Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than blocking individual IP addresses and creating rules based on keywords that spammers typically use. The increasing sophistication of spam tools coupled with the increasing number of spammers in the wild has created a hyper-evolution in the variety and volume of spam. The old ways of blocking the bad guys just don’t work anymore.

Examining spam and spam-blocking technology can illuminate how this evolution is taking place and what can be done to combat spam and reclaim e-mail as the efficient, effective communication tool it was intended to be.

One method used to combat spam is Bayesian Filtering. Named after Thomas Bayes, an English mathematician, Bayesian Logic is used in decision making and inferential statistics. Bayesian Filers maintain a database of known spam and ham, or legitimate email. Once the database is large enough, the system ranks the words according to the probability they will appear in a spam message.

Words more likely to appear in spam are given a high score (between 51 and 100), and words likely to appear in legitimate email are given a low score (between 1 and 50). For example, the words “free” and “sex” generally have values between 95 and 98, whereas the words “emphasis” or “disadvantage” may have a score between 1 and 4. Commonly used words such as “the” and “that”, and words new to the Bayesian filters are given a neutral score between 40 and 50 and would not be used in the system’s algorithm.

When the system receives an email, it breaks the message down into tokens, or words with values assigned to them. The system utilizes the tokens with scores on the high and low end of the range and develops a score for the email as a whole. If the email has more spam tokens than ham tokens, the email will have a high spam score. The email administrator determines a threshold score the system uses to allow email to pass through to users.

Bayesian filters are effective at filtering spam and minimizing false positives. Because they adapt and learn based on user feedback, Bayesian Filers produce better results as they are used within an organization over time. They are not, however, foolproof. Spammers have learned which words Bayesian Filters consider spammy and have developed ways to insert non-spammy words into emails to lower the message’s overall spam score. By adding in paragraphs of text from novels or news stories, spammers can dilute the effects of high-ranking words. Text insertion has also caused normally legitimate words that are found in novels or news stories to have an inflated spam score. This may potentially render Bayesian filters less effective over time.

Another approach spammers use to fool Bayesian filters is to create less spammy emails. For example, a spammer may send an email containing only the phrase, “Here’s the link…”. This approach can neutralize the spam score and entice users to click on a link to a Web site containing the spammer’s message. To block this type of spam, the filter would have to be designed to follow the link and scan the content of the Web site users are asked to visit. This type of filtering is not currently employed by Bayesian filters because it would be prohibitively expensive in terms of server resources and could potentially be used as a method of launching denial of service attacks against commercial servers.

As with all single-method spam filtering methodologies, Bayesian filters are effective against certain techniques spammers use to fool spam filters, but are not a magic bullet to solving the spam problem. Bayesian filters are most effective when combined with other methods of spam detection.

The Solution

When used individually, each anti-spam technique has been systematically overcome by spammers. Grandiose plans to rid the world of spam, such as charging a penny for each e-mail received or forcing servers to solve mathematical problems before delivering e-mail, have been proposed with few results. These schemes are not realistic and would require a large percentage of the population to adopt the same anti-spam method in order to be effective. You can learn more about the fight against spam by visiting our website at www.ciphertrust.com and downloading our whitepapers.

Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry’s largest provider of enterprise email security. The company’s flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting http://www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.

No doubt about it.

"Spam" (unsolicited commercial email) threatens to paralyze and ultimately destroy the email system as it currently exists on the Internet.

Anyone with an email address can attest to the fact that the avalanche of Spam has only increased in the last year and shows no sign of stopping.

However, the current system many Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) use to deal with Spam may just destroy the Internet’s email system long before the spammers do.

Now, I won’t deny that the weight of the Spam on any ISP’s resources can rate very significant.

It’s been estimated that between 30-60% of all email now sent is Spam!

This means that 30-60% an ISP’s system resources (bandwidth, hardware, system maintenance) go towards delivering messages nobody wants to receive.

Out of self-defense, many ISP’s turn to third party services like SpamCop, SPEWS (Spam Prevention Early Warning System), and SpamHaus to help them identify sources of spam and block the messages before their email systems get clogged.

No Trial - No Defense - Guilty!

In theory, it’s a great system.

In practice, it creates a situation resembling a witch hunt where the accused gets burned at the stake without a trial, let alone the ability to face their accuser. Here’s how the system works.

