Handling Spam: Responding

Most spam messages will include a link at the bottom which states something
like "to remove yourself from the list click here ...". On the surface this
seems innocent enough, but if you do respond you are potentially increasing
the amount of spam that you receive by many times.

Wait a minute. You mean you ask to be removed and instead not only are you
not removed but you will get more spam than ever? How can that be so?
To understand why you must first understand how spamming works. You see,
spammers operate by getting zillions and zillions of email addresses however
they can.

Sometimes they purchase CD collections of "15 million clean email addresses"
or "5 million email addresses" for some small amount of money. I've seen
these collections as cheap as $9.95 (one wonders how clean these collections
are).

Another common tactic is to use spiders to scan thousands of web pages for
email addresses. These addresses are then added to a database which is then
sold or used.

And sometimes the spammers just pick a domain and send their spam to a
variety of possible email addresses at that domain. They just pick a domain
and use a dictionary of names and send every one of those names to the
domain. Those that generate a bounced (error) message are deleted from the
list.

So you see, the spammer begins with a list of email addresses which are not
validated. They are simply known to not have returned a bounce message (an
error indicating an email account did not exist). However, what is not known
is that a human being is actually reading the mail from that mailbox.

The problem with responding is that you validate for the spammer that a
human exists at that email address. This increases the value of your email
address by many times. A smart spammer can actually sell these verified
addresses to collections of "clean" lists.

Of course if you actually buy something from the spammer you've increased
the value of your email address to astronomical levels. In this case, you
may find yourself added to countless "sucker" lists, receiving countless
offers from the most obscure places.

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This
website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet
profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internet-tips.net
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Bayesian Spam Filters Uncovered

In a word Bayesian spam filters are "intelligent". Bayesian spam filters are intelligent in so far as they're capable of comparing two sets of information and acting on the result. This is in direct contrast to the vast majority of other spam filters who use pre-built rules to decide which e-mail is spam and which is not.

Bayesian spam filters can take one group of legitimate e-mail and another group of spam and compare the values and data of each. The definition of legitimate e-mail that it creates at the end of this comparison session is what it uses going forward to scan your inbox for spam.

FYI Bayesian spam filters are named after Thomas Bayes an 18 century cleric who created something known as Bayes Theorem. In summary Bayes Theorem is as follows: .."in statistical inference to update estimates of the probability that different hypotheses are true, based on observations and a knowledge of how likely those observations are, given each hypothesis." In plain English it looks for obvious repeating patterns to form an "opinion" on something. In spam filter terms that "opinion" becomes a rule which keeps you spam free (or pretty close :-)

The really neat thing about Bayesian filters is that they're capable of learning. For example if they decided to block an e-mail because the filter perceived it as junk but the user marked it as valid mail the Bayesian filter then knows not to block that type of e-mail in the future. So, in time, this type of spam filter learns enough to block spam far more effectively. AOL have embraced this type of spam filter with the launch of AOL 9.0 and AOL Communicator- if the big dog wants it then it must be worthwhile?

So what Bayesian spam filtering options are available to you? Well quite a few to be honest and you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the names involved :-) The first one on the list is AOL with their AOL Communicator product. The spam filtering features in AOL Communicator and AOL 9 are, to be honest, impressive. Think what you will of the provider themselves AOL Communicator is an excellent product and is suitable for use by both PC and Mac OSX users.

Next up we have Eudora. The nice folks at Qualcomm have designed an excellent e-mail client that also has built in Bayesian spam filtering. I've used Eudora in the past and it's a neat little package. Again the benefits here are advanced integrated spam filtering with your e-mail automatically. Mac OSX and OS9 users are in luck with Eudora providing support for both.

If you'd like to know more about spam filters or just spam in general please do drop by http://www.spam-site.com for more information.

Niall Roche is the content author and owner of http://www.spam-site.com.

Beware Spam Withdrawals

I miss the good old days when the only time you'd spend an hour dealing with spam was trying to pry it out of the can.
Q: I am so sick of all the spam that is sent to my business email address. I spend an hour every morning just trying to sort out the good email from the bad. I know I could just delete it all, but I'm afraid I'll accidentally delete email that might be important to my business. Short of unplugging my computer, what's the best solution for dealing with spam?

