 A KMail folder full of spam emails collected over a few days. Spamming is the use of any electronic communications medium to send unsolicited messages in bulk, indiscriminately -- unlike sending to a selected group in normal marketing. In the popular eye, the most common form of spam is that delivered in e-mail as a form of commercial advertising. However, over the short history of electronic media, people have done things comparable to spamming for many purposes other than the commercial, and in many media other than e-mail. Spammers have developed a variety of spamming techniques, which vary by media: e-mail spam, instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engines spam, weblogs spam, and mobile phone messaging spam. Spamming, whose name is derived from a Monty Python sketch about SPAM food, is economically viable because it allows the advertiser to shift the cost of advertising from the advertiser to the public, as Internet service providers must add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in a number of municipalities, including the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Download high resolution version (848x469, 84 KB)This screenshot shows a part of kmail. ...
Download high resolution version (848x469, 84 KB)This screenshot shows a part of kmail. ...
KMail using the default layout: the folder list on the left side and the preview pane below the message list (top right) KMail is the email client in KDE. It supports folders, filtering, viewing HTML mail, and international character sets. ...
Electronic mail, abbreviated e-mail or email, is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ...
Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ...
A typical spam advertisement Spam by e-mail is a type of spam that involves sending identical or nearly identical messages to thousands (or millions) of recipients. ...
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. ...
Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately and dishonestly modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of them being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a dishonest manner. ...
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. ...
Mobile phone spam is a form of spamming directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. ...
The Monty Python troupe in 1970. ...
A can of SPAM SPAM is a canned pork product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation that has entered into folklore. ...
An Internet service provider (ISP) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. ...
Overview
Historical background The terms "spam" and "spamming" have developed a negative connotation to mean abusive use of electronic communications. However, in their historical context the same complaint has been made of every mode of mass delivery of communication. Door-to-door salespeople have used the direct approach to solicit response for both commercial and non-commercial services in an attempt to reach every person in a given geographical area, regardless of how the recipient of the solicitation regarded this intrusion.
During the 20th century, with the development of the General Post Office, this has become especially true of all mass postings (regardless of whether they have been for commercial or non-commercial senders), because the receivers of these unsolicited deliveries have often referred to them as mere "junk mail". (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...
The British General Post Office (GPO) was officially established in 1660 by Charles II and it eventually grew to combine the functions of both the state postal system and telecommunications carrier. ...
Categories: Stub | Direct marketing | Promotion and marketing communications | Marketing ...
With the advent of electronic communications each development has become used for unsolicited contacts. The telephone system was used for "telemarketing" and broadcasting was used for mass advertising, whether the receiver of the broadcast wanted to hear the advertising (both commercial and non-commercial solicitations) or not. Telemarketing is a form of direct marketing where a salesperson uses the telephone to solicit prospective customers to sell products or services. ...
With the advent of the fax machine, Internet e-mail, and the cellular telephone, the same approach has been used to reach mass recipients, except that the cost of reaching larger audiences has gradually diminished to the point that more solicitations are being made. Electronic mail, abbreviated e-mail or email, is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ...
Motorola T2288 mobile phone A mobile phone is a device which behaves as a normal telephone whilst being able to move over a wide area (compare cordless phone which acts as a telephone only within a limited range). ...
In the past, households posted notices on their gates which stated "no solicitors." Radio listeners and television viewers of commercial station programs were told to either turn to another station or turn their sets off if they did not want to hear or see the unwanted messages. The United States public supported radio and television grew up on the theory that unwanted solicitations would not be made, only to find "pledge drives" bombarding the ears and eyes, and eventually, notices of corporate underwriting which are virtually indistinguishable from the advertisements on commercial networks. Paid programming without solicitations was then offered by cable and satellite vendors. However, cinema theatres offering paid programming are now incorporating unsolicited advertising into their programming, and videotapes and DVDs available for sale and rental often start with "previews" of other videos. Efforts have been made in the United States to remove billboard advertising, but this has been largely unsuccessful. Fundraising is the term referring to the process of soliciting and gathering money by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. ...
Economic realities From these economic realities, a sort of tragedy of the commons emerges: there is no escape from unsolicited communications. Public transport carries advertising; NASCAR racing cars carry advertising; supermarkets are wrapped in advertising; the Post Office advertises and so does government. In fact elections in a democratic society depend upon advertising to succeed as democratic societies. Unsolicited communications are a fact of life that cannot be avoided. Any communications mechanism that can be delivered inexpensively is ideal as the carrier of unsolicited advertising. The tragedy of the commons is a metaphor used to illustrate the conflict between individual interests and the common good. ...
NASCAR logo The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States. ...
E-mail To send instant messages to millions of users on most IM services merely requires scriptable software and the recipients' IM usernames. The ability to send e-mail from a computer program is built in to popular operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Unix. The only added ingredient is the list of addresses to target. Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. ...
Unix or UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. ...
