SPAM: Open the Can Carefully

In the past several years, the word Spam has changed its common meaning. Until the mid nineties, the word spam was a household name referring to a mystery canned meat from a company called Hormel. It was epitomized in a Monty Python skit known as The SPAM Skit. They managed to say the word SPAM more than a hundred times in two-and-a-half minutes.

Nerds being nerds (name someone you know who youd consider a computer geek who DOESNT know any piece of Monty Python word-for-word), the name soon gained a new meaning. As unwanted newsgroup postings on the Usenet grew, they began to be called SPAM for their repetitiveness. Eventually this came to be a catch-all phrase for any unwanted communication through a computer.

Now the word is still a household name, but has a completely new meaning. Meat in a can has nothing to do with what we label SPAM today. Generally the term is in reference to unwanted commercial email. UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) is the proper term for what most people term to be SPAM.

Whatever you call it, you probably hate it. In several polls (both official and amateur), Spam has been listed as the number one annoyance to users on the Internet. It is talked about more and more often as even the politicians have begun to do something about it. The trouble is no one is REALLY doing much to stop it on a grand scale.

There are many steps in the right direction, however. For now, lets talk about how someone, like you, puts themselves in a position to receive Spam. Then well discuss how you can avoid or get rid of it.

Getting On the SPAMmers List
There are three common ways that email addresses get put on the SPAMmers list.

1 - Spiders & Robots: The most common way to get listed is to post your address on a website, forum, chat room, or public profile (such as MSN, ICQ, About.com, etc.). These addresses are easily gathered by programs called spiders or robots. These programs simply troll the Web looking for email addresses to ad to the SPAMmers list.

2 - Nefarious Opt-In Scams: The next most common way to get your address listed is to give it to a questionable business on the Internet (usually with all good intentions). That business may then turn around and sell it to someone else as a part of a list.

3 - Random Address Generation: This is another tactic employed by SPAMmers and its just what its name implies. A piece of software generates random addresses using commonly-known domains (hotmail.com, msn.com, earthlink.net, etc.).

Once your name is on a list with one SPAMmer, it will soon make its way to more. Most of those who build these lists are in the business of selling these lists as well. Not many SPAMmers build their own lists anymore unless theyre very small-time or have a specific way of gathering these lists that makes it very easy. Youd be surprised at how much time it takes to actually generate a sizeable list of email addresses excepting the random generation method. To get a good list of email addresses a list that is fairly low on bad addresses takes time and considerable computing power. This is why most harvesters (as theyre commonly called) are not SPAMmers themselves.

These lists are sold to anyone who will pay the money to obtain them. As the sending of UCE has become more and more competitive, these lists have become more and more targeted towards specific industries. Some lists are great for eBay users, some are great for get-rich-quick schemes, some are better for medical markets.

Staying Off The SPAMmers List
If you spend any amount of time surfing the Web especially if you use chat rooms, forums, or other publicly-displayed message areas you need to get a disposable email address. These are widely available for free from places like Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com, and any number of smaller destinations on the Web. If a chat room or user group requires that you post a public address in your profile, use that disposable address. If you post in the UseNet or other groups, set up an email address with your ISP specifically for that posting.

Before giving your real email address to ANYONE, make sure you know who they are. Friends and family are obvious, but what about that business youre giving an address to? How about that eBay seller? Know who they are and whether you can trust them before you give that email address to them. Check if they have an anti-SPAM policy or privacy policy listed and read what it says.

Getting Rid of SPAM You Already Receive
Most email clients, such as Outlook Express, include filtering systems that you can employ to block, trash, or otherwise deal with questionable emails. I have filters that take any email with three or more ! marks (!!!) in the subject and put it in a Crap folder. Another filter puts anything with MLM, FFA, or Network Marketing into the same folder. A third has a list of known SPAM addresses that are automatically dumped into the SPAMforSpamCop folder. After going through the Crap folder and scanning the subjects to be sure there arent any legitimate emails in there, I then move all of those to the SPAMforSpamCop folder as well. That entire folder is then packaged up and sent to SpamCop.net for dissection. If you need more information on SpamCop.net, please refer to my article Reporting Spam to SpamCop.net on my website. You can read that article here:
http://aww.aaronzwebworkz.com/resources/newsletter/articles.shtml?spamcop

If you havent already done so, set up at least one more (I use several) email address. If you sign up for a lot of one-time mailings (eBooks, articles, etc.), consider using a service like SpamGourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com). You can sign up for temporary email addresses that will work only the specified number of times before deactivating. I use them for one-time mailings or, say, a five-part series mailing. Then, if they send anything more, it will reject it and Ill never have to deal with it.

Your main email address should not be easy to guess. A good test for this is to call someone who doesnt know your email and ask them what they think your email address probably is. If they cant guess your username in the first few tries, youve got a good one. If they can, you need to reconsider it or do something to change that.

Attacking the SPAMmer