Spam is as prolific as the leaves on the trees and because there are so many kinds of it, it is a challenge to find the right site or organization to report spam to.
Each type of spam will violate the law in one way or another and each can be prosecuted if it can be proven.

Saving and sending the entire email header is an important step in reporting spam. The header of every email you receive will contain information on the full chain of computers through which the email passed in order to get to you. Generally, most email will pass through at least four computers: The spammer’s computer, the spammer’s ISP, your ISP and finally your computer. This is the most reliable way for an anti-spam service to track down the spammer’s ISP because the spammer will camouflage the “from” address.

As the email passes through each computer, information is added to the header indicating who the mail came from, as well as where they are sending it. While this header information will seem complicated, you just need to make note of the originating ISP, which will be easy to recognize. For example, if you receive your mail through AOL and you note “yahoo” in the string of information, then you will know to report the spam to yahoo.

To read the information in the email header, just right click on the email, choose properties and then either “options” or “header” depending on your email program. Then cut and paste the header path in its entirety, into the body of the email. Finally, forward the spam email first, to the spammer’s ISP, and then next to spam reporting agencies

You should also forward the spam to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You can do this at the website: uce@ftc.gov. While the FTC will not take action on individual incidents, they will add the spam to a database reffered to as UCE (unsolicited commercial email)

Is everything making sense so far? If not, I’m sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.

A common spam scam you may come across is called a “419 Scam”, or the Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud. These spam emails generally relates a tale of woe - a death in the family and a huge inheritance that the sender needs your (financial) help to claim. As improbable as it sounds, many people have fallen for this scam and millions of dollars have been defrauded from them. Fax a copy of this spam along with the header information to the United States Secret Service.

Here is a list of the agencies you may report spam to, along with the type of email they can handle or will deal with.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/ - This site offers you information about the law enforcement actions that have been taken against deceptive mailers and companies and those who do not honor opt-out requests from email recipients..

www.spamabuse.org
This is a third party reporting agency.

www.spamcop.net
Another third party agency which will report spam on your behalf to the relevant anti-spam agency.

For stock fraud, email the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at enforcement@sec.gov . They are prosecuting however they are only able to deal with fraud in email that has to do with stocks and bonds.

Now might be a good time to write down the main points covered above. The act of putting it down on paper will help you remember what’s important about Spam Protection.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, still having the Free Adsense Templates available for instant download

Never respond directly to any unsolicited email that asks you to update or verify your personal information. Banks, stores and other legitimate businesses will never ask you to give this information via email, particularly following the advent of phishing.

If there is any doubt as to whether or not the email is from who it purports to be, contact the company immediately to confirm and clarify the request for information. Be sure to call a phone number from your statement. Calling the phone number in the email is probably a direct line to the identity thief.

Never click on a link in any such email. To do so would be to risk downloading malicious Trojan horse spyware, which will install keyloggers in your computer system. This would provide hackers direct access to all the personal data stored on your computer, which they will use for their own nefarious financial gain.

Never, ever fill out forms contained in an email that request personal information. The mere request for this information should ring a loud alarm bell. Phishers are able to use HTML to design very official-looking email messages. Any information entered into these forms goes directly to the phisher

Never trust links contained in unsolicited email. Phishers have devised ways to spoof legitimate website links. Common tricks that are used include misspelling web addresses or using sub-domains that include the name of a legitimate business.

An email link can also be “masked” in such a way that it displays a very official looking text-link to a legitimate company’s website, but clicking on it will take you to the phisher’s web site.

Is everything making sense so far? If not, I’m sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.

Do not cut and paste the link contained in the message into your browser. Type the address of the legitimate company in a separate browser window, so as to bypass having to click on the link in a suspected phishing email.

Always be suspicious of impersonal email. Almost all email communication from legitimate businesses will contain some specific piece of personal information that is not readily available to anyone but you. An email from your bank, for example may include part of your account number.
Always keep in mind that here are malicious people out there who do nothing more than think up creative, innovative ways to get at your personal information.

Be sure to use anti-syware and anti-virus software, and keep these regularly updated. Anti-spam filter software may help eliminate or minimize the amount of phishing spam you will receive in your inbox.

Be very cautious of opening any emailed attachments you receive, even if they seem to be from an acquaintance.