Let’s say a business habitually sends legitimate email to its customers or prospects who asked to receive the email.

As long as nobody complains, life proceeds as normal.

But then let’s say one of those people forgets they opted in to the business’s email list and reports an email message as spam to one of the services I mentioned above.

Result: the business gets blacklisted by one or more of these services and ISP’s in turn automatically block email (legitimate email) sent by the business to its customers and opt-in subscribers.

To make matters even worse, nobody at these anti-spam services bothers to let the business know they’ve been blacklisted.

When the business finally discovers their status and tries to contact SpamCop, SPEWS or SpamHaus, the real fun begins.

If the business does discover which service(s) blacklisted them, they’ll find they can’t call anyone on the phone to discuss the problem.

They also discover these services are totally unregulated and there is no higher court of appeals.

Any email responses from these services often contain a smug attitude of assumed guilt that scoffs at your claims of innocence.

Also, don’t bother asking for the opportunity to face your accuser in order to prove your innocence because they get to hide behind a cloak of anonymity.

Combining this attitude of assumed guilt with the inability to prove your innocence creates a recipe for disaster for every legitimate business.

Oh, by the way, while writing this article, I received 19 spam email messages through an ISP monitored by all 3 anti-spam services.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

In the end, the current system only creates opportunity for abuse that targets legitimate businesses while the real spammers just merrily keep sending their flood of email.

(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved - http://www.thenetreporter.com

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…

Simple "Traffic Machine" brings Thousands of NEW visitors to your website for weeks, even months… without spending a dime on advertising! Turn Words Into Traffic

Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than blocking individual IP addresses and creating rules based on keywords that spammers typically use. The increasing sophistication of spam tools coupled with the increasing number of spammers in the wild has created a hyper-evolution in the variety and volume of spam. The old ways of blocking the bad guys just don’t work anymore.

Examining spam and spam-blocking technology can illuminate how this evolution is taking place and what can be done to combat spam and reclaim e-mail as the efficient, effective communication tool it was intended to be.

Heuristics (Rule-based Filtering)

One method used to combat spam is Rule-based, or Heuristic Filtering. Rule-based filters scan email content for predetermined words or phrases that may indicate a message is spam. For example, if an email administrator includes the word "sex" on a company’s rule-based list, any email containing this word will be filtered.

The major drawback of this approach is the difficulty in identifying keywords that are consistently indicative of spam. While spammers may frequently use the words “sex” and ‘Viagra” in spam emails, these words are also used in legitimate business correspondence, particularly in the healthcare industry. Additionally, spammers have learned to obfuscate suspect words by using spellings such as "S*E*X", or "VI a a GRR A".

It is impossible to develop dictionaries that identify every possible misspelling of "spammy" keywords. Additionally, because filtering for certain keywords produces large numbers of false positives, many organizations have found they cannot afford to rely solely on rule-based filters to identify spam.

Signature-Based Spam Filters

Another method used to combat spam is Signature-based Filtering. Signature-based filters examine the contents of known spam, usually derived from honey pots, or dummy email addresses set up specifically to collect spam. Once a honey pot receives a spam message, the content is examined and given a unique identifier. The unique identifier is obtained by assigning a value to each character in the email. Once all characters have been assigned a value, the values are totaled, creating the spam’s signature. The signature is added to a signature database and sent as a regular update to the email service’s subscribers. The signature is compared to every email coming in to the network and all matching messages are discarded as spam.

The benefit of signature-based filters is that they rarely produce false-positives, or legitimate email incorrectly identified as spam. The drawback of signature-based filters is that they are very easy to defeat. Because they are backward-looking, they only deal with spam that has already been sent. By the time the honey pot receives a spam message, the system assigns a signature, and the update is sent and installed on the subscribers’ network, the spammer has already sent millions of emails. A slight modification of the email message will render the existing signature useless.

Furthermore, spammers can easily evade signature-based filters by using special email software that adds random strings of content to the subject line and body of the email. Because the variable content alters the signature of each email sent by the spammer, signature-based spam filters are unable to match the email to known pieces of spam.

Developers of signature-based spam filters have learned to identify the tell-tale signs of automated random character generation. But as is often the case, spammers remain a step ahead and have developed more sophisticated methods for inserting random content. As a result, most spam continues to fool signature-based filters.

