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
|
Summary White Knight Spam
Protection (Spam Filter) scans inbound email messages (SMTP
and POP3 protocols). It performs a series of tests and assigns
a "spam score" to each message indicating the probability that
the message is unsolicited. Messages whose score exceeds
thresholds set by the administrator are dropped, returned to
the sender, passed to the recipient with a warning, or
quarantined. |