Help catch the phishers by reporting any phishing attempts. Forward the phishing email to the company that is being spoofed. Also forward it to these email addresses as well:
spam@uce.gov and reportphishing@antiphishing.org. This information will be used by the Anti-Phishing Working Group to fight phishing. This organization is a coalition between the internet industry, and financial institutions and law enforcement.

Learn more and stay informed by visiting the Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft website: www.consumer.gov/idtheft.

That’s the latest from the Spam Protection authorities. Once you’re familiar with these ideas, you’ll be ready to move to the next level.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, still having the Free Adsense Sites available for instant download

Today, the Internet is reminiscent of the wildest days of the Wild, Wild, West. Your stagecoach through the World Wide Web can be hijacked at any instant if you have no knight in firewall armor to ward off any viral intruders. When your computer is connected to the internet with no firewall running, it is vulnerable to attack from spammers, hackers and phishers.

Much like human viruses, computer viruses run the gamut from the benign to the fatally destructive to the computers they infect. And just as with human viruses, prevention is better than cure. Prevention begins by stopping them in their tracks at the portals of contact. This is where a firewall can come in handy.

An anti-spam firewall application will, to an extent, help in keeping viruses at bay. There is, however, no firewall that is 100% hacker proof - there are too many ways in which viruses can be embedded in a software download or regular data, for a firewall to detect and catch them all. However there are some relatively effective firewall programs available on the market, and some of them are actually free for your personal use.

Think about what you’ve read so far. Does it reinforce what you already know about Spam Protection? Or was there something completely new? What about the remaining paragraphs?

At the bare minimum a home personal computer that is connected to a cable modem or a full time connection needs to have and run a personal firewall software program, as well as anti-spyware and some type of anti-viral program.

The ideal firewall will hide the ports that a hacker might use to gain access to your PC and protect your home PC from attacks, as well as track those attempted entries and prohibit unauthorized access or output from your computer. Two-way firewalls are the best as they block the threats that are incoming OR outgoing, to prevent things such s virus, Trojans or malware from being installed without you knowing it.

Windows XP, as well as the new Vista have a personal firewall built into the operating system that is by default turned on. Because it monitors and offers popup warnings many people turn it off, and leave themselves remarkably vulnerable to attack. The Windows firewall default of “on” should be maintained until and unless you find another software or hardware firewall to protect your system.

Some good freeware anti-viral and firewall software programs are available, such as Zone Alarm and Zone Alarm Pro. AVG also comes in a free as well as a pro version.Neither of these programs comes with adware attached and they are very good solutions to begin to address your internet security.

You will need good anti-virus programs to go after any viruses that may inevitably bypass your firewall. It should be programmed to either quarantine or, preferably, destroy them. Last but certainly not least, it is essential to always keep your anti-viral and firewall programs up to date with the newest patches and security updates. Most viruses target your C: drive, so scan it daily. And never, ever open any unsolicited emails or the attachments that come with them.

Now might be a good time to write down the main points covered above. The act of putting it down on paper will help you remember what’s important about Spam Protection.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, still letting you get the Automated Traffic Blueprints for cheap

Whitelists are quite possibly the single most effective form of spam protection available on the market today. They are as close as you can get to totally eliminating spam from your inbox.

A whitelist is a database of trusted email addresses, IP addresses and domains. To build the list, each one of these trusted sources is manually added to the whitelist. Only email from a whitelisted source is delivered to the user’s inbox. In fact, whitelists are so effective, that the catch-rate for spam is almost 100%.

However, the efficiency of whitelists comes at a price, because it produces a large number of false positives. This means that a lot of legitimate email goes undelivered. To deal with this problem, a challenge-response technique is often instituted.

When an email from an unknown source is received, the system will respond automatically, sending a “challenge” back to the sender. This challenge may require the sender to answer certain questions, or decipher an image that displays a series of letters and numbers. This image can only be deciphered by a human, and not by spamming software. Once this is successfully done, the email is allowed to go through the system to the inbox. The sender is also added to the whitelist. The challenge-response methodology uses a combination of human judgment and software technology to determine which email to let through and which to block.

If your Spam Protection facts are out-of-date, how will that affect your actions and decisions? Make certain you don’t let important Spam Protection information slip by you.

The advantage of this method is that it is not worth it to spammers to wade through all the challenge-response emails and respond to them. They are more likely to remove the email address from their lists and go after other addresses that do not have such requirements. However, the inconvenience of having to register to send email to the whitelist user may discourage legitimate email senders from following through.

