Email Spam

Spam email also known as bulk or junk e-mail  is an unsolicited, usually commercial email sent to you by someone you don’t know, and often are messages that propose products you don’t want: adult messages, frauds of all kinds, and computer viruses. Spammers usually use false names, addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information to set up “disposable” accounts at various Internet service providers. Also they can use falsified or stolen credit card numbers to pay for these accounts. This allows them to move quickly from one account without being discovered by SPs. Spam is also a medium for fraudster to scam users to enter personal information on fake web sites using e-mail forged to look like it is from a bank or other organization such as Paypal.

Senders may do everything to conceal the origin of their messages. Large companies may engage another firm to send their messages. Others engage in spoofing of e-mail addresses. The e-mail protocol has no authentication, so the spammer can pretend to originate a message apparently from any e-mail address. To prevent this, some ISPs and domains require the use of SMTP-AUTH, allowing positive identification of the specific account from which an e-mail originates.

Spammers frequently seek out and make use of vulnerable third-party systems such as open mail relays and open proxy servers. SMTP forwards mail from one server to another?mail servers that ISPs run commonly require some form of authentication to ensure that the user is a customer of that ISP. Open relays, however, do not properly check who is using the mail server and pass all mail to the destination address, making it harder to track down spammers.

If you do not want to be invaded by spam emails -never respond to an email that asks for personal information like a phone number or address, never send money to anyone who contacts you by email for any reason or better do not open or preview any unsolicited email.
# Hackers may break into the network and steal the email address,
# it may leak to the web due to some mishap
# it might even get sold to spammers.

Here are other current methods and proposals how to fight with the spams:

    * Don’t use your primary email address to sign up for anything. You never know what may happen with your e-mail address. It might be passed on to spammers.
    * Never enter a chat room or post to the newsgroups without hiding your email address or you can use a temporary, throw-away address.
    * Never give your address to a web site except if you have to complete a registration or transaction, they have a good privacy policy, and you trust them. This refers especially to offers to send online greeting cards, join notification mailing lists, or email web pages to a friend - all methods used to harvest email addresses for spammers.
    * Use a Good Anti-Spam Program. First of all you have to block your Internet service provider.
    * Don’t post your address on your Web page.
    * Don’t list yourself in Internet directories.
    * Do not forward chain e-mails.