Internet Network Security Articles

Spam is no vegetable!

By Shah N. Khan

Spammers are like spiders coming from the World Wide Web
and crawling in and on your mind, head, your body and spine.
Many dictionaries do not give you the meaning of Spam. One
dictionery defines it a a vegetable. The spell check in many word
processing software would not give you its spelling!

Our unabashed dictionary defines Spam as pinching the bottom
of a girl in a crowded street.

On a crowded elevator of a sky-scrapper of a computer giant, a
shapely lass was pinched at her bottom.
She turned back and growled, " Who is spamming me?"
The handsome young man behind her looked at her in face and
said, "Pardon me. I thought it was a safe address".
"Never mind, I will opt in for your mail!" The girl replied smilingly
as she was impressed with his looks and mannerism.

As you know spam (noun) means an unsolicited e-mail message
sent to many recipients at one time, or a news article posted
simultaneously to many newsgroups or lists.

Spam is a sort of junk mail. Generally the contents of a Spam
message or article are not relevant to the topic of the group or the
interests of the recipient.

Spam is an abuse of the Internet in order to distribute a commercial
or religious or political message or publicity material to a huge number

of people at minimal cost.

Spambot means a program or device that automatically posts large
amounts of repetitive or inappropriate material to newsgroups on the
Internet.

Internet users are experiencing an increase in spamming! As thousands
of new web sites are created every year and more businesses flocking to
the Internet, spamming either due to ignorance of Internet culture and
rules or a willful disregard for them, has grown.

Quite a few big companies also utilize Spam techniques. Many people
abhor such intrusion on their time and privacy but many people like to get
mail. The popularity of email lists is growing. Many new list servers have
come.

How can you deal with Spam?

Simply hit reply button and write stop in Subject. Most people will
honor your advice except the mischief-makers Unless you find that the Spam is
due to ignorance of internet rules, do not waste time in writing to advise
that you find spamming to be invasive and annoying, and urge them to stop the
practice immediately However, many spammers hide their real email address and
many such replies bounce.

In such cases, you can write to the postmaster of the spammer's Internet

service provider, complaining that they are disturbing your privacy.
This is not always effective, as unscrupulous spammers have found ways to make
their messages appear to originate from another provider entirely. But
if your message does get through, the Internet service provider may cancel the
spammer's account.

Laws are rapidly changing. The business organizations and individuals
can get into trouble if they display total disregard to the rules regarding
email broadcast. In Europe and US the laws and rules are enforced strictly and many
people lose their ISP for spamming.

About the Author

Shah N. Khan has over 20 years experience in marketing and supervising
life insurance sales force besides underwriting and advertising. He is now editing a
weekly ezine Fraternity Briefs Online http://www.yahoogroups/group/fraternity2
He also works as Internet Marketing Consultants and helps his two sons
in their web designing business. http://www.shah.khan.as

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