Sending bulk messages to recipients who have not solicited them has come to be known as spamming, and the messages themselves as spam. The etymology of the term is discussed below. Etymology is the study of the origins of words. ...
Although spam is merely an extension of mass communications through the ages, it is argued by some that the costs of spam, unlike traditional methods, is in part borne by the recipient and not entirely by the sender. This example falls down with cinema advertising where a ticket has been purchased to see a performance but where the ticket holder becomes a paid captive audience for unsolicited advertising. The same example as falls with the telephone, radio and television which all require use of the recipients own equipment if unsolicited mass marketing is to be achieved. On a primitive level this even applies to a front door and a door bell or knocker, because if residents are not compacted then mass door-to-door marketing is not possible.
Regardless of its similarity to all forms of unsolicited mass communication, spamming is now regarded as a social problem. However, a search of statements concerning the development of commercial radio will reveal similar rhetoric by persons such as Herbert Hoover and John Reith as early in the 20th century as 1924. Order: 31st President Vice President: Charles Curtis Term of office: March 4, 1929 – March 4, 1933 Preceded by: Calvin Coolidge Succeeded by: Franklin D. Roosevelt Date of birth: August 10, 1874 Place of birth: West Branch, Iowa Date of death: October 20, 1964 Place of death: New York City, New...
John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith (July 20, 1889 - June 16, 1971), later Sir John Reith (1927-), then Baron Reith (1940-) established the British tradition of independent public service broadcasting. ...
1924 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
All manner of attempts have been made to curb unsolicited mass communications by e-mail. These include filtering and the automated cancellation of netnews spam. Contractual measures such as Internet Service Providers' acceptable-use policies have also been employed. Laws such as the Can Spam Act of 2003 have also been introduced, but whether in the long term such laws can be sustained has yet to be determined. Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
An Internet service provider (ISP) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...
An acceptable use policy (AUP) is a set of rules applied by many transit networks which restrict the ways in which the network may be used. ...
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. ...
New forms of spam Every attempt to resist unsolicited mass marketing has been countered by more innovated ways of reaching mass markets. Today the growing importance of Search engines has led to a new form of spam called Spamdexing which aims at boosting a commercial site's page ranking (see below). The success of the Google search engine was mainly due to its powerful PageRank algorithm and its simple, easy-to-use interface. ...
Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately and dishonestly modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of them being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a dishonest manner. ...
A KMail folder full of spam emails collected over a few days. ...
Spamming in different media
E-mail spam E-mail spam is by far the most common form of spamming on the internet. It involves sending identical or nearly identical messages to a large number of recipients. Unlike legitimate commercial e-mail, spam is generally sent without the explicit permission of the recipients, and frequently contains various tricks to bypass e-mail filters. A typical spam advertisement Spam by e-mail is a type of spam that involves sending identical or nearly identical messages to thousands (or millions) of recipients. ...
Spammers obtain e-mail addresses by a number of means: harvesting addresses from Usenet postings, DNS listings, or Web pages; guessing common names at known domains (known as a dictionary attack); and "e-pending" or searching for e-mail addresses corresponding to specific persons, such as residents in an area. Many spammers utilize programs called web spiders to find email addresses on web pages. Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
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. ...
See WebCrawler for the specific search engine of that name. ...
Many e-mail spammers go to great lengths to conceal the origin of their messages. They might do this by spoofing e-mail addresses (similar to Internet protocol spoofing). In this technique, the spammer modifies the e-mail message so it looks like it is coming from another e-mail address. However, many spammers also make it easy for recipients to identify their messages as spam by placing an ad phrase in the From field—very few people have names like "GetMyCigs" or "Giving away playstation2s"! A spoof is a humorous take on an established idea, cultural movement, television program, movie, play, or book. ...
In computer networking, the term Internet Protocol spoofing (IP spoofing) is the creation of IP packets with a forged (spoofed) source IP address. ...
Among the tricks used by spammers to try to circumvent the filters is to intentionally misspell common spam filter trigger words. For example, "viagra" might become "vaigra", or other symbols may be inserted into the word as in "v/i/a/g./r/a". The human mind can handle a surprising degree of corruption (see Wrod Illusinos), but sometimes this tactic can backfire, rendering a message illegible. ISPs have begun to use the misspellings themselves as a filtering test. An Internet service provider (ISP) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...
The most dedicated spammers—often those making a lot of money or engaged in illegal activities, such as the pornography, casinos and Nigerian scammers—are often one step ahead of the ISPs. Reporting them to your ISP may help block less sophistocated spammers in the future. Pavonazzeto marble sculpture, see Erotic art in Pompeii Pornography (from Greek ποÏνογÏαφια pornographia — literally writing about or drawings of harlots) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but (according to some) distinct from, erotica. ...
The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey Slot machines are commonplace in casinos A casino is a building that accommodates gambling. ...
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 [1] that it violates, is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from investors living in rich countries in Europe, Australia, or North America. ...