A: I feel your pain. I, too, miss the good old days when the only time you'd spend an hour dealing with spam was trying to pry it out of the can.

Due to the nature of my business, I get a lot of unwanted email. I've been working on the Internet since 1995 and my email address has been publicly exposed for most of that time, so I am a spammer's delight. It is no exaggeration to say that I used to receive more than 400 email messages a day. Out of those 400 messages about 10% were from people I knew, 10% were from people I needed to know, and the rest were from people that I would like to track down and field dress with a very dull knife.

Spammers, they are called the scourge of the Internet the digital kin of the lowly telemarketer and dreaded junk mailer.

After listening to me complain about spam for months, my lead engineer burst into my office a few weeks ago and announced, "I've solved our spam problem! I've installed a spam filter on our server that will prevent spam from getting through."

Great, I thought, now I can find something new to complain about.

I wondered what I would do with the extra two hours a day this wonderful spam filter would give me. My joy quickly waned when within a day my email went from 400 to 40. It was the saddest day of my life. Sitting there staring at my empty email box I suddenly felt very alone. At that moment I realized that not only had I come to expect the morning deluge of email, but I had come to find comfort in it. The spammers had become my friends. They wanted me to get rich quick and brighten my smile. They wanted to enhance my love life with generic Viagra and give me great deals on miniature cameras, low interest loans, waterfront property, and more. And the sheer number of folks concerned about the abundance (or lack thereof) of my anatomy was incredibly heart warming.

And the ladies that sent me email were so nice. They were worried that I was lonely and offered to cure my loneliness if only I gave them a credit card number. How sweet is that?

After a few days the withdrawal symptoms ceased and I was happy to be free of the majority of the spam, though to this day I'm afraid that I might be missing out on something grand.

You and I are not alone, Anna. According to a recent study by eMarketer, the average Internet email user now receives 81 emails a day, and nearly one quarter of them are spam. Spam now makes up more than 40% of all email and costs U.S. companies more than $10 billion annually. Seventy-six billion unsolicited e-mail messages will be delivered in 2003.

So how do spammers get your email address in the first place? It's easier than you might think. While some spam comes as a result of online purchases (yes, there are companies that will sell your email address no matter what their privacy policy says), that's just one of the ways spammers get you in their sites.

Spammers use "spider software" to crawl the web and harvest email address, so if you have a personal or company website that has your email posted on it, sooner or later a spam spider is going to grab your address and add it to the mill. Likewise when you sign up to take online surveys or receive email newsletters, you are potentially exposing yourself to spammers.

How can you reduce the amount of spam you get? Many people think that you can't fight spam, so you should just accept it and move on. In other words, you can not fight the Borg, so smile and be assimilated into the fold. While spam is hard to eliminate, there are things you can do to lessen the amount of spam you receive and it's impact on your daily business life.

First, stop clicking on the "unsubscribe" links at the bottom of spam emails. While some of the links are valid and will get you removed from spammer's lists, other are actually there just to let the spammer know that your address is valid. Click the link to unsubscribe and you might actually see the amount of spam you receive increase.

Second, it's a good idea to have at least two e-mail addresses. Use one for personal or business use, and the other for surveys and online purchases.

Third, consider installing a spam blocking software on your computer or company network. There are a variety of spam blocking applications on the market that range in price from free to a hundred bucks. Though none of them will completely eliminate spam, they can greatly reduce the volume you receive. Search the Web for "spam filter" and investigate the ones that you feel are right for you.

Your Internet Service Provider should also offer an anti-spam application, but be careful how you use it. I have a client who recently increased the sensitivity of their ISP spam blocker to the point that nothing was getting delivered to their company email accounts, including their own company newsletter. They had effectively built an email brick wall that stopped the spam and everything else. Not a good idea.

