A Directory Harvest Attack or DHA is a technique used by spammers in an attempt to find e-mail addresses. It is usually carried out by generating a flood of messages to multiple addresses at a mail server that is known to be valid. Most often, these attacks are targeted at corporations since they are likely to have a standard format for official e-mail aliases (i.e. jdoe(at)company.com, johnd(at)company.com, or johndoe(at)company.com). Look up Spam in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Spam may mean: SPAM, canned meat sold by Hormel Spam (Monty Python), a comedy sketch involving this meat Spam (electronic), unsolicited or undesired bulk electronic messages, such as: e-mail spam, unsolicited emails with advertisements spamdexing, manipulating a search engine to create... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... A mail transfer agent or MTA (also called a mail server, or a mail exchange server in the context of the Domain Name System) is a computer program or software agent that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another. ...

There are two main techniques for generating the addresses that a DHA will target. First, the spammer creates a list of all possible combinations of letters and numbers up to a maximum length (15, for example) and then appends the domain name. The other, more targeted, technique is to create a list that combines first initials or common first names with common surnames (as in the example above). The success of a directory harvest attack depends on the mail server sending "bounce-backs" or automated replies to the sender for non-existant aliases. Any addresses that do not respond with a bounce-back are considered to be valid and are added to the spammers list (which are commonly sold between spammers). The Domain Name System or DNS is a system that stores information about host names and domain names in a kind of distributed database on networks, such as the Internet. ...

References

• Definition on Postini.com -- a major e-mail provider for the East Cost of the United States
• Definition on TechEncylopedia

Spamming is commonly defined as the sending of Unsolicited and/or Bulk Email - that is, email that was not asked for (Unsolicited) by multiple recipients (Bulk). ... View of a modern spam email, containing an advertising image. ... A DNS-based Blackhole List (DNSBL, Real-time Blackhole List or RBL), is a means by which an Internet site may publish a list of IP addresses, in a format which can be easily queried by computer programs on the Internet. ... The Spamhaus Project is a largely volunteer effort founded by Steve Linford in 1998 that aims to track e-mail spammers and spam-related activity. ... E-mail has become the subject of much abuse, in the form of both spamming and E-mail worm programs. ... A spambot is a program designed to collect, or harvest, e-mail addresses from the Internet in order to build mailing lists for sending unsolicited e-mail, also known as spam. ... Address munging is the practise of disguising, or munging, an e-mail address to prevent it being automatically collected and used as a target for people and organisations who send unsolicited bulk e-mail. ... It has been suggested that Made For AdSense be merged into this article or section. ... Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings. ... A screen shot of the results of searching for Miserable failure on Google. ... Keyword stuffing is considered to be an unethical Search engine optimization (SEO) technique. ... Cloaking is a search engine optimization technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the users browser; this is done by delivering content based on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of whatever is requesting the page. ... On the World Wide Web, a link farm is any group of web pages that all hyperlink to every other page in the group. ... A web ring is group of related web pages linked to each other in a sequence that forms a ring. ... Spam in blogs (also called simply blog spam or comment spam) is a form of spamming or spamdexing that recently became publicized most often when targeting weblogs (or blogs), but also affects wikis (where it is often called wikispam), guestbooks, and online discussion boards. ... Link spam (also called blog spam or comment spam) is a form of spamming or spamdexing that recently became publicized most often when targeting weblogs (or blogs), but also affects wikis (where it is often called wikispam), guestbooks, and online discussion boards. ... Sping is short for ping spam. Pings are messages sent from blog and publishing tools to a centralized network service (Ping Server) providing notification of newly published posts or content. ... Referer spam is a kind of search engine-targeted spam. ... // Early History Telemarketing is a registered trademark owned by Nadji Tehrani who founded TeleMarketing Magazine in 1982. ... An auto-dialer is an electronic device that can automatically dial telephone numbers to communicate between any two points in the telephone, mobile phone and pager networks. ... Mobile phone spam is a form of spamming directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. ... SPIT (SPam over Internet Telephony) is a notional term devised by marketers to describe a problem that does not yet exist, but for which solutions may be sold. ... This phishing attempt, disguised as an official email from a (fictional) bank, attempts to trick the banks members into giving away their account information by confirming it at the phishers linked website. ... Advance fee fraud, often also known as the Nigerian money transfer fraud, Nigerian scam or 419 scam after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that it violates[1], is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from victims after making them believe they will get an immense fortune. ... A typical lottery scam is a scam email that tells the recipient they have won a sum of money in a lottery. ... Make money fast was a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so famous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups. ... Messaging spam, sometimes called SPIM, is a type of spam where the target is instant messaging services. ... Newsgroup spam is a type of spamming where the targets are Usenet newsgroups. ... Flyposting is the act of putting advertising posters or flyers in illegal places. ... Although spamming has existed on the Internet since as early as 1978, the first major spamming incidents didnt take place until the early 1990s. ...