So-called "spambots" are a major producer of email spam. The worst spammers create email viruses that will render an unprotected PC a "zombie computer"; the zombie will inform a central unit of its existence, and the central unit will command the "zombie" to send a low volume of spam. This allows spammers to send high volumes of email without being caught by their ISPs or being tracked down by anti-spammers; a low volume of spam is instead sent from many locations simultaneously. Many consumer-level ISPs (Earthlink, for example) stop spambots by blocking the SMTP port (port 25), although there are some users who make legitimate use of it. In computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents (for a complete definition: see below). ...
A zombie computer (abbreviated zombie) is a computer attached to the Internet that has a hidden software program or backdoor. ...
EarthLink (NASDAQ: ELNK), headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of the major Internet service providers in the United States, with 5. ...
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the de facto standard for email transmission across the Internet. ...
In computing, a port (derived from seaport) is usually an interface through which data are sent and received. ...
Messaging spam Messaging spam, sometimes termed spim, makes use of instant messaging systems, such as AOL Instant Messenger or ICQ. Many IM systems offer a directory of users, including demographic information such as age and sex. Advertisers can gather this information, sign on to the system, and send unsolicited messages. Spammers have similarly targeted Internet Relay Chat channels, using IRC bots that join channels and bombard them with advertising messages. Messaging spam, sometimes called SPIM, is a type of spam where the target is instant messaging services. ...
An instant messenger is a computer application which allows instant text communication between two or more people through a network such as the Internet. ...
The AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is an ad-supported instant messaging and presence computer program, published by AOL, which uses the OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol. ...
ICQ is the worlds first instant messaging computer program, created by Mirabilis, an Israeli start-up company based in Tel-Aviv. ...
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. ...
An IRC bot is a set of scripts or an independent program that performs special funtions on Internet Relay Chat. ...
A similar sort of spam can be sent with the Messenger Service in Microsoft Windows. The Messenger Service is an SMB facility intended to allow servers to send pop-up alerts to a Windows workstation. When Windows systems are connected to the Internet with this service running and without an adequate firewall, it can be used to send spam. The Messenger Service can, however, be easily disabled. [1] Windows includes a system notification service, called Messenger Service, which is sometimes used to present pop-up advertisements to users. ...
Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. ...
Server message block (SMB) is a network protocol mainly applied to share files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. ...
Newsgroup spam Newsgroup spam pre-dates e-mail spam, and targets Usenet newsgroups. Old Usenet convention defines spamming as excessive multiple posting, that is, the repeated posting of a message (or substantially similar messages). Since posting to newsgroups is nearly as easy as sending e-mails, newsgroups are a popular target of spammers. The Breidbart Index was developed to provide an objective measure of the "spamminess" of a multi-posted or cross-posted message on Usenet. Newsgroup spam is a type of spamming where the targets are Usenet newsgroups. ...
Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
A newsgroup is a repository, usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. ...
The Breidbart Index, developed by Seth Breidbart, provides a measure of severity of newsgroup spam. ...
Mobile phone spam Mobile phone spam is directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. This can be especially irritating to consumers not only for the inconvenience but also because they sometimes have to pay to receive the text message. Mobile phone spam is a form of spamming directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. ...
A received SMS being announced on a Nokia phone. ...
Internet telephony spam It has been predicted that voice over IP (VoIP) communications will be vulnerable to being spammed by pre-recorded messages. Although there have been few reported incidents, some companies have already tried to sell defenses against it. [2] Voice over IP (also called VoIP, IP Telephony, and Internet telephony) is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or any other IP network. ...
Spam targeting search engines
Spamdexing Spamdexing (a combination of spamming and indexing) refers to the practice on the World Wide Web of deliberately modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of them being placed high on search engine relevancy lists. People who do this are called search engine spammers. See also Google Bombing. In laymans terms, spamdexing is anything done to improve search engine ranking, this includes all forms of SEO, or search engine optimization. Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately and dishonestly modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of them being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a dishonest manner. ...
Graphic representation of the world wide web around Wikipedia The World Wide Web (WWW, or simply Web) is an information space in which the items of interest, referred to as resources, are identified by global identifiers called Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI). ...
In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages and other information viewable in a browser. ...
The success of the Google search engine was mainly due to its powerful PageRank algorithm and its simple, easy-to-use interface. ...
A search engine spammer is a person who uses techniques that are deemed unfair in order to increase his/her web sites position within the search results of a search engine. ...
A Google bomb or Google wash is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given site in results returned by the Google search engine. ...
Blog, wiki, and guestbook spam In blog spam the targets are weblogs. In 2003, this type of spam took advantage of the open nature of comments in the blogging software Movable Type by repeatedly placing comments to various blog posts that provided nothing more than a link to the spammer's commercial web site. These links would in theory enhance the ranking of the target page in search engine indexes. [3] 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. ...
The first use of the term weblog. ...
Movable Type, or MT, is a proprietary weblog publishing system owned by California Corporation Six Apart. ...
