Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam and more Spam. Where does it come from and how do you stop it.

We all receive unwanted email at some point in our electronic lives. There is not much we can do about it. It's like getting all those 'ads' in the mailbox at home, we usually just toss them in the recycle bin and go on about our daily lives. The same goes for unwanted/unsolicited EMAIL.

 At the heart of the spam is money: Spamming is far cheaper than conventional mail. Spammers can broadcast a million messages for a few hundred dollars.. If even a few recipients buy what’s advertised, the campaign most likely pays. The bottom line: Spammers need your money to stay in business.

Here are four common ways in which spammers get your e-mail address:

Public Web pages. If your address appears on a public Web page, spammers can automatically "harvest" it using various methods.

Chat rooms. Use your e-mail address in these groups and you’re a target.

"Dictionary" attack. Some spammers send e-mail to many addresses using combinations of names and numbers, such as John101, John102, etc.

Online registration. Disclosing your address when shopping online can unwittingly bring spam. The riskiest sites are those with no privacy policy, a statement that tells you what information the site collects on you and with whom it may share it. But even a site that posts a policy can be risky if the policy allows for sharing your address with unnamed "partners."
INTERNET PROVIDERS AS BLOCKERS

â–ºHow to tell if an e-mail is SPAM?

• If you don't know the person who sent you the e-mail, there is a good possibility that it's unsolicited junk e-mail SPAM. Don't open it. Delete it.
• If the e-mail subject line has misspelled words or odd characters, it's probably SPAM. Don't open it. Delete it.
  

â–º Do not respond to Spam e-mail

Responding to SPAM e-mail lets the unsolicited e-mail sender know that they have sent their SPAM to a real, working e-mail address. At that point spammers may sell your e-mail address to other spammers as part of a list of active e-mail addresses - thus making you a target for more SPAM. If enough people just delete the SPAM, after a while spamming will not be a profitable business anymore.

â–º Do not open SPAM e-mail & Turn-Off the Preview Pane

E-mails generally come in either of 2 formats; plain text or HTML:

• Plain text e-mails contain text only in a plain black font.
• HTML e-mails frequently include colored text, stylish fonts, background colors and graphics (this web page is in HTML).

HTML e-mails can contain hidden code that lets the spammer know that you viewed their e-mail. Besides responding to SPAM, just previewing or opening HTML e-mail can let the spammers know that they have sent their SPAM to a real, working e-mail address - thus making you the target for more unsolicited e-mail.

To prevent this, do not open or preview unsolicited e-mail. Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail clients by default have the list of e-mail messages listed at the top, and the preview pane viewing the potential SPAM e-mail at the bottom.

Here's how to turn off the preview pane:

• In Outlook go to View menu and select Preview Pane to toggle the Preview Pane off or on.
• In Outlook Express go to View and select Layout... then deselect Show preview pane as shown below. 

â–º Turn off HTML e-mail

Outlook Express 6 has an option to remove the HTML code out of e-mails, but still allows you to safely read the e-mail in plain text. Outlook also has this feature in versions starting with OfficeXP.

To turn on the feature to read all messages in plain text in Outlook Express go to Tools > Options and select the Read tab. Check Read all messages in plain text. This option is a toggle, so you can turn it off or on as needed.

â–º Use descriptive subject lines... and tell your friends

When you send an e-mail it is very helpful to the person receiving the e-mail if you give a very specific subject so that they know the e-mail is legitimately from you. A subject line of "Attached pictures of baby Ryan Smith born 7/1/03" is an example of a good, very specific subject line. Try to include names or specific information that the receiver would know that it's safe to open your e-mail.

â–º Create e-mail addresses with letters and numbers

Some spammers use dictionary programs to send their e-mails to common names. For example if your e-mail address is "joesmithson@domain.com", you would be more likely to receive an unsolicited e-mail from those spammers. Try creating an e-mail address containing letters and numbers such as "joesmithson1965@domain.com". 

â–º Use multiple e-mail addresses

It's a good idea to use at least 3 different e-mail addresses. Use one e-mail address for correspondence with close friends and family. Use a second one for any e-mail newsletters that you like to receive. Lastly use a third one for giving to businesses or for use on message boards - that you don't need to check often or mind receiving SPAM on. If you post on newsgroups or public forums and may want to receive e-mail from other members, if possible use a fake e-mail addresses that can be be deciphered by humans but not by a computer. So if your e-mail address for that purpose is "joesnewsgroupmail@domain.com", you might consider using "joesnewsgroupmail@domainDOTCOM.invalid" - a human would know to change the "DOTCOM" to ".com" and remove the suffix ".invalid" for the e-mail to go through.

Some Internet and E-Mail Service Providers now offer disposable e-mail addresses, that let you create a variation of your e-mail address for different purposes or companies. For example, you could create a disposable e-mail address of "joesmith-abccompany@domain.com" that you give to ABC company, an online merchant that you buy from. If you start receiving unsolicited e-mail at that address from other companies, you could delete the address - and you would know that ABC company is giving out your e-mail address. You could create different disposable addresses for every company that you do business with and every e-mail newsletter that you subscribe to.

â–º Consider using a small, local ISP

Spammers generally target the large, well known Internet Service Providers since they can easily find a lot of e-mail addresses that are in use that don't get bounced back to them. You may have noticed this if you try to register a new e-mail address at a large ISP - the name was probably already taken, and they may have suggested a variation of your name and numbers. On the other hand, if you use a small ISP there are plenty of email addresses available, and the addresses that are not in use would get bounced back to the spammer.

â–º Get your own domain name

You may also want to consider getting your own domain name such as "joesmithson.com", in which you could create and delete e-mail addresses for different purposes and spam prevention at will. Examples include: "abccompany@joesmithson.com", "auctions1@joesmithson.com", and "newsletters1@joesmithson.com". Of course you'd probably want to give out "joe@joesmithson.com" to your close friends and family.

â–º Use a good SPAM filter

In addition to the steps above you can use a SPAM filtering programs that scans your incoming e-mail. These programs read and analyze your e-mail and look for words, phrases, forged e-mail addresses and other tactics that spammers uses to get their mail through to your Inbox. The programs then send the suspected spam to a special SPAM folder or automatically delete the e-mail.

The downside of most SPAM filtering programs is that they do not catch 100% of SPAM and sometimes falsely filter legitimate e-mail as SPAM. A good SPAM filter and e-mail address management can save you hours of time each week that you would have spent sifting through your e-mail deciding which is good and which is junk.