The Solution

When used individually, each anti-spam technique has been systematically overcome by spammers. Grandiose plans to rid the world of spam, such as charging a penny for each e-mail received or forcing servers to solve mathematical problems before delivering e-mail, have been proposed with few results. These schemes are not realistic and would require a large percentage of the population to adopt the same anti-spam method in order to be effective. You can learn more about the fight against spam by visiting our website at www.ciphertrust.com and downloading our whitepapers.

Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry’s largest provider of enterprise email security. The company’s flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting http://www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.

Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than blocking individual IP addresses and creating rules based on keywords that spammers typically use. The increasing sophistication of spam tools coupled with the increasing number of spammers in the wild has created a hyper-evolution in the variety and volume of spam. The old ways of blocking the bad guys just don’t work anymore.

Examining spam and spam-blocking technology can illuminate how this evolution is taking place and what can be done to combat spam and reclaim e-mail as the efficient, effective communication tool it was intended to be.

One method used to combat spam is blacklisting. The goal of blacklisting is to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to crack-down on customers who send spam. A blacklisted ISP is blocked from sending email to organizations. When an ISP is blacklisted, they are provided with a list of actions they must take in order to be removed from the blacklist. This controversial method blocks not just the spammers, but all of the ISP’s customers. Blacklisting is generally considered an unfriendly approach to stopping spam because the users most affected by the blacklist are email users who do not send spam. Many argue blacklisting actually damages the utility of email more than it helps stop spam since the potential for blocking legitimate email is so high.

In addition to the ethical considerations, there are other problems with blacklists. Many blacklists are not updated frequently enough to maintain effectiveness. Some blacklist administrators are irresponsible in that they immediately block suspect servers without thoroughly investigating complaints or giving the ISP time to respond. Another downside is that blacklists are not accurate enough to catch all spam. Only about half of servers used by spammers, regardless of how diligent the blacklist administrator may be, are ever cataloged in a given blacklist.

Blacklists are used because they can be partially effective against spammers who repeatedly use the same ISP or email account to send spam. However, because spammers often change ISPs, re-route email and hijack legitimate servers, the spammer is a moving target. Blacklist administrators are forced to constantly revise lists, and the lag-time between when a spammer begins using a given server and when the blacklist administrator is able to identify the new spam source and add it to the blacklist allows spammers to send hundreds of millions of emails. Spammers consider this constant state of flux a part of doing business and are constantly looking for new servers to send spam messages.

When used individually, each anti-spam technique has been systematically overcome by spammers. Blacklists have some utility in stopping known spammers, but they may also block valid emails. Because of their limitations, blacklist data should only be used in conjunction with other sources to determine if a given message is spam. Grandiose plans to rid the world of spam, such as charging a penny for each e-mail received or forcing servers to solve mathematical problems before delivering e-mail, have been proposed with few results. These schemes are not realistic and would require a large percentage of the population to adopt the same anti-spam method in order to be effective.

The Solution

Reputation systems offer a comprehensive anti spam solution by dynamically updating black and whitelists based on sender behavior. These systems also automatically update and score messages thereby removing the burden from administrators. Today’s spammers are more clever than ever, so today’s reputation systems must be equally sophisticated. An effective reputation system must be dynamic, comprehensive, precise, and based on actual enterprise mail traffic in order to keep the spammers from gaining any advantage. You can learn more about the fight against spam by visiting our website at www.ciphertrust.com and downloading our whitepapers.

Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry’s largest provider of enterprise email security. The company’s flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting http://www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.

I must be the luckiest person alive! My inbox is just crammed with good news, great advice, and millions in accounts just needing the ok from me. Right now, I’ve two million euros just waiting to be claimed. Some lotteries don’t even need participation to return a winner, it seems.

Had I not being lucky enough to win such large and free sources of income before, my excitement would surely induce a heart attack. At one point, I was lucky enough to be selected to help a woman liberate the funds of her recently executed husband. Two million would have been a drop in the ocean compared to this "windfall". There seems to be a lot of women who have executed husbands. Most it seems, ran very lucrative dictatorships, but have no luck, nevertheless.

