This
is the start of a 10 article anti-spam
series which will teach you more
than you have probably ever wanted
to know about spam. To read the
complete series, just follow the
links in the left side navigation
of each page. Enjoy the series!
The
New Scourge
In this article we describe
what this new problem facing us
is.
“You’ve got mail”.
There was a time, not too long ago,
when people nearly shaking with
anticipation waited for these three
words. Taking a look at my email
this afternoon I find a veritable
treasure trove of opportunities…
Let’s see, I can get a new
job, a date, a loan, and a college
degree, all from the comfort of
my computer. Wait, here comes some
more, an alarming 90% of all my
email is spam. Imagine if you will,
a garbage truck that goes down the
street, stops at every door and
in front of it they lay 2 heaping,
stinking, open bags of trash that
you must get past to get into your
house. How long would you allow
this to continue? How far would
you go to keep them from your door?
With today’s emails it’s
no longer, “You’ve got
mail”, it’s “You’ve
got spam”. Are you fed up
with it yet? Are you ready to give
up on email yet?
Well, don’t lose hope just
yet; in this series we will be exploring
this “New Scourge”.
You learn how to deal with spam,
how to defeat spam, you will become
empowered to take back what is rightfully
yours, namely your email lifestyle.
Lofty goals I admit, but rest assured
by the time we are done, you will
know how to stop spam. The War against
spam will be a long campaign, I’ll
teach you how to win your own battles,
and I will show you how we all can
put an end to a plague that has
gone on far too long.
“All warfare is based on deception”,
never more true than in the war
against spam. The one thing a spam
email is designed for is to get
you to click somewhere. If they
can get you to browse to their product’s
site, then the Spammer makes money.
To get you to do this, they will
go to many extremes. Some Masquerade
as a legitimate emails from a company
you would normally trust, others
leave vague misleading information
and links that don’t appear
to be links. Only after you have
clicked one of these links and have
been sent to the “Page of
a million Pop-ups” do you
find that you have been tricked.
This frustration is further compounded
by the fact that your machine now
has more browsers open than you
can possibly close. Additionally,
dozens of tracking cookies have
probably been installed. Worse even
still… They now know that
they sent an email to a “live”
email address. You are now a target.
“Know your enemy”. No,
your enemy is not “[email protected]”,
nor is it “[email protected]”.
People that send spam email are
known as “Spammers”,
(along with other less polite terms),
Spammers are your enemy; the problem
with spam is that knowing whose
sending it can become nearly impossible.
Email was not originally designed
with security in mind, so just about
anyone can send email and claim
that they are “[email protected]”.
With such anonymity, it’s
no wonder that less scrupulous,
business minded individuals have
looked to this avenue for a source
of revenue. These individuals are
well aware of the current legislation,
they know just how far they can
push things, and they know how to
cover their tracks. This is one
of the many hurdles we will have
to jump in order to eliminate spam.
How can you block seemingly random
emails, from random people about
random products?
“He who understands how to
fight with the strength of the enemy
will be victorious.” Spammers
use deception to send out their
email, their greatest strength is
also their greatest weakness. Spam
emails could never pass a Lie Detector,
it’s just too bad there is
no such test… or is there?
Wouldn’t it be great if every
time an email came in, the senders
integrity would be challenged? FuseMail
does just that, when an email comes
in from an unknown sender…
say [email protected], the email
is held up in a queue, additionally
an email is sent back to [email protected]
asking for verification. Most of
the time this alone is enough to
eliminate spam because [email protected]
is a made up name, no one ever receives
a request to verify. Valid senders
get the email verification request
in their email, they click on the
link fill out a few fields and automatically
their email(s) are released to you.
What’s more, they are added
to your safe senders list so from
now on, their emails come through
without any delay.
We have spent some time discussing
what spam is, who is sending it
to you and why it’s so hard
to get rid of. We have talked about
some of the pitfalls and we have
identified one sure fire way of
stopping spam. In our next visit
into the realm of the “New
Scourge” known as spam, we
will look at what you and
your ISP can do about this problem.
Until next time, remember to have
fun and take care.
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