Similar attacks are often performed against wikis and guestbooks, both of which accept user contributions. A wiki (pronounced , or ; see Pronunciation below) is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. ...
A guestbook, in the context of an internet website, is a logging system that allows visitors to that website to indicate their thoughts about the site or its subject. ...
On January 18, 2005, Google proposed a rel="nofollow" attribute that could be placed on a link; doing so instructs most major search engines to ignore the link, rendering it useless to spammers. Software is then rewritten to add this attribute to any link embedded in a comment. As of April 2005, nofollow has seen expanding usage, but is not yet universal. [4] January 18 is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ...
Google, Inc. ...
Referer spam In referer spam, a spammer makes repeated web site requests using a fake referer url pointing to a spam-advertised site. Sites that publicize their referer statistics will then also link to the spammer's site. Referer spam is a kind of search engine-targeted spam. ...
Referer is a common misspelling of the word referrer; so common, in fact, that it made it into the official specification of HTTP - the communication protocol of the world wide web. ...
A Uniform Resource Locator, URL (either pronounced as earl (IPA: [ɜː˞l]; SAMPA: [3:`l]) or spelled out), or Web address, is a standardized address for some resource (such as a document or image) on the Internet (or elsewhere). ...
A statistic (singular) is the result of applying a statistical algorithm to a set of data. ...
Commercial uses The most common purpose for spamming is advertising. Goods commonly advertised in spam include pornography, unlicensed computer software, medical products such as Viagra, credit card accounts, and fad products. In part because of the bad reputation (and dubious legal status) which spamming carries, it is chiefly used to carry offers of an ill-reputed or questionably legal nature. Many of the products advertised in spam are fraudulent in nature, such as quack medications and get-rich-quick schemes. Spam is frequently used to advertise scams, such as diploma mills, advance fee fraud, pyramid schemes, stock pump-and-dump schemes and password phishing. It is also often used to advertise pornography indiscriminately, even in jurisdictions where it is illegal to transmit pornographic solicitations to minor children, or even for anyone to view it at all. Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ...
Pavonazzeto marble sculpture, see Erotic art in Pompeii Pornography (from Greek ποÏνογÏαφια pornographia — literally writing about or drawings of harlots) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but (according to some) distinct from, erotica. ...
Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ...
Sildenafil citrate, sold under the name Viagra, is a drug used to treat male erectile dysfunction (impotence), developed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. ...
Credit cards A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ...
Quackery is the practice of producing fraudulent medicine, usually in order to make money or for ego gratification and power. ...
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. ...
A diploma mill (also known as a degree mill) is an organization which awards academic degrees and diplomas with little or no academic study, and without recognition by official bodies. ...
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 [1] that it violates, is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from investors living in rich countries in Europe, Australia, or North America. ...
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered. ...
The financial fraud known as pump and dump involves artificially inflating the price of a stock or other security through promotion, in order to sell at the inflated price. ...
Note: This page is about deceptive e-mail practices. ...
Pavonazzeto marble sculpture, see Erotic art in Pompeii Pornography (from Greek ποÏνογÏαφια pornographia — literally writing about or drawings of harlots) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but (according to some) distinct from, erotica. ...
The use of spamming in other countries is often different. For example, in Russia spamming is commonly used by many mainstream legitimate businesses, such as travel agencies, printing shops, training centres, real estate agencies, seminar and conference organisers and even self-employed electricians and garbage collection companies. In fact, the most prominent Russian spammer was American English Center, a language school in Moscow. That spamming sparked a powerful anti-spam movement, including enraging the deputy minister of communications Andrey Korotkov and provoked a wave of counter attacks on the spammer through non-Internet channels, including a massive telephone DDOS attack. American Language Center was the most prominent and the most famous spammer in Russia around 2002-2003. ...
Andrey Korotkov (Андрéй Короткóв) (born ????) worked as Deputy Communications and Informatisation Minister in Russia. ...
A denial-of-service attack (also, DoS attack) is an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the bandwidth of the victim network or overloading the computational resources of the victim system. ...
Comparison to postal "junk" mail There are a number of differences between spam and junk mail: - Unlike junk postal mail, the costs of spam paid for by the recipient's mail site commonly approach or even exceed those of the sender, in terms of bandwidth, CPU processing time, and storage space. Spammers frequently use free dial-up accounts, so their costs may be quite minimal indeed. Because of this offloading of costs onto the recipient, many consider spamming to be theft or criminal conversion.
- Junk mail can be said to subsidize the delivery of mail customers want to receive. For example, the United States Postal Service allows bulk mail senders to pay a lower rate than for first-class mail, because they are required to sort their mailings and apply bar codes, which makes their mail much cheaper to process. While some ISPs receive large fees from spammers, most do not — and most pay the costs of carrying or filtering unwanted spam.
- Another distinction is that the costs of sending junk mail provide incentives to be somewhat selective about recipients, whereas the spammer has much lower costs, and therefore much less incentive.