Another impractical aspect of whitelists arises when the email account user places an online order, registers for a newsletter or other service. Each of these new email sources must be manually added to the white list. If the user forgets to do this, or enters it incorrectly, important email may be blocked.

Whitelists are far more effective than anti-spam filters, because the latter work by calculating the probability that if an email contains particular words, it is likely to be spam. However, spammers easily get around this feature simply by misspelling words, or by avoiding words associated with spam. For this reason, spam filters are usually only 80-90% successful. This may be acceptable on a personal account, but not on a business account that likely receives over a hundred emails a day.

Whitelists are especially beneficial to businesses as they almost totally eliminate the waste of valuable time that would otherwise be spent wading through the hundreds of spam that are received each day. However, despite their effectiveness in blocking spam, whitelists have not gained widespread use because of the high rate of false positives. It is also virtually impossible for businesses to compile an exhaustive whitelist database of trusted email sources.

Knowing enough about Spam Protection to make solid, informed choices cuts down on the fear factor. If you apply what you’ve just learned about Spam Protection, you should have nothing to worry about.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, still letting you get the Automated Traffic Blueprints for cheap

This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding Spam Protection. A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about Spam Protection.

In the early days of the Internet, spammers primarily targeted newsgroups on USENET, the online conferencing system. These are newsgroups that are organized as forums to discuss particular topics. As electronic messaging systems advanced, it made possible the practice of crossposting - posting the exact same message to multiple newsgroups and other online forums.

Spammers were quick to adopt crossposting as a tool of their trade. Now, they could send the same electronic message to thousands of newsgroup members at the one time. Not only could they target a larger audience with one posting, but they also did not have to differentiate between the interests and focus of the individual forums that they targeted. What’s more it cost them next to nothing to spam these newsgroups.

As email became an increasingly widespread mode of communication, the spammers shifted their focus the massive audience that it made available to them. Mass emailing software soon became another essential tool of their trade, as they begun to use this application to send junk email to thousands upon thousands of unwilling recipients.

The spam industry also adapted the available Internet technology to create the “spambot”. A spambot is an automated program that will rove the Internet, “harvesting” email addresses from newsgroup postings and from other websites. It literally gathers thousands of email addresses in a single hour. These are compiled into bulk mailing lists with which the spammers can thousands of victims at a time.

The more authentic information about Spam Protection you know, the more likely people are to consider you a Spam Protection expert. Read on for even more Spam Protection facts that you can share.

The practice of sending out unsolicited, unwanted junk email and junk postings came to be called “spam.” The term is commonly believed to have been derived from a British comedy skit by Monty Python, in which a restaurant serves each meal with a side of spam. As a waitress emphasizes to a couple the availability of spam with every dish, a group of Viking patrons break out in song, singing “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM… lovely SPAM! wonderful SPAM!” in a loud chorus. In the 80’s, the term was adopted to refer to the junk emails and postings, and the name stuck.

The earliest, most widely known incident of commercial spamming dates back to 1994. It involved two lawyers who spammed USENET to advertise their services as immigration lawyers. They later expanded their marketing efforts to include email spam. The incident is commonly referred to as the “Green Card Spam.”

This nefarious industry has since grown in leaps and bounds. Today, more than half of the trillion-plus emails that are sent and received are spam. Initially, spam was generally advertising-related email. In more recent years, however, a particularly nasty crop of spammers has emerged, who send out their spam with nothing less than malicious and/or criminal intent. Some send out spam that contains viruses or malicious code. Others devise scams intended to defraud you of your money. And then there are those whose focus is identity theft.

Benign or malicious, commercial or criminal - spam has transformed the way we communicate electronically, and will continue to do so well into the near future and very likely beyond. Spam has become a regular, albeit unwanted, fact of online life.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, still letting you get the Automated Traffic Blueprints for cheap

The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with Spam Protection.

In the race to provide the best anti-spam system to fight the ever-growing threat of spam email, there are a few which stand out among the for-pay software systems. Some are software programs, while others are web-based systems that function by sending your email through their service before it gets to you. The web-based filter has the added benefit of not permitting spam to get through to your system, in the first place; on the other hand, if valid email is filtered out and isn’t spam, its difficult to recover it.

Here are reviews of top-rated spam filters

Mailwasher:

The Mailwasher spam filter is a very efficient and secure spam filtering tool. It combines a number of different techniques to detect and delete spam before it gets to your inbox, as well as protecting your computer from viruses. These techniques include: using statistics, blacklisting and white-listing, databases and advanced learning filtration.
Mail Washer supports IMAP and POP accounts, as well as MSN, AOL and Hotmail. However, it does not offer IMAP or POP proxy filtering.
This spam filter takes a bit of time to “learn” what you think is spam, and in time will be highly efficient in its spam filtration.

