E-mail spam

From ArticleWorld

The spam operation

E-mail Spam mail sent via internet to a mass quantity of recipients without permission from those recipients. Most Spammers obtain these addresses from Usenet postings, web pages, or data bases. Either that, or they might put an address of a common username in the “To” line of the email. To illustrate, one could “make up” an email address to use for spamming such as user#[email protected], or fishingsea#[email protected], substituting the user name and domain name with any one of the most commonly used for email services.

At the very least spamming can be thought of as the equivalent of postage due “junk mail”, or could also be the start or continuation of an internet scam. Many of the hosts of Spam mailings often use stolen credit card information, or provide false contact information to siphon money out of people illegally, as well as make it difficult for prosecutors to track illegal spamming activity.

Another way that spammers can scam people is by the use of spoof email addresses that look like they came from an authentic website, but are really a fake representation of an original site. One of the most noted examples of spoofing is when someone tries to con an email recipient to giving away username and password information to a fake Paypal or Ebay site. This way, money can be stolen from Paypal accounts associated with various merchants, often without the original merchant’s knowledge.

Actions can be taken to check the authenticity of an email address or website. To fight against this type of fraud, some domains require the use of SMTP-AUTH, which helps attest for the authentication of a specific email account from which an email originated. Another method of authentication would be for each email participant to copy and paste the domain name into the address bar, and see if that domain page comes up in connection with an email. This is especially useful if you get an email invoice for Paypal or other merchant account in which a username or password might be needed to enter that account.

To avoid username and password fraud, it is better to access the original site to make a payment rather than through a link in an email.

Prosecution of spam

Another form of precaution against email fraud by spammers would be to report suspicious email to a domain or website to which the email claimed to be an account of. For example, many people have reported to Ebay that people have been sending them emails which claim to be from email administration, and the Ebay support staff can verify it. Furthermore, web servers such as Yahoo or Hotmail offer spam blocking and reporting services. This helps prevent the spread of spam, and suspicious email activity.

Beware of spamming, and if a person spams another person, the perpetrator of spam better be careful. Spammers can not only lose email accounts, but be legally prosecuted.

Spam prevention

One can avoid spam by the use of various anti-virus or spyware programs. Furthermore, automated spam filters can be set up to block any unwanted email messages from entering a person’s email inbox to a spam monitoring service such as Samcop.com. Another method of preventing spam would be to make sure to only give email addresses to trusted sites, and only to close family members and friends who would not misuse your email address.