- Finally, bulk mail is by and large used by businesses who are traceable and can be held responsible for what they send. Spammers frequently operate on a fly-by-night basis, using the so-called "anarchy" of the Internet as a cover.
A British pillar box The postal system is a system by which written documents typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages containing other matter, are delivered to destinations around the world. ...
Theft (also known as stealing) is, in general, the wrongful taking of someone elses property without that persons willful consent. ...
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is the United States government organization responsible for providing postal service in the United States, and it is generally referred to as the post office. ...
Typical junkmail. ...
Wikipedia encoded in Code 128_B A barcode (also bar code) is a machine-readable representation of information in a visual format on a surface. ...
Non-commercial spam E-mail and other forms of spamming have been used for purposes other than advertisements. Many early Usenet spams were religious or political in nature. Serdar Argic, for instance, spammed Usenet with historical revisionist screeds. A number of evangelists have spammed Usenet and e-mail media with preaching messages. Serdar Argic was the alias used in one of the first automated spamming incidents on Usenet. ...
Evangelism is the preaching of the Christian Gospel, or by extension any other form of preaching or proselytizing. ...
Spamming has also been used as a denial of service tactic, particularly on Usenet. By overwhelming the readers of a newsgroup with an inordinate number of nonsense messages, legitimate messages can be lost and computing resources are consumed. Since these messages are usually forged (that is, sent falsely under regular posters' names) this tactic has come to be known as sporgery (from spam + forgery). This tactic has for instance been used by partisans of the Church of Scientology against the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup (see Scientology vs. the Internet) and by spammers against news.admin.net-abuse.e-mail, a forum for mail administrators to discuss spam problems. Applied to e-mail, this is termed mailbombing. The Meow Wars was a case of some persons launching Usenet denial of service attacks on various newsgroups. A denial-of-service attack (also, DoS attack) is an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the bandwidth of the victim network or overloading the computational resources of the victim system. ...
Sporgery is the disruptive act of posting a flood of articles to a Usenet newsgroup, with the article headers falsified so that they appear to have been posted by others. ...
Official Scientology Cross Symbol The Church of Scientology was founded by author L. Ron Hubbard as an organization dedicated to the practice of Scientology, an applied religious philosophy formulated by Hubbard. ...
The newsgroup alt. ...
Scientology versus the Internet is the colloquial term for a long-running online dispute between the Church of Scientology and a number of the Churchs online critics. ...
news. ...
A mailbomb (or mail bomb), also called parcel bomb or letter bomb, is an explosive device sent via the postal service, and designed to explode when opened, injuring or killing the recipient, usually someone the sender has a personal grudge against, or more indiscriminately as part of a terrorist campaign. ...
This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...
In a handful of cases, forged e-mail spam has been used as a tool of harassment. The spammer collects a list of addresses as usual, then sends a spam to them signed with the name of the person he wishes to harass. Some recipients, angry that they received spam and seeing an obvious "source", will respond angrily or pursue various sorts of revenge against the apparent spammer, the forgery victim. A widely known victim of this sort of harassment was Joe's CyberPost, which has lent its name to the offense: it is known as a joe job. Such joe jobs have been most often used against anti-spammers: in more recent examples, Steve Linford of Spamhaus Project and Timothy Walton, a California attorney, have been targeted. Harassment is a term defined by law to refer to many types of behaviour that are found threatening or disturbing, and beyond those that are sanctioned by society. ...
A Joe job is an e-mail spam designed to tarnish the reputation of an innocent third party. ...
A Joe job is an e-mail spam designed to tarnish the reputation of an innocent third party. ...
Steve Linford, also nicknamed Stiff Linefeed following a fairly catastrophic Chinese mistranslation of his name [1], is the anti-spammer who founded Spamhaus. ...
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. ...
Timothy Walton is a Californian attorney known for suing spammers. ...
Spammers have also abused resources set up for purposes of anonymous speech online, such as anonymous remailers. As a result, many of these resources have been shut down, denying their utility to legitimate users. An anonymous remailer is a server computer which receives messages with embedded instructions on where to send them next, and which forwards them without revealing where they originally came from. ...
E-mail worms or viruses may be spammed to set up an initial pool of infected machines, which then re-send the virus to other machines in a spam-like manner. The infected machines can often be used as remote-controlled zombie computers, for more conventional spamming or DDoS attacks. Sometimes trojans are spammed to phish for bank account details, or to set up a pool of zombies without using a virus. In computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents (for a complete definition: see below). ...
A zombie computer (abbreviated zombie) is a computer attached to the Internet that has a hidden software program or backdoor. ...
A denial-of-service attack (also, DoS attack) is an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the bandwidth of the victim network or overloading the computational resources of the victim system. ...
In the context of computer software, a Trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software. ...
Content of a Phishing Email In computing, phishing (also known as spoofing) is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business with a real need for such information in a seemingly official electronic notification...