Only My Email:

Is on an online web based filtration system, so there is no software to download or install. Because it is not downloaded to your computer itself, the spam filtering operations will never affect your computer’s performance. Your email is filtered prior to coming to your computer and the spam will never be downloaded to your personal machine. You also get a daily spam report.

Truthfully, the only difference between you and Spam Protection experts is time. If you’ll invest a little more time in reading, you’ll be that much nearer to expert status when it comes to Spam Protection.

Only My Email is an extremely accurate anti-spam filter. It is capable of filtering up to three IMAP or POP email accounts.

Cloudmark Desktop:

This is a great, easy to use anti-spam filter. It is a plug-in for Outlook and Outlook Express. This software is highly accurate, with a great spam detection rate and relatively low false positives.

Cloudmark Desktop uses a database of spammers to identify and filter out spam. This database is updated by the community of over a million Cloudmark users. For example, when you identify a message as spam, it is automatically deleted from other Cloudmark users’ inboxes as well. Phishing spam faces the same fate. This spam filter deletes spam immediately or moves it into a dedicated folder for further action from you or later deletion.
Cloudmark Desktop is a subscription service that needs to be renewed annually. There are still some areas in which improvement is needed such as in the case of false positive spam removal, but all in all, it is a great spam and phishing email solution.

CA Anti-spam

Previously known as eTrust Anti-Spam, this software is a whitelist spam filter. This means that it will only permit mail from those you have added to your whitelist and will quarantine all other emails. Once approved, messages from a previously quarantined sender will be moved to your inbox. It also updates your whitelist by scanning you outgoing email.

While CA Anti-spam works well for those who receive only mail from those they know, but may not be practical for those who receive large volumes of email from several legitimate but unknown sources.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, still letting you get Unlimited Web Hosting from ONLY $1/month

When you think about Spam Protection, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Spam Protection are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

Nowadays, spam is more than just an irritating flood unwanted email. It is also a means by which spammers can transmit viruses, spyware and adware to your computer. An anti-spam filter is essential to minimizing this potential risk. It will also stem the flow of spam into your inbox.

What is an anti-spam filter?

An anti-spam filter is a program designed to detect and block unsolicited bulk email. It works by scanning any incoming email for words, phrases, html code and other spammer tactics to determine whether an email is spam or not. It does this based on probability formulas that calculate the likelihood that an email that has certain words is spam.

It will also create black lists and white lists. The blacklist will store email from unknown ISP and email addresses or ISP addresses; the whitelist will hold email that is sent from pre-approved sources. The filter software will also keep these lists up to date. Whenever the filter detects that an incoming email is spam, its address is added to the blacklist. Whenever the sender or recipient confirms an email as trusted and legitimate, it will be added to the white list. Most of the “sporm” (spam pornography) will be filtered out as well as any email that it detects has adult content.

What Should You Look for in Anti-spam Filter Software?

Here are other important features you should take into consideration:

You can see that there’s practical value in learning more about Spam Protection. Can you think of ways to apply what’s been covered so far?

- Make sure the anti-spam filter software is compatible with your particular email service. Do not take it for granted that it will work with what you have.

- It is important that the software program is easy for you to use and navigate. Anti-spam software is worthless if you can’t figure out how to use it or if it has features you do not understand.

- The features and tools the software offers should enable you to customize the program to suit your own needs. It should be flexible in letting you set your own rules regarding which email to permit into your inbox and what you want to filter out or block.

- Ideally, it should enable you to set up whitelist, which will indicate particular email and ISP addresses that should always be delivered to the inbox. This will ensure that legitimate email from trusted sources will never be filtered out or accidentally deleted.

- The software should install with ease, with zero or minimal errors encountered during set up. Some anti-spam software requires registration, additional downloads or other steps to be taken before it can be used.

- The software you choose should be stable in its release and workings. One way to check this is to look at the release package and view what the programmers or company states is the last stable release. It is probably not in your interests to buy software that is still in the beta phase, particularly if you are not familiar with the program.

Spam is irritating at best, and maliciously destructive at worst. Buying the right anti-spam software will go a long way toward protecting you from the spammers of the world.

