Posting your email address on a web page in a machine readable format is simply asking for trouble because thousands of robots crawl the Web looking for email addresses to add to spam mailing lists. One way to avoid this …[Continue]
Neo-Nazi Spam
Coinciding with the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, email users around the world have found their email boxes stuffed with German Neo-Nazi propaganda. In what appears to be the first time spam has been used to …[Continue]
CAPTCHA
Ever wonder why so many websites ask you to enter squiggly, distorted pass codes? They are using captcha to verify your humanity. A captcha is an automated test that humans can pass, but computers can not. To learn more, read …[Continue]
Joe Job
A Joe Job is spam mail that deliberately and specifically uses an incorrect from address in order to put the blame on that specific person. Although it common for viruses to forge from addresses, it is usually not done with …[Continue]
Getting Rid of Spam
Ask ten people what can be done about spam, and you’ll get ten different answers. One thoughtful discussion of the problem of unsolicited, commercial email and how to get rid of it is Getting Rid of Spam by “This is …[Continue]
Spim
As instant messaging has grown in popularity, it’s also fallen prey to the same marketers that made “spam” a household word. According to Ferris Research, spim (unsolicited commercial instant messages, also called “instant spam” or “IM marketing”) doubled last year. …[Continue]
Challenge/Response
In an effort to control unwanted e-mail, some are turning to Challenge/Response, an email filtering system that checks incoming mail against a white list of approved addresses (such as your personal address book.) If the sender is not on the …[Continue]
Spam
Spam is unsolicited commercial e-mail. Its original use as a technology word dates back to Usenet newsgroups, where “to spam” meant “to flood a newsgroup with irrelevant messages.” To learn more about the origins of “spam” and other recently coined …[Continue]