Etymology The term spam is derived from the Monty Python SPAM sketch, set in a cafe where everything on the menu includes SPAM luncheon meat. While a customer plaintively asks for some kind of food without SPAM in it, the server reiterates the SPAM-filled menu. Soon, a chorus of Vikings join in with a song, repeating "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM" and singing "lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM" over and over again, drowning out all conversation. The Monty Python troupe in 1970. ...
Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman in the Monty Python skit Spam. ...
A can of SPAM SPAM is a canned pork product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation that has entered into folklore. ...
The name Viking is a loan from the native Scandinavian term for the Norse seafaring warriors who raided the coasts of Scandinavia, the British Isles, and other parts of Europe from the late 8th century to the 11th century, the period of European history referred to as the Viking Age. ...
Although the first known instance of unsolicited commercial e-mail occurred in 1978 (unsolicited electronic messaging had already taken place over other media, with the first recorded instance being on September 13th 1904 via telegram), the term "spam" for this practice had not yet been applied. In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs, who would repeat "SPAM" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen. This act, previously termed flooding or trashing, came to be called spamming as well. [5] By analogy, the term was soon applied to any large amount of text broadcast by one user, or sometimes by many users. 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ...
// Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ...
A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users. ...
In computer gaming, a MUD (multi-user dungeon, dimension, or sometimes domain) is a multi-player computer game that combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash style computer games, and social Internet Relay Chat channels. ...
It later came to be used on Usenet to mean excessive multiple posting — the repeated posting of the same message. The first evident usage of this sense was by Joel Furr in the aftermath of the ARMM incident of March 31, 1993, in which a piece of experimental software released dozens of recursive messages onto the news.admin.policy newsgroup. Soon, this use had also become established — to spam Usenet was to flood newsgroups with junk messages. Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
Joel Jay K. Furr was a usenet personality in the early and mid 1990s, immortalized in the newsgroups alt. ...
Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (ARMM) was a program developed in 1993 by Richard Depew to aid in the control of Usenet abuse. ...
March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (91st in Leap years), with 275 days remaining, as the final day of March. ...
1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...
Commercial spamming started in force on March 5, 1994 when a pair of lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, began using bulk Usenet posting to advertise immigration law services. The incident was commonly termed the "Green Card spam", after the subject line of the postings. The two went on to widely promote spamming of both Usenet and e-mail as a new means of advertisement — over the objections of Internet users they labeled "anti-commerce radicals." Within a few years, the focus of spamming (and anti-spam efforts) moved chiefly to e-mail, where it remains today. [6] March 5 is the 64th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (65th in leap years). ...
1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ...
Laurence A. Canter (born June 24, 1953) and Martha S. Siegel (April 9, 1948-2000) were a husband-and-wife firm of lawyers who on April 12, 1994 posted the first massive commercial Usenet spam. ...
Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
Laurence A. Canter (Born 1953) and Martha S. Siegel (1948-2000) were a husband-and-wife firm of lawyers who on March 5, 1994 posted the first massive commercial Usenet spam. ...
There are two popular fake etymologies of the word "spam". The first, promulgated by Canter & Siegel themselves, is that "spamming" is what happens when one dumps a can of SPAM luncheon meat into a fan blade. The second is the backronym "shit posing as mail." A fake etymology, also known as a false etymology, is an invented explanation (etymology) for the origin of a word. ...
A can of SPAM SPAM is a canned pork product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation that has entered into folklore. ...
A backronym or bacronym is a neologistic slang word for a reversed acronym—that is to say, the words of the expanded term were chosen to fit the letters of the acronym. ...
Look up Shit in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Shit is a vernacular word in Modern English denoting the feces, the solid byproduct of digestion. ...
Hormel Foods Corporation, the makers of SPAM® luncheon meat, do not object to the Internet use of the term "spamming." However, they do ask that the capitalized word "SPAM" be reserved to refer to their product and trademark. [7] By and large, this request is obeyed in forums which discuss spam -- to the extent that to write "SPAM" for "spam" brands the writer as a newbie. However, Hormel has begun to press the trademark issue -- first, when a firm registered the trademark "SpamArrest" in 2003, Hormel sued to invalidate the mark, [8], and more recently two failed attempts to revoke the mark "spambuster".[9], [10] Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL) is probably best known as the producer of SPAM luncheon meat. ...
A newbie (also spelled noob, newb, or n00b in the leetspeak of internet culture) is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the internet, where it might refer to new users of a game, a newsgroup, the World Wide Web itself, or an operating system. ...
Alternate meanings The term "spamming" is also used in the older sense of something repetitious and disruptive by players of first-person shooter computer games. In this sense it refers to "area denial" tactics—repeatedly firing rockets or other explosive shells into an area—or to any tactic whereby a large volume of ammunition is expended in the hope of scoring a single hit. A first-person shooter (FPS) is a computer or video game where the players on-screen view of the game world simulates that of the character, and there is a high percentage of combat involved. ...
