MoMusings

SPAM, we all hate it right? Offers of pills to make parts of your anatomy bigger, make you perform longer, keep you up, budget software [usually stolen], access to certain types of web sites [Adult], mortgage offers, cheap holidays and/or flights, cable, dsl, web space….the list is almost endless!…SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM…..

What is SPAM and how did it get used as a term for certain classes of e-mail? All is revealed below:

SPAM definition:

1. A meat product sold in tins (Spiced Pork And Ham, like luncheon meat).
2. Slang for Unsolicited Commercial E-mail aka UCE

Use of the term “spam” was adopted as a result of the Monty Python sketch in which the SPAM meat product was featured. In the Monty Python sketch, a group of Vikings sing a chorus of “spam, spam, spam” in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet.

One of the increasingly common uses of botnets [networks of compromised computers] are as conduits to push SPAM through. This way the originator of the SPAM appears to be the system under control of the bot-herder [the controller of the botnet which tells the compromised computers what tasks to carry out], not the real sender which is either the bot-herder or those that have rented the use of the botnet, or have stumbled upon the installed proxy server function of the bot [backdoor aka remote access trojan].

So, now you know

I know that some of you out there actually buy things advertised in SPAM e-mails. How, do I know that ? See this article and the cutting from it below:

More than 10 per cent of email users buy goods advertised in spam messages, according to a survey from Radicati Group.
This is despite many of these attempted purchases failing to materialise. Another nine per cent said they had lost money due to email scams advertised in spam emails.

The study was commissioned by anti-spam vendor Mirapoint and surveyed about 800 email users.

An additional 39 per cent admitted to reading the messages and clicking on links embedded in the emails.

This is a well documented method for spammers to detect whether an email address is being used. Some 57 per cent of the latter group reported that they started receiving more spam as a result of clicking on the links.

Anti-SPAM Tips:

• Never buy anything from a SPAM e-mail, it will only make the problem worse.
• Never use the unsubscribe links offered in the e-mail, as all you are doing in most cases is proving that the e-mail address is valid and you will get even MORE SPAM.
• Use anti-SPAM filtering tools, such as Bayesian Filtering [built-in to Thunderbird], keyword or black-lists to automatically tag, filter and even kill SPAM e-mails sent to you.
• Use disposable e-mail addresses, such as Yahoo, Hotmail, Lycos, etc. when posting to newsgroups. Never use your personal e-mail address as you will start getting spam within hours of it appearing. Newsgroups and websites are ’spidered’ [searched] for e-mail addresses which are then added to the spammers lists.

Anti-SPAM Tools:

• Thunderbird - E-mail/News client with Bayesian Filtering. [Platform independent]
• POPFile - Bayesian Filtering program, can be used with most e-mail programs. [Platform independent]
• SpamPal - Anti-SPAM product which can be used with most e-mail programs. [windows only]

There are many others.

OK, own up how many of you out there are in the ‘more than 10 percent‘ that actually buy things advertised in SPAM, and what are you buying? Enquiring minds want to know!

Links:
1. Home page http://www.spam.com
2. Sketch script can be found here http://w3.informatik.gu.se/~dixi/spam.htm