There is hardly a day of the week that I don’t have the luck to win a P.C. or similar piece of equipment. Even random selection appears to be more "selection" and less "random". Could others be as fortunate as me? Have I been so kind in this world to warrant such gifts, or command such luck?

The Gods, whether random or collective, bless me with fantastic advice and offers as well. I have been lucky enough to be approved for loans, without application by the way, that would provide finance to do anything. This must be in the off chance that I don’t engage on the free money deals.

To go on a world cruise, all I need to do is switch on the P.C., open my email client, and reply to some email. Incidentally, if I had the time to confirm all emails, then I’d have thousands of free P.C.’s, and thousands of other “presents”. More metaphysical luck, I presume.

Nobody told me that life could be this easy. It isn’t even necessary to buy an e-book or read a sales page. My luck is reliant on some electricity, a few switches, and an Internet connection.

Shakespeare’s “FORTUNE’S FOOL” doesn’t apply at all and “WHAT DREAMS MAY COME”, is throughout!

Should they be needed, medications are well represented. This must be in the off chance that my luck will change, and it is the only inconsistency.

As luck would have it, my special I.P. address, will attract the solution to any problem or issue. So special is my I.P. address and email account, that they even consider a change in gender.

Just as considerate, are the numerous administrators that tell me of account tampering and issue warnings to update such accounts. This even applies where I don’t have accounts. This must be unbiased help. I cannot go wrong! My luck is in! Everything is covered!

My friends are omnipresent and often unknown. I’ve even been the beneficiary of a will and must look into this kind gesture from a thoughtful man. I may never know why he picked me, though.

Did he not hear that I was already “laced with luck”? Did he not know that I’ve a special report, which breaks down the process of unlimited wealth? Even without other luck, this report will see me good!

If anyone doesn’t believe in luck, then they should see my inbox!

Spam!

Seamus Dolly is at http://www.CountControl.com

I’m sure you find spam just as frustrating and annoying as I do. So I’ve done some investigation in how to report it to get these people hopefully in a bit of strife! And put spam to an end or at least lessen it

You see, I actually didn’t realize for a while I was actually making the situation worse. You ever receive those spam emails where you KNOW for sure you NEVER signed up to receive their emails and then they provide an unsubscribe link down the bottom?

Anyways, here I was clicking the unsubscribe button on all these annoying spam emails thinking I was getting my email address removed from their database where all I was doing was confirming that my email address was active and I was reading their spam emails.

Here is how YOU can report these spammers (and hopefully lessen the amount that drifts in and out of our inbox’s every day).

Report Spam Here:

http://www.spamcop.net/

It will show you how to get the details and IP addresses of the spammers to forward to SpamCop in order to file your report against them. Please make sure before doing this, that the email you report as spam “really” is spam and not something you joined on to receive. It’s just as bad to falsely accuse someone of spam just as it is to receive spam!

Make sure before you join anyone’s mailing list that they have a privacy notice that allows you to unsubscribe at anytime you wish. And states clearly they will not rent nor share your email address with any third party.

If you find this information helpful please feel free to forward it on to your friends. They can join my mailing list simply by sending a blank Email to scams@aweber.com

Join my mailing list simply by sending a blank email to scams@aweber.com (And yes you can unsubscribe at anytime and I will not rent nor share your email address with any third party, spam annoys me just as much as it annoys you)

How would you feel if you found a link on the web that was interesting to you but when you click the link it takes you to a page that is total rubbish? You are not only disappointed but it also wastes your time. Unfortunately, this is often true in many cases. To get a good ranking, often web page designers use "spamdexing". Spamdexing search engines is the practice of deliberately and dishonestly modifying HTML pages to artificially increase the chance of them ranking close to the top of search engine results. This spamming could result in your site getting banned from search engine indices.

To avoid getting banned by search engines make it sure that when a search engine sends spiders to your site it doesn’t find any spamming technique in use.

Hidden or Invisible Links:

One reason why you could be banned by a search engine, is when you are creating multiple sites on the same or similar topic and linking them all together through invisible links. But you really need to have unique content on each and every site and not link them all together where it really doesn’t make sense to do so. If you are interested in learning more about spamming then you should read this article: Missing Backlinks in Google - High Rankings Advisor.

Keyword Stuffing:

Most modern search engines have the ability to determine overuse of a word to increase the keyword frequency on a page. They also have the ability to analyze a page for keyword stuffing, and determine whether the frequency is above a normal level. So, while designing your site, remember not to stuff keywords or else you run the risk of getting banned.

