ERIC
SPELLMANN
Junk e-mail re-visited, part 1
Two years ago, I wrote a two-part piece on junk e-mail. Many readers have
asked that it be reprinted, so here goes:
Every day I receive around 80 pieces of e-mail. Do you think I read every
one of those? Of course not. I delete over half of them without even
opening them. Am I being rude? No, because the messages I am deleting
are "junk e-mail".
The purest definition of junk e-mail is "any unsolicited sales message sent
to your address". Most of these messages fall into three categories:
- Make Money Fast!
- Invitations to Visit Adult Sites
- Offers
to Get YOU into the Junk E-mail Business
Most
people on the internet don’t use the phrase "junk e-mail" to
describe this garbage. We call it spam. This maligned word
can be used as a noun and a verb. For instance: A piece of
junk e-mail is called "a spam". The person who sent it
is called a spammer. If you received it, you have been spammed.
I know that sounds funny, but trust me, you’ll hear it described
that way.
Spamming is definitely a NO-NO on the Net. In fact, most Internet Service Providers
specifically outline this offence in their terms and conditions. Spam is a
VERY serious issue with ISPs, but not for the reasons you assume.
Let’s say I run a small ISP, EricNet, and I have 500 customers. If one
of those customers decides to spam a million or so addresses on the Net, what
will happen? Well, think about it. Depending on the quality of the e-mail address
list used, about 20% (200,000) of the messages will "bounce" back
to the sender as being bad addresses.
Around
50 percent of the recipients will be so livid, they will write
angry replies DEMANDING to be removed from the spammer’s
list. In fact, only about 500 or so people will respond with interest
in the offer. You may think 500 is not a very good return
on one million messages. But remember: How much does it cost
a spammer to send a thousand e-mail messages? A million e-mail
messages? That’s right, nada, nothing.
My point is this: more than 700,000 e-mail replies (most of them “angry”)
will be dropped on EricNet within the course of a few hours. What do you
think will happen to internet access at EricNet during that time? Can
you say, “No Access?” That’s right. One
bad spammer could make EricNet the enemy of every hacker on the Net. Going
out of business is a very real possibility.
When an ISP discovers that one of its customers is a spammer, they immediately
cancel the user’s account. In fact, the perpetrator is blacklisted
from ever using EricNet again. Like I said, ISPs take spamming very seriously.
Perhaps the most-asked spam question I receive is: "How did I get on this
list in the first place?" The answer is more complex than most people
realize. Let me start at the beginning:
Pretend you just discovered your uncle is on the internet. However, you
don’t know his e-mail address. Is there a way for you to find it?
You bet. Get a pencil and paper. You’ll want to write this down. Are
you ready?
Pick up the phone and ask him!
You will not find a comprehensive list of everyone’s e-mail address on
the internet. Nor would you want there to be one. If such a list existed,
every idiot would harvest it and you would be buried in junk.
So, once again: "how does your address get on those lists?" Remember
that joke Aunt Edna e-mailed to you last week? Get ready for this. She
sold you out, albeit unintentionally! Most people send jokes to more than one
person at a time. They put everyone’s e-mail address in the “TO:” field. Usually,
when someone receives the joke, they simply forward it to their friends, and
so forth, and so on. After a while, these jokes have so many addresses
on them, you have to scroll quite a bit just to see the funny story.
Many spammers have software that can extract e-mail addresses out of messages. Even
if you don’t forward jokes to others, if anyone has sent a joke to
you, your address becomes public knowledge. My advice: when forwarding
jokes, put all of your friends’ addresses in the BCC (blind carbon copy)
field. They will all still receive the joke, but their addresses will
not show up on the messages. Not only are you protecting their privacy,
you are preventing spammers from using their addresses.
Another technique used by spammers is called the Dictionary Harvest.
A spammer will program his computer to send e-mail to every-word-in-the-dictionary@somedomain.com.
In other words, if your user name is a dictionary word, you could get spam
automatically. Common user names are also thrown into the mix. Trust
me, everyone’s address that begins with cooldude or superman will receive
more than their share of junk e-mail.
At this point, I need to make a very important clarification. Attention,
jealous spouses: if your husband or wife receives a piece of "adult" junk
e-mail, it doesn't necessarily mean they have been frequenting those
types of websites. Everyone will receive adult e-mail at some time
or another. It just goes with the territory.
As you’ve probably noticed, it’s not a question of if you will
ever receive junk e-mail, it’s just a matter of when. So, how can
you stop it? Find out next update!
I’ll see you in Cyberspace!
http://www.EricSpellmann.com
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