The Spam Musuem
These days given the volume of spam that clogs mailboxes around the country, you might be forgiven for assuming that when electronic mail was first developed, it was devised for one purpose, and one purpose only: To peddle pills of Viagra.
Spam is one of the principal instruments of dodgy business practices and of illegal communication in the modern age. It is primarily an annoyance but it is still important to keep, study and expose this illegal (at times artistic)cultural heritage.
Here are some of the most effective spamming campaigns that you may or may not have received over the years.
How Spam Works
Experts blame the surge in spam on computer programs that hijack millions of home computers to send emails. These 'zombie networks', also called botnets, can link 100,000 home computers without their owners' knowledge. They are leased to gangs who use their huge free computing power to send millions of emails with relative anonymity.
One billion ways to spell viagra
One of the standard ways of tricking people into reading spam is to vary the spelling of a well known brand name. Two techniques are used:
- One letter substitutions.
- Extra characters included inside the word.
The word "Viagra" is always spelled in new and creative ways and
can be recognized even with a few extra characters interspersed among the letters
of the word:
Some examples include via-gra, 'V1@G'Ra, Viagzra, viagdra, via_gra, ViaZUgra
Reading where an email came from
Ever wondered how to read where an email has come from and how spammers
escape undetected. This is a spam email we received, have a look at the ploys
spammers use to avoid being caught. The important components are highlighted
in red.
GO TO : View > Options to see the email properties
Return-Path: jamie@inocent-party.co.uk (the smoke screen)
Delivered-To: you@your-email.co.uk
Received: (qmail 14370 invoked by uid 89); 19 Feb 2007 09:31:40 -0000
Received: by simscan 1.1.0 ppid: 14365, pid: 14366, t: 0.7463s
scanners:none
Received: from 141.248.33.65.cfl.res.rr.com (HELO mail.pronto.com) (65.33.248.141)
by mail.your-email.co.uk with SMTP; 19 Feb 2007 09:31:39 -0000
Received: from [192.168.5.13] (port=56327 helo=user1.domain)
(Route email came from)
by mail.pronto.com with asmtp (The
zombie mail server)
id J85Gz059233919
for you@your-email.co.uk; Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:29:07 +0000
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:29:07 +0000
From: "Willis" jamie@inocent-party.co.uk (the
smoke screen)
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Message-Id: <Cyi7lC.20061007033951@user1>
To: < you@your-email.co.uk >
Subject: RX from Canada
X-Mailer: ThinData EMS v30
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on
mail.fmcmarketing.co.uk
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham
You can use WHOIS Lookup on http://www.dnsstuff.com/
to look up details of companies to check where they are registered and located.
How to Avoid Spam
Frankly, nothing can stop it, but there are a couple of things that you can do to reduce the daily trawl through in-boxes clogged with offers of fake Viagra, loans and sex aids . Here are some common ways to limit the amount of spam that you get.
Be Careful Where You Share Your Email Address
You need to avoid sharing your email address, especially in places where it
will be posted online and it can be spidered by spammers. Many people use an
alternative email address to post to places like forums and blogs, such as a
Hotmail or Yahoo free email address. You can also use this email address when
you order things online so that if you end up getting ads from these companies
they will go to that email address and keep your real email address spam free.
Another option is to write you email address in a different format, for example.
mymail_AT_googlemail.com or use a picture, anyone
reading it will understand but it will not be detected by spammers.
Another thing to be careful of is when you sign up to check your car insurance and other accounts online. When you do this, be sure to read the terms of service agreement. Often they contain small print that you agree to have your email address shared (sold) with their partners (paid advertisers).
Be Careful What Email You Open
Many emails come to you in html form and when you open those emails, it will
call the images from their server. What spammers do is encode the email address
that email was sent to and when the image is called from the server it will
verify that your email address is a 'live' one. A 'live'
email address is worth a premium and ripe for selling. To avoid this don't open
email where you don't know the sender and be sure to turn off the preview pane
on your email program so you don't accidently read the email. This is also good
advice to avoid viruses.
Don't Try To Unsubscribe
If you get an email that you didn't sign up for then don't try to unsubscribe
even if there is an unsubscribe link. This will only verify that they have a
'live' email address.
Don't Buy
It's pretty simple. If people didn't buy stuff from spam, the business of spamming
would stop. Of course this isn't an immediate solution but if everyone online
stopped buying from these kinds of emails, it wouldn't be advantageous for them
to advertise in this manner.
Use Filtering
Many ISPs now offer spam filtering on the email address that they provide you
with. Check with your ISP to see if they do. If they don't or you want more
protection you can get programs to delete spam. Another option is to manually
set up filtering in your email program such as Outlook Express