Meta tag Stuffing:

Do not repeat keywords in the meta tags more than once, and do not use keywords that are unrelated to the site’s content. If it isn’t represented in the text content, it shouldn’t be in the meta tags.

Hidden Text:

Putting text (usually keywords) where visitors will not see them, in order toincrease a page’s keyword relevancy. This is commonly done by making some text the same as the background color of the page.

Cloaking:

Cloaking is a very borderline method, in which visitors and search engines receive different versions of a page, and should be considered very carefully.

Link spamming:

Google page ranking algorithm gives a higher ranking to a website the more other websites link to it. Some spammers may create multiple web sites at different domain names that all link to each other.

Spamming refers to practices or techniques that are dishonest. To optimize your ranking, do not use any technique that will encourage search engines to ban you. Instead you should emphasize on how to optimize for your visitors. So remember the tips regarding spamming when you are designing your web site, and avoid getting banned by the search engines.

References:

http://www.webopedia.com
http://www.highrankings.com
http://en.wikipedia.org

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Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site so long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include our resource box as listed above.

If you need additional articles, check out our website. Click Here Now ==> http://www.searchwizmarketing.com/article-topics.htm

Until recently, spam has been an annoyance, a definite load on your email system and network, a waste of productive time and money, but we are about to find that the cost could get much higher.

Spam blockers are now becoming a necessity rather than an optional email utility, the reason is that spam is becoming much more dangerous.

Now, just like you, I looked into spam blocker software mainly because I didn’t like being constantly bombarded with various anatomy enhancing messages or ironically, advertisements for spam blocker software itself.

A skeptical person may even wonder if this whole problem is not rooted in the business model of lesser than honest spam blocker software companies - but that’s another article.

Whatever the root cause, one fact is true, the spam problem is turning into a far more costly and dangerous issue that could effect you in profound ways.

The dangers are becoming so serious that we finally got serious about reviewing spam blocker software - the result you can find here: http://www.blockmorespam.com/spam_blocker_software.html

The evolution of spammers into 3 new and very dangerous areas had me scambling to get serious about finding spam blocker software and techniques that are more effective than what I’ve been using in the past.

The 3 new dangers that threaten you are:

1. Rise in hijacked and spoofed email addresses means that someone can make it look like their spamming campaign is coming from your computer. The impact is that you could have your internet connection terminated or put on hold by your ISP - all without your knowledge. This raises the issue that spam needs to be blocked, ideally, in both directions - to ensure you are not an unwilling accomplice to a malicious spam campaign

2. Convergence of viruses and spam. You are no doubt aware of the nasty rise in viruses that end up impacting your PC in a number of harmful ways including slowing you system down, crashing your system, logging your keystrokes, stealing private information, redirecting you to porn sites, etc… Now, in the past the incidence of a virus travelling through email would be fairly predictable. That has changed with viruses working together with spam. An example is the SoBig virus whos purpose was to create a broad spamming infrastructure by planting code on unwilling participants PCs creating a mass threat to email security. This is just the tip of the iceburg, spam will increasingly be used to spread and activate very dangerous viruses - for this reason alone, you need to be looking at spam blocker software.

3. Mix of spam and phishing. If you haven’t heard of phishing before, it refers to the misleading emails you get dressing themselves up to look like legitimate emails to get confidential, often financial, information from you. Some common examples are the Paypal or Bank emails that claim you need to login with your private information to verify contact information or update account information. In reality, this is a malicious third party that steals your private information and can cause you MAJOR identity and financial problems.

So what can we do about this?

It’s time to get serious about spam blocker software - as a first line of defense. Regulation isn’t working, while it is getting tougher and tougher to quickly decide what is spam and what is not in your inbox and as we have seen, the stakes are getting higher.

There are hundreds of shareware, freeware and otherware solutions on the market, the time for experimentation is over. In my trials of over 12 different spam blocker solutions, we found incredible variance in the reliabiltiy, effectiveness leading to our finding that there were only a small handful of serious spam blocker solutions. For our findings, feel free to visit our review page over at: http://www.blockmorespam.com/spam_blocker_software.html

Discover More About Stopping Dangerous Spam With Reviews, Spam Blocker Software, Anti-Spam Measures and More, Visit our Leading Resouce Site Here: http://www.blockmorespam.com

You’re not alone!

