Danger #2: SPAM

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Sounds familiar? This sort of thing will appear in your Email on a regular basis, along with all sorts of other “get rich quick” and “too good to be true one time only special offer” scams.

DO NOT RESPOND TO SUCH UNSOLICITED EMAILS -- EVER. Do not try to click on any "remove me" options that might be shown within the email. If possible do not even read these messages.

Unsolicited emails are known to Internet users as “SPAM” or Junk Email, and is one of the biggest annoyances of email. It does no real harm in itself, but does clog up your mailbox.

If you respond to such an unsolicited email, you can be sure you’ll be ripped off in one way or another, and at the very least someone will know that the email they sent has been received, and so they will also know that they can send more SPAM to that address.

So we’ll say it again: DO NOT RESPOND TO UNSOLICITED EMAILS -- EVER, and DO NOT click on any "remove me" options that might be shown within the email. Doing so will indicate to the spammers that the email address they have targeted exists - and you will just receive more spam.

NOTE: Some reputable companies will send you email from time to time. For example your Anti-Virus company, your ISP or other REPUTABLE companies that you have purchased a product or service from in the past may occasionally send you emails telling you about important updates or new products. Such email is not generally SPAM as you will have opted in to their mailing list. If you do not wish to receive further emails from such REPUTABLE companies it is safe to click on a "remove me" link, or to send an email to the company concerned asking to be removed from their mailing list. You cannot be removed from some types of mailing list however: For example it would be wrong of you to insist that your ISP should not to send you email as they may need to send you information on changes to their service or warnings about engineering work and downtime. Indeed, the terms and conditions for certain types of products and services may require that you accept email from them. However in all such cases if the company is REPUTABLE then the information they send you would not be just be to do with trying to sell you something.

 

Common questions about spam, and options on how to stop it:

Q: How do spammers get my address?
A: There are four main ways.

1) The most common is by sending millions of emails addresses to every name they can think of at every domain name they come across. So users with common names like david or janet, with email addresses like david@whateverisp.com and janet@mydomain.com are more likely to receive spam than if your email address is janet454jones@some.where.com

2) Another way is to use special programs that crawl the internet looking for email addresses mentioned on websites, discussion groups, online chat areas and newsgroups anywhere on the internet. Thus using your email address in places where large numbers of people congregate, message boards and discussion groups and newsgroups in particular, is likely to result in an increase in spam getting sent to your address. Note that unless you pay extra for a "private" registration when registering a domain name, spammers are also likely to pick up your email address from the public registration details associated with your domain name registration.

3) A third way is simply from you sending a message back to a spammer asking to be removed from their mailing list after having received spam from them. You see when a spammer sends out spam, they do not know that your address necessarily exists. But when you send a message back, or even attempt to purchase whatever they are selling, the spammer instantly know that address not only exists but is actively used. The end result is that you'll get more spam. So we'll say it again: DO NOT RESPOND TO UNSOLICITED EMAILS -- EVER, and DO NOT click on any "remove me" options that might be shown within the email. Doing so will indicate to the spammers that the email address they have targeted exists - and you will just receive more spam.

4) A fourth way that a spammer can get your email address is by buying (or swapping) a mailing list from another spammer. Lists like this, especially if they contain addresses that are "known to be active, as mentioned in item 3), can change hands for huge amounts of money.

Q: How can I stop spam?
A: The Internet industry as a whole is doing a great deal to try to stop spam, but inadequate laws in many countries makes it difficult, as does the sheer ruthlessness and ingenuity of the spammers who are unconcerned about laws, morals and ethics. The only option for most people is therefore to install and use some form of spam filtering system. For consumers these come in two forms: those that try to electronically detect what is and isn't spam when you receive email (such as Mailwasher Pro, from www.firetrust.com), and those that use a challenge response system.

The challenge-response system can be particularly effective against spam and can reduce the amount that reaches your mailbox by as much as 100%. It works as follows: Where anyone who sends you an email for the first time, they are sent an email back asking them to click on a special link in the email to authenticate themselves. Since spammers send email from made up addresses ("remove me" links within the email go to completely different places) , they will not receive this verification request, so never click on the link. And unless the link is clicked on, the email that was sent to you will not be delivered. In contrast, if a friend sends you an email and receives the verification request, they WILL click on the link. The email they sent you will then be delivered, and any subsequent emails from that person will also be delivered from that point onwards. Companies offering anti-spam solutions of this nature include SpamArrest (www.spamarrest.com).

 

Q: I've heard that Spammers can tell if I've read a spam message, and therefore know my address is valid and that they should send me more Spam, even if I do nothing more than read the message. Is this just a myth?
A: It is quite true. It is possible to code an email in such a way as to send a completely hidden notification to the Spammer when you read any message they have sent you. If possible, you should therefore turn off any email "preview panes" in your email program. A preview pane gives you a view of any message you highlight in your inbox, and this constitutes as "reading" the message in this context as the notification will go out to the spammer even though you have not fully opened the email by double-clicking on it etc. Have a look in the documentation or help files provided with your email program to see how to turn of any "preview pane".

On the next page we will talk about Internet fraud and something known as "Phishing, and how to avoid being caught out by them. Click on the Go on to next page link below to read about this, or click on the View Internet Security Index link to go back to the index page.

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NOTE: What we describe on these pages is merely our opinion of what the most important things you need to know and do in order to keep your Internet experience as safe as possible. You should therefore not treat it as a definitive text on Internet security, nor as being necessarily 100% accurate, but instead simply as a general guide.