Spam

Spam Kills

We all get it in our emails each and every day, or at least we try not to get it. It floods the net with millions of copies of the same message. It does this so that the person, probably someone who would have never gotten the message otherwise, will then receive that message. We all know this unfortunate event as spam. Most versions of spam emails are sent for commercial products, various get rich as fast as you want scams, and pseudo representative legal services.

There are two main versions of spam and both have completely opposite effects on the users of the Internet. The first is what is known as Cancellable Usenet spam, which is a message that may be sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups as the same time. Effects of this type of spam are usually very minor because it is aimed at people who never give their contact information away. What this type does do in fact is take away Usenet users ability to use and access these newsgroups because of a barrage of messages that are all irrelevant to the site.

The most common form of spam is email spam and this targets email users with direct messages. These lists are generated through Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, and/or searching the web for addresses. These messages cost the user money to receive them. These costs for example are paid for by the user if they are through a paying ISP. For example, if you are a company “x” subscriber and you begin receiving ads from this company, who do you think are paying for these ads? The subscribers are paying for their own spam on this system. In an indirect manner, these costs are put right to the paying customer. A way that you are made to then think that this company is not giving you any spam is that they tell you about the spam prevention software that they have. What this really is becomes a program that will weed out all the spam that does not come from them, making themselves look legit. This might sound like a bit of conspiracy theory but you can join one of the paying ISPs and find out for yourself. Join and give it about a week or two and check your email and see what “junk mail” you might have.

A very unfriendly version email spam is one that is pretty nasty and that means that it sends spam to mailing lists through the generating of these lists that come from discussion forums on the Internet. Spammers use a variety of tools and programs to send out their messages to various groups as they become subscribers to these groups. The lists that they receive from joining these groups are then a direct target for their various attacks, which can range in the millions