Who hasn’t surfed the web looking for information only to have their session interrupted by those annoying pop-up windows displaying everything from banner ads to newsletter sign-up’s?

Though pop-up windows and other methods of influencing a user’s online experiences originally had positive intentions, they now seem only to annoy and manipulate users at every turn.

For anyone who ever felt extremely irritated by online advertising, the following advice should help.

** Pop-Up Ads **

Pop-up windows open new pages in your browser without your permission and, sometimes, without your knowledge.

They slow down your surfing and cause confusion, even for the most experienced surfer.

If you don’t want to see pop-up windows in your browser, you should get a free pop-up blocker like the ones that come with the Google tool bar (http://toolbar.google.com) or the Alexa tool bar (http://download.alexa.com).

Either of these free tools "plug in" to your web browser and will stop the majority of pop-ups, including the situations where 5 or 10 pop-up windows fly up on your screen and "attack" you all at once!

** Page Hijacking **

Have you ever surfed along peacefully when all of a sudden you hit your back button and nothing happened?

Click-click-click - no matter how many times you hit the button, it seemed your web browser had been "wheel locked" to a certain site and no amount of effort allowed you to back track.

This nasty little trick, otherwise know as "page hijacking" involves inserting a small bit of code into a web page that disables your browser’s "back" button.

To defeat this little nasty just click and hold the down arrow next to your browser’s "back" button (on both Internet Explorer and Netscape) to see a list of the last few pages you’ve browsed.

Click on a link in the history list to free yourself and resume surfing.

Careful though, you may not have been hijacked, you may have been the victim of the next dirty trick.

** Fast Meta Refresh **

A predecessor of the pop-up window, the fast meta refresh trick involves opening one page and almost instantly having your browser redirected to another page.

This tactic, often used by search engine promoters, often leads to wasted time on pages that have little relevance to your search.

It may also entail opening five to ten additional windows, frequently displaying offensive material such as pornography.

Closing all your browser windows and starting over seems the only sure-fire way to defeat this tactic. Hitting your back button to retreat from the problem will usually just cause more windows to appear.

Quick Tip: If you find yourself attacked by multiple pop-up ads, hold down the key and hit the key repeatedly, all the web browser windows on your screen will disappear faster than new ones can pop open.

If you feel a website operator appears to openly abuse visitors with annoying or unscrupulous tactics, feel free to complain to their hosting company or the search engines.

By doing so you might save the next person a whole lot of inconvenience.

(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved - http://www.thenetreporter.com

About The Author:

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr-e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…

Simple "Traffic Machine" brings Thousands of NEW visitors to your website for weeks, even months… without spending a dime on advertising! ==> "Turn Words Into Traffic"

We’ve all become familiar with the term spam. It’s become so commonplace that even people who never use computers are familiar with the term spam. That single word has become part of our every day vocabulary that we use in personal conversations.

But how does the word spam relate to email? There are two camps of thought on this matter. The classic version of the story stems from the classic Monty Python spam sketch where a couple enter a restaurant and are given a menu that has nothing but the tinned meat spam on it. In that sketch the word spam is repeated almost 200 times. The same word repeated over and over in a sketch led to people referring to hundreds of the same emails about the same topic being referred to as spam.

The second explanation came from a guy called Jim who told me the following story:

"Back in the BBS (Bulletin Board System) days with the NEW high-speed V32 2400-baud modems it would take a very long time to download a program or picture from your BBS. This was much like USENET is today you upload some thing and others can download it.

One such uploader advertised his posts as pictures of nude women. After a half hour download and putting all the pieces together the picture turned out to be a picture of a can of SPAM. Where are my nude ladies and an hour of my time? People replied to the messages and wrote SPAM. This way we knew not to D/L that picture. After USENET got going the term stuck meaning something false - do not download (or believe) this. The jump to UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email) or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) being called SPAM was a natural evolution of the term."

Decide for yourself which origination theory best suits you. The principle is the same. The word spam is derived from the fact that the same useless information is sent to you over and over again under the pretence of it being useful.

This article was provided courtesy of Spam-site.com which reviews and tests spam blockers for the business and end user.