English, German, Italian - It's All SPAM To Me

Has anyone else noticed the sudden blast of unsolicited \re-mail (spam) loaded with url's for the unsuspecting and \rcurious Internet surfer to click on?

What's even better, the bulk of this SPAM is in a foreign \rlanguage. I was at a neighborhood party this weekend and \ryou can't imagine the number of people who asked me for \rassistance with this. They have no idea what to do.

The sad fact is there are a lot of Stupid People who have \rnothing better to do and can't seem to find a better way \rof making a buck than Annoying Me and everyone else \rsubject to their stupidity with spam. I guess that's a \rlittle harsh. Not really.

How Does The Average Person Deal With This

I wrote in a previous article how bad a feel for the average \rperson having to deal with such things. It is increasingly \rbecoming a nightmare for all to deal with. For the technical \ramong us, it's not as bad given that we deal with such \rthings on a technical level almost everyday.

Given this current flood of SPAM I thought I would post an \rarticle I wrote quite some time ago. It's a short article, \rand may be old news for some, but I can tell you that many \rpeople still don't follow the basic's when dealing with SPAM.

How You May Be Helping Spammers

I can't imagine that anyone with an e-mail address has not \rreceived unsolicited e-mail or spam in one form or another. \rWhat do you do when you receive these types of e-mails. \rDo you delete them right away, respond to them informing \rthe sender you do not wish to receive them, or forward \rthem to a friend whom you think might be interested in the \rinformation?

When the Internet as we know it was very young and most \runsolicited e-mails where either by accident or the result \rof opt-in subscriptions, you could respond with the word \r"unsubscribe" in the reply subject and your name was taken \roff the list. That quickly changed once people found \rout how powerful a marketing tool e-mail was. Now, most \rof the time you respond to unsolicited e-mails you are \rletting the sender know that your e-mail address is active \ror alive. Instead of being taken off the list you are \rtargeted more aggressively. The sender of the e-mail may \ralso sell your e-mail address to other e-marketers, \rsubstantially increasing the number of unsolicited e-mails \ryour receive.

WHow Do Spammers Get My E-mail Address

Well, there are quite a few ways, but one of the ways \rspammers get hold of your e-mail address is literally by \rguessing. For instance, say your e-mail address is part \rof the domain "-notrealdomain-.com", and your e-mail address \ris "me@-notrealdomain-.com", the spammers have programs that \rwill generate thousands of combinations of names / domains \ri.e. "me@-notrealdomain-.com", "you@-notrealdomain-.com", \r"them@-notrealdomain-.com" hoping that somewhere along the \rline the target e-mail address exists. It's really not \rdifficult to do, since a computer can do this over and \rover again. If you receive one of these e-mails and \rreply to it, you have just informed the sender that they \rdid indeed find a live address. It's all downhill from \rthere.

Spoofing E-mail Addresses

Another interesting tactic is to send someone an e-mail and \rmake it appear as if it came from your address. Have you \rever received an e-mail from someone you don't know and don't \rhave in you contact list asking you to stop sending them \runsolicited e-mails? Many people experience this problem. \rBasically, the spammer made the recipient of the spam think \ryou sent it to them. This is called e-mail spoofing and is \rrelatively easy to do. The spammers use mail servers that \rallow something called "mail relay." This allows them to send \re-mails from any source address (even yours) to any target \raddress.

Conclusion

A few things to keep in mind when dealing with unsolicited \re-mails and spam:

If you are starting to receive SPAM in alternate languages, \rcheck your e-mail client for the ability to filter / block \rSPAM by specifying language types.

If you only speak English, and don't expect to receive \re-mail in German, then block it;

If your SPAM filter downloads data from your vendor for \rknown SPAM sites make sure to perform and schedule the \rdownload to happen frequently;

If you receive e-mail or spam from someone you don't know, \rdo not respond to it, just delete it;

If someone informs you that they are receiving spam from \ryour e-mail address, inform them that it was not sent by \ryou and most likely came from a spammer who spoofed your \raddress. Tell them to just delete it;

Never give out your e-mail address unless you are sure the \rsite or organization will be responsible for it's privacy;

If you are going to sign up for something like a news \rarticle or other information, read their privacy statement, \ragreement, and disclaimer before doing so; And

Review the entire privacy statement to make sure there are \rno check boxes or radio buttons on by default. You never \rknow what you are agreeing to.

These are just a few of the things you can do to help \rprevent SPAM from becoming a huge burden. You will most \rlikely not be able to prevent all SPAM from getting to \ryour inbox, but you sure can decrease the number.

You may reprint or publish this article free of charge as \rlong as the bylines are included.

Original URL (The Web version of the article)

What SPAM Means: "Stupid People Annoying Me"

About The Author\rDarren Miller is an Information Security Consultant with \rover sixteen years experience. He has written many \rtechnology & security articles, some of which have been \rpublished in nationally circulated magazines & periodicals. \rDarren is a staff writer for http://www.defendingthenet.com and \rseveral other e-zines. If you would like to contact Darren \ryou can e-mail him at Darren.Miller@ParaLogic.Net