That’s the latest from the Spam Protection authorities. Once you’re familiar with these ideas, you’ll be ready to move to the next level.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, still letting you get Unlimited Web Hosting from ONLY $1/month

When you think about Spam Protection, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Spam Protection are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

In the early days of the Internet, spam was little more than an irritating nuisance. However, like every other aspect of the Internet, spam has evolved to become something far more nefarious in nature.

To understand just how big a problem spam has become, it will help to realize the sheer volume of unsolicited junk mail is sent out every day. More than 50% of all the trillions of email that is mailed out is spam. This spam clogs up and wastes bandwidth, especially with the recent advent of image-based spam. It places a huge strain on servers and wastes a huge amount of time and money to deliver millions upon millions of unsolicited emails to the inboxes of recipients.

Mass Mailing Viruses

Aside from constantly inundating your inbox with unwanted email, spammers now also pose grave threats to the health of your computer

One of these new dangerous aspects of spam are that illicit senders can now manipulate your email addresses, and make it seem to the rest of the world that the spam that is sent is coming from your personal computer or domain. This may result in your service provider blocking your Internet connection, or terminating your account. And all of it can be done without any knowledge on your part. It can easily be made to seem that you are an actor in a malicious mail campaign when in fact you are an unwitting actor at best.

Once you begin to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realize that there’s more to Spam Protection than you may have first thought.

AVF

Email is the most common vehicle of choice for spreading viruses, and for hackers to get into your computer system. There is an increasing amount of this type of spam being mailed out of late. These small programs can be used in myriad harmful ways, including crashing your own system, crashing that of the parties you email or keystroke logging to gather your personal information.

Another insidious tactic that the spammers employ is called “Phishing.” It involves the spammer sending out junk email that is specifically designed to look like it is from a reputable, legitimate source such as a reputable company like ebay or paypal. This spam utilizes the company’s logo and official graphics.

The purpose of this type of spam is to get your personal and financial information. Often it will fraudulently send you to web sites where this information regarding email, finances, bank accounts or other personal info is gathered and used in illegal ways. Very often, the spammers will combine methods, spamming their victims with virus-laden software, phishing and other schemes that take spam to a whole new level of illicit, criminal activity.

A 2006 study by Consumer Reports estimated that in two years, Americans spent more than $7 billion on repairs and parts replacement resulting from viruses, malware and spyware. This does not take into account the cost to the Internet Providers who have to pay for all the bandwidth taken up by the spammers junk, or the cost in time, money and productivity to businesses that have to sort through all the spam.

Spam is no longer harmless, silly, or simply annoying. It is increasingly harmful and we need to protect against it.

That’s how things stand right now. Keep in mind that any subject can change over time, so be sure you keep up with the latest news.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, now offering Unlimited Reseller Hosting from $5/month

Have you ever wondered if what you know about Spam Protection is accurate? Consider the following paragraphs and compare what you know to the latest info on Spam Protection.

Spam has become an ever-increasing problem in recent years, costing legitimate businesses a great deal in both time and money.

In response to the growing threat from spam, new legislation was enacted in 2003. it was called: Controlling the Assault of Non Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM act). This act created some requirements for all companies who are sending bulk commercial email, as well as those companies whose products are offered for sale in the spam emails. It also instituted penalties for violators, as well as giving the client or consumer the right and the means to request that the emailers cease the spam efforts.

CAN-SPAM was enacted in January, 2004. The act covers any email which have as its purpose advertising or promotional efforts for any service or product, including those whose contents reside solely on a web site.

The legislation also covers “transactional or relationship messages,” meaning those emails which help a web site to deal with any transaction, even those which are agreed on, or make updates to any customer whether new or exisiting. None of these may contain false or spoofed routing information.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the United States agency for consumer protection, was granted the authority to enforce the act and the DOJ, or Department of Justice is additionally charged with the enforcement of the CAN SPAM act. It also provides that Internet Service Providers who are hurt by the spam may in fact sue the violators of the legislation to recoup losses to their own business.

Other Major Provisions of the Law

-It bans any attempt to falsify the information in the header or subject line.

Now that we’ve covered those aspects of Spam Protection, let’s turn to some of the other factors that need to be considered.

These must correctly identify what the message is about, and accurately display routing information as well as “To” and “from” information. The email must accurately indicate the identity of the sender and recipient. It must accurately portray the domain from which the email originates as well as the senders real email address.