Before investing in a commercial spam blocker you might also try adjusting the email filtering settings in your email software. Microsoft Outlook, for example, lets you set rules for handling incoming mail. The same is true with Outlook Express, Eudora, and Apple's Mail OSX. Each have built-in filtering features that can help eliminate unwanted email by parameters you set.

One thing to remember is that if spam didn't work, it would quickly go away. In other words, if spammers weren't profiting from sending unwanted emails they would go do something else.

Probably become a telemarketer or credit card debt collector.

Whether you use a commercial product or rely on your existing email software to filter out spam, just be careful that you don't batten down the hatches so tight that you no longer receive any email at all.

Here's to your success!

Tim Knox tim@onlineprofits4u.com

Small Business Q&A is written by veteran entrepreneur and syndicated columnist, Tim Knox. Tim serves as the president and CEO of three successful technology companies: B2Secure Inc., a Web-based hiring management software company; Digital Graphiti Inc., a software development company; and Sidebar Systems, a company that creates-cutting edge convergence software for broadcast media outlets. Tim is also the founder of OnlineProfits4U.com, an ebusiness dedicated to the success of online entrepreneurs. Tim is also the Ebusiness Startup and Design Expert for Entrepreneur.com, the website of the national publication Entrepreneur Magazine. http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.onlineprofits4u.com
http://www.digitalgraphiti.com

Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years

 Trust, Inc.Will other spammers take heed? Dont count on it.Jeremy Jaynes was on top of the world. By age 28, he owned a million-dollar home, a high-class restaurant, a chain of gyms and countless other toys. Yet those were only the spoils of his main line of business, which was swindling innocent people out of their money through email scams. From an unassuming house serving as his companys headquarters in Raleigh, NC, Jaynes sent an estimated ten million messages a day pitching products most recipients didn't want, amassing an estimated $24 million fortune in the process. Using aliases such as Jeremy James and Gaven Stubberfield, Jaynes spammed his way up to the 8 position on Spamhaus Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) and grossed as much as $750,000 a month, allowing him to live like a king.However, Jaynes ran head-on into an information superhighway road block when a Virginia judge sentenced him to nine years in prison for his November 2004 conviction on felony charges of using false IP addresses to send mass email advertisements (some just call it spamming). The conviction was a landmark decision, as Jaynes became the first person in the United States convicted of felony spam charges. Though his operation was based in North Carolina, Jaynes was tried in Virginia because it is home to a large number of the routers that control much of North America's Internet traffic (its also the home of AOL and a government building or two). He shouldve Used the Privacy SoftwareDuring the trial, prosecutors focused on three of Jaynes most egregious scams: software that promised to protect users' private information; a service for choosing penny stocks to invest in; and a work-from-home "FedEx refund processor" opportunity that promised $75-an-hour work but did little more than give buyers access to a website of delinquent FedEx accounts. Sound familiar? Anyone with an e-mail address has received countless messages originating from Jaynes operation. (If youre still waiting on your privacy software to show up, its probably safe to stop checking the mailbox.)Jaynes got lists of millions of email addresses through a stolen database of America Online customers. He also illegally obtained e-mail addresses of eBay users. While the prosecutors still don't know how Jaynes got access to the lists, the Associated Press reported that the AOL names matched a list of 92 million addresses that an AOL software engineer has been charged with stealing.When Jaynes operation was raided, investigators found that the house from which he ran his operation was wired with 16 T-1 lines (a large office building can get by on a single T-1 line for all its users). Investigators also entered into evidence to-do lists handwritten by Jaynes. Take a look at Jeremy Jayne's meticulously detailed lists at:* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes1.JPG* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes2.JPG* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes3.JPGGood Work if You Can Get (Away With) ItThe economics of spamming makes Jaynes decision to build a career of it understandable, though not noble. Spammers work on the law of averages, which would seem like an odd strategy considering that the average response rate for a spam message is just one-tenth of one percent. However, once you do the math even this miniscule response rate can make one very wealthy very quickly. If a spammer sends one million messages pushing a product width a $40 profit, a response rate of 0.1 percent works out to 1000 customers, or $40,000 per million messages sent. Since each message costs only fractions of a penny to send, and Jaynes was sending literally billions of messages a year, its easy to see how he pulled in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead. Spammers have financial motivation to come up with innovative ways to avoid detection, and they have begun to join forces. But as spammers become savvier, the public is fighting back. Law enforcement has begun to crack down on internet criminals, like Jaynes, and corporations are taking measures to defend their inboxes using anti spam hardware. Law enforcement, coupled with the effectiveness of today's anti-spam systems, is introducing hesitation, uncertainty and fear for many would be spammers. As profitability decreases and risk of prosecution increases, many spammers will be forced to simply pack up and move on.
Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of enterprise email security. The companys flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.
 

Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years

 Trust, Inc.Will other spammers take heed? Dont count on it.Jeremy Jaynes was on top of the world. By age 28, he owned a million-dollar home, a high-class restaurant, a chain of gyms and countless other toys. Yet those were only the spoils of his main line of business, which was swindling innocent people out of their money through email scams. From an unassuming house serving as his companys headquarters in Raleigh, NC, Jaynes sent an estimated ten million messages a day pitching products most recipients didn't want, amassing an estimated $24 million fortune in the process. Using aliases such as Jeremy James and Gaven Stubberfield, Jaynes spammed his way up to the 8 position on Spamhaus Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) and grossed as much as $750,000 a month, allowing him to live like a king.However, Jaynes ran head-on into an information superhighway road block when a Virginia judge sentenced him to nine years in prison for his November 2004 conviction on felony charges of using false IP addresses to send mass email advertisements (some just call it spamming). The conviction was a landmark decision, as Jaynes became the first person in the United States convicted of felony spam charges. Though his operation was based in North Carolina, Jaynes was tried in Virginia because it is home to a large number of the routers that control much of North America's Internet traffic (its also the home of AOL and a government building or two). He shouldve Used the Privacy SoftwareDuring the trial, prosecutors focused on three of Jaynes most egregious scams: software that promised to protect users' private information; a service for choosing penny stocks to invest in; and a work-from-home "FedEx refund processor" opportunity that promised $75-an-hour work but did little more than give buyers access to a website of delinquent FedEx accounts. Sound familiar? Anyone with an e-mail address has received countless messages originating from Jaynes operation. (If youre still waiting on your privacy software to show up, its probably safe to stop checking the mailbox.)Jaynes got lists of millions of email addresses through a stolen database of America Online customers. He also illegally obtained e-mail addresses of eBay users. While the prosecutors still don't know how Jaynes got access to the lists, the Associated Press reported that the AOL names matched a list of 92 million addresses that an AOL software engineer has been charged with stealing.When Jaynes operation was raided, investigators found that the house from which he ran his operation was wired with 16 T-1 lines (a large office building can get by on a single T-1 line for all its users). Investigators also entered into evidence to-do lists handwritten by Jaynes. Take a look at Jeremy Jayne's meticulously detailed lists at:* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes1.JPG* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes2.JPG* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes3.JPGGood Work if You Can Get (Away With) ItThe economics of spamming makes Jaynes decision to build a career of it understandable, though not noble. Spammers work on the law of averages, which would seem like an odd strategy considering that the average response rate for a spam message is just one-tenth of one percent. However, once you do the math even this miniscule response rate can make one very wealthy very quickly. If a spammer sends one million messages pushing a product width a $40 profit, a response rate of 0.1 percent works out to 1000 customers, or $40,000 per million messages sent. Since each message costs only fractions of a penny to send, and Jaynes was sending literally billions of messages a year, its easy to see how he pulled in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead. Spammers have financial motivation to come up with innovative ways to avoid detection, and they have begun to join forces. But as spammers become savvier, the public is fighting back. Law enforcement has begun to crack down on internet criminals, like Jaynes, and corporations are taking measures to defend their inboxes using anti spam hardware. Law enforcement, coupled with the effectiveness of today's anti-spam systems, is introducing hesitation, uncertainty and fear for many would be spammers. As profitability decreases and risk of prosecution increases, many spammers will be forced to simply pack up and move on.
Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of enterprise email security. The companys flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.