MUD, MUSH, and MUCK players happily continue using the word in its original sense. When a player returns to the terminal after a brief break to find her screen filled with pages of random chat, that's still called "spam". [11] In computer gaming, a MUD (multi-user dungeon, dimension, or sometimes domain) is a multi-player computer game that combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash style computer games, and social Internet Relay Chat channels. ...
A MUSH (Multi-User Shared Habitat, or Hallucination) is a text-based online social medium to which multiple users are connected at the same time. ...
Muck can refer to several different things: A type of soil: Muck (soil) An island in Scotland: Muck, Scotland Other meanings: A Multi-User Chat Kingdom (see MUD) To clean, as in to muck out A euphemism for manure Bottom sediments, as in a muckworm, a bottom dweller, also derisively...
Neither of these senses of the word imply that the "spamming" is abusive.
Costs of spam Spam's direct effects include the consumption of computer and network resources, and the cost in human time and attention of dismissing unwanted messages. In addition, spam has costs stemming from the kinds of spam messages sent, from the ways spammers send them, and from the arms race between spammers and those who try to stop or control spam. An arms race is a competition between two or more countries for military supremacy. ...
The methods of spammers are likewise costly. Because spamming contravenes the vast majority of ISPs' acceptable-use policies, most spammers have for many years gone to some trouble to conceal the origins of their spam. E-mail, Usenet, and instant-message spam are often sent through insecure proxy servers belonging to unwilling third parties. Spammers frequently use false names, addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information to set up "disposable" accounts at various Internet service providers. In some cases, they have used falsified or stolen credit card numbers to pay for these accounts. This allows them to quickly move from one account to the next as each one is discovered and shut down by the host ISPs. A proxy server is a computer network service which allows clients to make indirect network connections to other network services. ...
Credit cards A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ...
The costs of spam also can be taken to include the collateral costs of the struggle between spammers and the administrators and users of the media threatened by spamming. [12]
Many users are bothered by spam because it impinges upon the amount of time they spend reading their e-mail. Many also find the content of spam frequently offensive, in that pornography is one of the most frequently advertised products. Spammers send their spam largely indiscriminately, so pornographic ads may show up in a work place e-mail inbox — or a child's, the latter of which is illegal in many jurisdictions. Recently, there has been a noticeable increase in spam advertising websites that contain child pornography. Pavonazzeto marble sculpture, see Erotic art in Pompeii Pornography (from Greek ποÏνογÏαφια pornographia — literally writing about or drawings of harlots) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but (according to some) distinct from, erotica. ...
The term child pornography (sometimes referred to as kiddie porn) generally refers to pornography featuring a child; however, the precise definition of pornography and child varies by region and country. ...
Some spammers argue that most of these costs could potentially be alleviated by having spammers reimburse ISPs and individuals for their material. There are two problems with this logic: first, the rate of reimbursement they could credibly budget is unlikely to be nearly high enough to pay the cost; and second, the human cost (lost mail, lost time, and lost opportunities) is basically unrecoverable.
E-mail spam exemplifies a tragedy of the commons: spammers use resources (both physical and human), without bearing the entire cost of those resources. In fact, spammers commonly do not bear the cost at all. This raises the costs for everyone. In some ways spam is even a potential threat to the entire email system, as operated in the past. The tragedy of the commons is a metaphor used to illustrate the conflict between individual interests and the common good. ...
Since E-mail is so cheap to send, a tiny number of spammers can saturate the Internet with junk mail. Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost sometimes provides a sufficient conversion rate to keep spamming alive. Furthermore, even though spam appears not to be economically viable as a way for a reputable company to do business, it suffices for professional spammers to convince a tiny proportion of gullible advertisers that it is viable for those spammers to stay in business. Finally, new spammers go into business every day, and the low costs allow a single spammer to do a lot of harm before finally realizing that the business is not profitable.
Political issues Spamming remains a hot discussion topic. In fact, many online users have even suggested (presumably jokingly) that cruel forms of capital punishment would be appropriate for spammers. In 2004, the seized Porsche of an indicted spammer was advertised on the internet, which revealed the extent of the financial rewards available to those who are willing to waste everybody's time and was a popular item because the car had been confiscated, which was seen as tough justice, but also sweet vengeance. However, some of the possible ways to stop spamming may lead to other side effects, such as increased government control over the Net, loss of privacy, barriers to free expression or commercialisation of e-mail. Death Penalty World Map Color Key: Blue: Abolished for all crimes Green: Abolished for crimes not committed in exceptional circumstances (such as crimes committed in time of war) Orange: Abolitionist in Practice Red: Legal Form of Punishment Capital punishment, also referred to as the death penalty, is the judicially ordered...
One of the chief values favored by many long-time Internet users and experts, as well as by many members of the public, is the free exchange of ideas. Many have valued the relative anarchy of the Internet, and bridle at the idea of restrictions placed upon it. A common refrain from spam-fighters is that spamming itself abridges the historical freedom of the Internet, by attempting to force users to carry the costs of material which they would not choose. Anarchy (New Latin anarchia) is a term that has several usages. ...
