What is SPAM?

Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited, undesired bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, and mobile phone messaging spam. Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have effectively no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it has proved difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.

How can you remove SPAM?

Whenever you send out a message to many people at one time you should always use the "BCC" (blind carbon copy) method of sending. This prevents the recipient from seeing the e-mail addresses of those to whom you send messages. When you forward a message you should edit the message to eliminate the addresses of the previous recipients, this is good manners in the e-mail world. When you receive one of those touchy feely messages that you are supposed to forward, don't do it. Remember that these are created by some nefarious person who is preying on your good nature to spread their evil.
When you receive the spam there is usually a very small paragraph or sentence on the very bottom that claims to be a way for you to get yourself removed. This looks like a very tempting and legitimate way to eliminate the problem. Don't be fooled this is another common trick that is used to help spammers validate that their list contains legitimate e-mail. When you send a reply asking to be removed you are only confirming that the address is legitimate and will stay on the list. The removal instructions only work with a legitimate honest business. How do you know if the business is legitimate? You can look for telltale signs such as you have seen or heard of them in other advertising mediums. Another way is that you have previously conducted business with this company. This is no guarantee however. Beware, you might just be doing the opposite of what you want.

What are anti-SPAM appliances?

Anti-spam appliances are hardware-based solutions integrated with on-board anti-spam software deployed at the gateway or in front of the mail server, and are normally driven by an operating system optimized for spam filtering. They are generally used in larger networks such as companies and corporations, ISPs, universities, etc.

Reasons anti-spam appliances might be selected instead of software-only solutions could include:

	The customer prefers to buy hardware rather than software
	Ease of installation
	Operating system requirements (e.g. company policy requires Linux, but software is not available under this OS)
	Independence of existing hardware