- It bans misleading subject lines

The subject line must not mislead the recipient to open the email under false pretenses. It should clearly indicate the actual subject matter of the email.

- Emails sent in this fashion must offer the recipient a legitimate means to get out of receiving the commercial email in the future. Any such requests to opt-out must be honored by the spamming company, and the email address deleted from its sending list. The commercial emailer will have 10 days to after the request to cease sending messages to that address

- Commercial bulk email should easily be identified as an advertisement or solicitation. It must also include the sender’s actual physical postal address

- The recipient must be fore-warned of any sexually explicit information the email may contain. This warning must be displayed in the email’s subject line.

Each and every violation of this law or the aspects of the law subjects the sender to strict fines that can go as high as $10,000 per incident and, for certain violations, the commercial emailer will face possible jail time.

Another legal initiative aimed at fighting spam is the “Digital PhishNet” (DPN), which was established in 2004. It is a collaborative effort between the Internet industry and criminal law enforcement. Its purpose is to identify and to prosecute spammers who break the law through phishing. Online auction sites, financial institutions, ISPs and other groups within the industry are all involved in this imitative. Important data and information is forwarded in real time to law enforcement.

Knowing enough about Spam Protection to make solid, informed choices cuts down on the fear factor. If you apply what you’ve just learned about Spam Protection, you should have nothing to worry about.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, now giving away Free Adsense Sites for a limited time only

Would you like to find out what those-in-the-know have to say about Spam Protection? The information in the article below comes straight from well-informed experts with special knowledge about Spam Protection.

The spammer’s most fervent hope is that you are ignorant of the tricks and tactics used to spam your inbox. Learning the spammer’s nefarious ways is your best protection against spam.

Manipulating Text:

This is one of the most commonly used spamming techniques. Spammers will manipulate the text in the email, to foil the anti-spam filters. They may, for example, deliberately misspell some words: “M0rtg4ge” for example. They may add characters or spaces to words in the email header, to make the email seem unique from other email. Like this: X_A_N_A_X Here’s an example, . They may also insert random strings of text within the email.

Chain Letters:

Spammers may send out chain letter instructing you to forward the email to your friends and family. To entice you to do so, it may claim that forwarding it will bring good luck. This spam may carry viruses or a Trojan horse, which is sent along to anyone you forward the email to.

Image-based Spam:

The spammer sends out spam that contains an image in GIF format. This image bears the spammy message. Image-based spam is effective in by-passing spam filters because they are generally text-based.

Dictionary attacks:

This is a technique used by the spammers to find email addresses that they can spam. It involves trying random combinations of common names and words, and using these to making up email addresses, e.g. JaneDoe@YourISP.com, JDoe@YourISP.com, JaneDoe1@YourISP.com. The spammer will then send out junk email to the different variations of these addresses in the hope that some of it will go through,

Spammers tend to direct the dictionary attacks at the large email companies, which have a large number of customers.

It seems like new information is discovered about something every day. And the topic of Spam Protection is no exception. Keep reading to get more fresh news about Spam Protection.

Email spoofing:

Email spoofing involves the use of a fake email header that is written to make it look like someone other than the spammer sent the email. Very often, the spammer will make it look like the email came from a credible source such as your bank or yahoo, and try to get you to reply with personal information such as a password, social security number or credit card number. This technique is widely used because it is easy to do, and tends to catch the recipients off guard.

JavaScript:

The spammer can use Javascript that will ensure that the spam is only visible when the email is loaded. This type of spam can only be prevented using anti-spam software that decodes or blocks the java script.

Social engineering:

This spammer ploy attempts to fool the recipient into reading the junk email by pretending to be an acquaintance. It involves a junk email that has a “personal” subject line, such as “I’m leaving tomorrow,” “I got your message” or “Let’s meet again”.

Mining message boards and chat rooms:

When you post a message to a message board or chat room and leave your email address, automated programs called spambots will find your address and add it to the spammer’s mailing list. Much like a listed phone number in the telephone directory, leaving your email at these types of websites makes it public information.

Web beacons:

A web beacon, also called an “invisible GIF,” is an image sent out with spam that is invisible to the recipient. When the email is opened, the spammer will be alerted that your email address is “live.”

Open proxy, 3rd-party servers:

An open proxy is a third-party server that enables the spammers to camouflage their real identities as well as their Internet locations, when they send out their junk mail. Many spammers use these open proxy servers to help maintain their anonymity.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, who just joined this Free Website Traffic generation site