An ongoing concern expressed by parties such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU has to do with so-called "stealth blocking", a term for ISPs employing aggressive spam blocking without their users' knowledge. These groups' concern is that ISPs or technicians seeking to reduce spam-related costs may select tools which (either through error or design) also block non-spam e-mail from sites seen as "spam-friendly". SPEWS is a common target of these criticisms. Few object to the existence of these tools; it is their use in filtering the mail of users who are not informed of their use which draws fire. The EFF uses the blue ribbon as symbolism for their Free Speech defense. ...
The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, is a non_governmental organization devoted to defending civil rights and civil liberties in the United States. ...
The Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPEWS) is an anonymous service which maintains a list of IP address ranges belonging to Internet service providers which host spammers. ...
Some see spam-blocking tools as a threat to free expression — and laws against spamming as an untoward precedent for regulation or taxation of e-mail and the Internet at large. Even though it is possible in some jurisdictions to treat some spam as unlawful merely by applying existing laws against trespass and conversion, some laws specifically targeting spam have been proposed. In 2004 United States passed the Can Spam Act of 2003 which provided ISPs with tools to combat spam. This act allowed Yahoo! to successfully sue Eric Head, reportedly one of the biggest spammers in the world, who settled the lawsuit for several thousand US dollars in June 2004. But the law is criticised by many for not being effective enough, and was supported by some spammers and organizations which support spamming, and opposed by many in the anti-spam community. Examples of effective anti-abuse laws that respect free speech rights include those in the US against unsolicited faxes and phone calls, and those in Australia and a few US states against spam. In law, trespass can be: the criminal act of going into somebody else’s land or property without permission; it is also a civil law tort that may be a valid cause of action to seek judicial relief and possibly damages through a lawsuit. ...
In general, conversion is the transformation of one thing into another. ...
2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. ...
...
Court cases Leo Kuvayev is alleged to be ring-leader of a group of people sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails every day. The Massachusetts Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against the group. One of the worlds biggest spam gangs is facing a lawsuit from the Massachusetts attorney general. ...
State nickname: Bay State Other U.S. States Capital Boston Largest city Boston Governor Mitt Romney Official languages English Area 27,360 km² (44th) - Land 20,317 km² - Water 7,043 km² (25. ...
In most common law jurisdictions, the Attorney General is the main legal adviser to the government, and in some jurisdictions may in addition have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions. ...
Newsgroups - news.admin.net-abuse.email
- news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
- others in news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy
- alt.spam
news. ...
See also E-mail spammers are people who send unsolicited electronic messages in bulk. ...
Fraud has existed perhaps as long or longer than money. ...
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. ...
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 [1] that it violates, is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from investors living in rich countries in Europe, Australia, or North America. ...
Spam wars refers to internet battles between spammers- (ie, businesses who use unsolicited bulk-mailing) versus anti-spammers (privacy advocates, concientious hackers, software protection providers). ...
Content of a Phishing Email In computing, phishing (also known as spoofing) is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business with a real need for such information in a seemingly official electronic notification...
A Joe job is an e-mail spam designed to tarnish the reputation of an innocent third party. ...
Hashcash is a proof-of-work system designed to limit email spam and denial of service attacks. ...
Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group is a group of telecom companies brought together by OpenWave in early 2004. ...
Background Electronic mailing lists are a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. ...
Netiquette (neologism, a contraction of network etiquette) is a catch-all term for the conventions of politeness recognised on Usenet, in mailing lists, and other electronic forums such as internet message boards. ...
Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ...
E-marketing can be simply defined as This electronic communications technology includes: Internet, e-mail, Ebooks, database, and mobile phone More recently Dave Chaffey http://www. ...
A typical spam advertisement Spam by e-mail is a type of spam that involves sending identical or nearly identical messages to thousands (or millions) of recipients. ...
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. ...
Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately and dishonestly modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of them being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a dishonest manner. ...
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. ...
Mobile phone spam is a form of spamming directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. ...
Spam Telephony (spit) is the VoIP equivalent of unsolicited email — unwanted messages clogging up your voice mail box. ...
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. ...
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 [1] that it violates, is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from investors living in rich countries in Europe, Australia, or North America. ...
A lottery scam is a scam email that tells the recipient they have won a sum of money in the lottery. ...
Content of a Phishing Email In computing, phishing (also known as spoofing) is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business with a real need for such information in a seemingly official electronic notification...
Although spamming has existed on the Internet since as early as 1978, the first major spamming incidents didnt take place until the early 1990s. ...
E-mail has become the subject of much abuse, in the form of both spamming and E-mail worm programs. ...
A DNS-based Blackhole List, or DNSBL, 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. ...
External links The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is charged with developing and promoting Internet standards. ...
Anti-spam organizations
More writing on the subject
Humor - Spamusement A collection of humorously drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines.
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