|
Why do I get So MUCH Spam?
The answer to that question is simple. First, sending spam E-mail is cheap! A
spammer can send out a direct marketing E-mail to hundreds even thousands of
recipients for under one cent. Second, believe it or not people buy things and
reply to junk E-mail. So when you put the two reasons together you get the
simple and basic answer that spamming is profitable. People are making a lot of
money by swamping your inbox with all kinds of junk, scams, and offensive
material.
So the real question is "How Do Spammers Get Your E-mail Address"?
The question heard more than any other is: How did my E-mail address become
public knowledge? The companies and persons responsible for flooding your inbox
with junk E-mail, advertisements, and offensive adult content, are very smart
and determined technically savvy internet users.
This document is meant to not only inform you on why the problem is so
pervasive, and why without some defence it will only get worse. And second, to
dispel a few myths about spam and how not to get spammed.
MYTHS:
If I don't give out my E-mail address, spammers won't get it. Or, I use my
hotmail address for signing up for websites and I only give out my real address
to people I know.
This is a fairly effective strategy, and in the short term it may actually work
for you, however within a matter of time you address will be located, exploited,
and shared.
Signing up for adult sites is why you get "those kind of E-mails sent to you".
The annoying question - "What kind of websites do you visit?" Contrary to
uninformed belief, you do not have to visit or sign up for adult sites to get
pounded with junk E-mail advertising "XXX HOT fill in the blank" or, "Enlarge
your p#@/~".
You could complain to the spammers ISP, that way their account is deactivated.
However, people have been complaining to ISPs since spam started and spam has
not slowed down. E-mail headers are forged, or originate from thousands of
different servers, sometimes switching servers multiple times for the same
message batch.
REALITY:
You may be aware of one or more of the following "tactics" of getting your
E-mail address and abusing that information to bombard you with trash.
Below is a list of the more popular methods of getting your address:
They buy your name from a list:
These junk mail & targeted E-mail lists have been around almost as long as the
internet itself.
For as cheap as $100.00 or £140.00 anyone can buy a list of over 11 million
addresses. These lists we're created by numerous unscrupulous website owners,
and online stores that would "share" their customer's information for some
money. As you can imagine it is impossible for spammers to identify your likes,
or interests, when sending mails to such a large group. So a "shotgun" mailing
is sent out, product offers, get rich quick schemes, adult porn sites, Korean &
Chinese ??? mailings, are all sent out to all 11 million names. |
|
Opt-in Lists:
These two little words (or one hyphenated one however you look at it) are
quickly becoming infuriating. These lists are developed by partnering with
legitimate websites which make you check "Don't send me offers", well sooner or
later you'll forget to check one of the boxes, and you're added to an opt-in
list. Although many opt-in lists are legitimate and will honour your removal
requests, for every one there are three that are not truly "opt-in" lists. You
ask to be removed from an E-mail from "Marketing Partners Ltd", and tomorrow you
get two messages saying you opted-in at one of the partner sites of "SuperOptIn
Ltd".
E-mail Extractors:
These software tools are very skilled at scouring the internet for E-mail
addresses. Websites, Forums, Alumni sites, news posts, etc. These robots can
locate thousands of E-mail addresses an hour. And spammers run them day and
night.
MX Server Extractors:
These programs exploit internet mail server protocols. When an E-mail is sent to
you it is handed over to your Mail Provider's server, which starts
"communication" with the sender. The sender's server asks to deliver a message
to a user on your server, but before the message is actually accepted by your
server it wants to know who it the mail is addressed to.
So your address is sent over and your server replies whether the name is OK, or
the address does not exist on the server, so what happens when a message is
"bounced" back to you? Basically the MX server extractors mimic the
communication without actually trying to send the message. Think of it as
someone ringing your doorbell and asking if "Joe" is home, no one named Joe may
live at your house, however if the person at your door tries enough names sooner
or later he may stumble upon yours, and you will say "Yes". (You are smart
enough to stop answering after the first or second name guess however most
E-mail servers are not). Programs exist that can mine over 5000 E-mail addresses
per minute, and believe it or not they sell for less than $100.00 or £45.00
Viruses, Spy ware, and Malicious
Code:
Not to long ago viruses & spy ware started to appear that transparently load
themselves or are sent via E-mail to your mail client. As soon as you open your
mail, contact lists, distribution lists, identifier information, embedded and
non standard tags for reporting lists are generated then sent back so the
findings together with your computer information are confirmed that your E-mail
account is active.
So when someone claims they don't get any spam at all, either they have not had
their E-mail address very long, or more likely the ISP does a pretty good job
filtering out spam at the server level before it gets to them, which probably
means legitimate mail is also being deleted before it gets to them as well. So
if you are like the rest of us, you have to fight back yourself or just stop
using E-mail.
To help eliminate your unwanted junk mail, try MailWasher
To eliminate unwanted & malicious content, try
Fire trust B9 |
