if you miss the types of boxes on the wrong types of sites, your e-mail may be handed over to spammers on a silver platter. Well, almost. Often a zillion e-mail addresses are sold for three times nothing to spammers on CD.
Many Internet service providers (the guys to keep you connected to the Internet so you can send and receive e-mails) use a variety of methods to block spam before it ever gets to you. Nevertheless, we all know that some spam inevitably pass through our inbox. Then we must take a proactive stance and install a software filter it out!
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