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| Articles: (Updated Frquently) |
| Spam, What is it Good for, Absolutely Nothing! |
| By: Jay B Stockman |
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Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), or spam has reached epidemic proportions, and continues to grow. According to American Online, of the estimated 30 million email messages each day, about 30% on average was unsolicited commercial email. As a result of its very low marginal costs, spam has become extremely prolific. Regardless of how many emails are sent out, the spammers' costs are low, and constant. With numbers like these, there is a tremendous burden shifted to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to process and store that amount of data.
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Huge volumes of this junk may undoubtedly contribute to many of the access, speed, and reliability problems suffered by many ISPs.
Further, many large ISPs have experienced major system outages as the result of massive junk email campaigns. Spam is an issue about consent, not content. Regardless of whether the UCE message is an advertisement, porn, or a winning lottery notice, the content is irrelevant. If the message was sent unsolicited, and in bulk then the message is spam.
This junk e-mail is more than just annoying; it costs Internet users, and Internet-based businesses millions, even billions, per year. When a spammer sends an email message to a million people, it is carried by numerous electronic systems on route to its destination.
The systems in between are bearing the burden of carrying advertisements, and other unsolicited junk for the spammer. The number of spams sent out each day is truly overwhelming, and each one must be handled efficiently, and expeditiously by many systems. There is no justification for forcing third parties to bear the load of unsolicited advertising. Ultimately, these costs are passed on to YOU, the consumer.
Spam originates in one of two ways, it is sent directly by the spammer from and under their control, or via illegal third party exploitation such as open proxies or open relays. Spammers get your address in a variety of ways. If you sign up for, and provide your email address, these seemingly friendly sites can turn around and sell your email to advertisers. Additionally, if you have your email address on a Web page, it is easy for unscrupulous advertisers to "harvest" it, and add you to their lists.
There are ways to reduce the number of spam messages, however it is presently impossible to stop them all. Spam filters, are software applications that redirect emails based on the presence of certain common phrases, or words. These automated measures are prone to being defeated by clever spammers. Additionally, there is a risk of
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important emails being deleted as spam. In 2003, Congress passed a sweeping law, CAN-SPAM act of 2003, which basically prohibits the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers in all emails. Additionally, the FTC is authorized (but not required) to establish a do-not-email registry. The CAN-SPAM Act took effect on January 1, 2004.
Spam is based on theft of service; it wastes time, money, and other resources. Spam can and will overwhelm your electronic mail box if it isn't fought. Over time, unless the proliferation of spam isn't stopped, it will destroy the usefulness and effectiveness of email as a communication tool.
About the Author
Jay B Stockman is a contributing editor for Spam Blocker Software Solutions Visit http://spam-blockeronline.com/ for more information.
Dr. Jay B Stockman is an individual contributor to Google Health Co-op
Dr. Jay B Stockman's public Google Health Co-op profile
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| Is There A Future For Spam? |
| By: Niall Roche |
Copyright 2005 Niall Roche
Will you always be buried underneath a mountain of spam? Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? With the current flood of spam to your inbox and ever more devious practices on the part of spammers you'd be forgiven for thinking that spam is here to stay.
The tide has turned folks. It may not seem like that right now with spam being just as abundant as ever. Spammers are getting desperate though. Their most recent move to use home computers as spam zombies demonstrates this desperation quite clearly. For spammers to want to use low speed cable and DSL connections to send their junk email means one thing - the email servers they're normally using are being blocked as quickly as they go online.
This is not to say that spam will just disappear. The volume of spam you're receiving hasn't noticeably reduced. Not yet but it will. Education is beginning to take effect. People are deleting spam instead of replying to it. Home users are hiding their PCs behind firewalls, antivirus software and spam filters. Companies are implementing enforcable Internet policies which prevent employees from sending spam, jokes or otherwise, during working hours. Even Microsoft have made a committment to fighting spam. Their recent buyout of Giant Software may see spam filtering as a default feature in the next version of Microsoft Windows perhaps?
Let's just imagine for a second what might happen if spam doesn't decrease over the next few years.
The geographical hotspots for spammers are Russia, China and the Phillipines. Could a government ,say perhaps the US Government, take a drastic step. Maybe initiate an electronic first strike on the countries which host junk email servers which are used to send out billions of pieces of spam every day? The US already have military Cyber Warfare teams fending off attacks from hackers working for foreign Governments. How hard would it be for them to initiate a cyber assault on spam servers? The US and China actively trade cyber warfare body blows every single day - although this is never discussed on the evening news.
Could data embargos be used to "choke" spammers of their online resources? The Internet itself is compromised of 13 central "pillars" and millions of nodes. A joint venture between the US, UK and the EU could theoretically shut down entire nodes to certain countries - a sort of E-embargo. No data in. No data out. In a world that relies so heavily on data this could bring any offending spam supporting country to its knees in just a few hours.
What's the likelihood of either scenario ever developing? Anywhere from non-existent to highly probable. We live in a world where absolutes mean nothing as each day passes and we surpass what was previously thought impossible.
The future of spam is a dim one. Public outrage and the drain on bandwidth and Internet resources as a whole has forged a bond of common anger between Joe Soap users and big business worldwide. The message is clear - Spam Has To Go!
What was once a very lucrative business for the spammer may soon be putting up a "Closed Due To Lack of Business" sign. Let's hope so.
About the author:
Niall Roche runs Spam-Site.com which reviews and tests spam blockers and also provides tons of information on the origins of spam and how to fight it.
http://www.spam-site.com
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| Keywords: spam blocker spam, spam is there, that spam, spam blocker, mountain of spam, tests spam blockers, junk email, spammer, spammers, niall roche |
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