CliCK HeRe To WiN £1,000,000!
May 1st sees the 30th anniversary of the first spam email. But who exactly sends all those life enhancing, fat reducing emails anyway? And how can you prevent too many from reaching your inbox?
Here at The Fool, we get our fair share of spam. And, just in case you hadn't cottoned on already, there is no £1,000,000 prize up for grabs I'm afraid (though don't relegate this article to your junk mail folder just yet!).
Thankfully, the Fool's email system is equipped with a powerful spam filter which weeds out most of the rubbish. Inevitably though, some still slip through the net.
A few examples from our `Money Saving Tips' inbox look set to enhance more than just your finances, including:
'Your partner will worship you for it' (you, too could become a deity while saving money on your gardening tools).
'Realize all her dreams with our help for short time' (obviously, this person was so busy realising their lady friend's dreams that they failed to check their grammar).
And, `Get armed for a new love battle' (Spartacus would have been proud).
This comes alongside the steady stream of phishing emails from such characters as Lord Duke Smithe-Johnson (as if the more prefixes their name has, the more credible their name would sound), asking us for help in transferring the modest sum of £1,024,187,419,099 from a diamond mine in Sierra Leone.
But where does it all come from?
Humble Spam Beginnings
This week heralds the 30th anniversary of the first spam email. It's hard to believe that the single spam email a computer geek sent on May 1st 1978 could have exploded into the billions sent round the world today.
And, as part of its global S.P.A.M (Spammed Persistently All Month) experiment, internet security expert McAfee asked a group of 50 intrepid volunteers from around the world to highlight the potential dangers of spam, as well as its origins.
Armed with nothing but a pair of itchy fingers, an unprotected computer and a licence to gather as much spam as possible, the volunteers surfed the web over 30 days, making online purchases and registering for promotions with a new email address to see what they would find.
Spam School
So what is spam and why do we get it?
Spam is a relatively cheap way for companies to reach out to consumers. Businesses compile huge lists of email addresses which they sell on to other companies. Mass spam is then sent out in the hope of eliciting a response.
As spamming is so cheap, even one sale for every million emails sent out can be profitable - much to the annoyance of 999,999 other recipients of course.
In other cases, you can be spammed with what's known as a phishing email, where fraudsters pretend to be from a legitimate organisation such as your bank, leading you to a fake website to try to get hold of your personal details.
But how do they get your address in the first place?
One common way spammers get your email address is called a `dictionary attack'. This is where spammers send thousands of email messages with random addresses, such as john@domain.com, john234@domain.com, etc.
These often contain hidden code telling the spammer if it has been opened, letting them know which addresses are valid. The valid emails are added automatically to the spammer's list and resold to spammers worldwide.
Of course, the web itself is a goldmine for spammers, who create engines that search the web specifically looking for the @ sign which indicates an email address, which they also add to mailing lists.
Websites enticing you in with promises of big prizes provide another source for spammers. Just type your email address in `here!' for a chance to win a £1,000,000 giveaway, and you are sure to get some spam mail winging its way to your inbox. Failing to 'opt out' of receving emails from companies and their 'trusted partners' can also set the spam ball rolling.
Spam(a lot)
Spam, it seems, is everywhere, and the first thing many of the McAfee participants discovered is exactly how much of it you can accumulate if you don't take measures to protect yourself.
By surfing on an unprotected computer, British participant Simon racked up 5,860 emails in under a month. One blogger in America received over 7,000 spam emails.
One of my favourite bloggers, Vic was one of the more adventurous participants when it came to responding to emails. One thing he discovered while surfing was that unsubscribing from certain sites can prove difficult, and can sometimes even generate more spam. As he points out:
'Few spammers have taken notice of my efforts to unsubscribe. British High Street retailers and blue stock companies have, but the rest are still mailing me. The old topics are still there: money, medical and mobiles. A few new ones have been added: politics, product testing and poker, plus immigration, irrigation and employment.'
Phishing For Fun
Ian, another UK blogger found himself in dialogue with the Nigerian Government (no less), who were willing to send him money in return for, you guessed it, a few details.
Surprisingly however, despite the prevalence of phishing scams, in many cases nobody is actually on the other end.
Vic, who responded to several phishing emails from places as far flung as Russia to a British lottery win (despite not having bought a ticket), found little response from these potential scammers:
'None of my following up of some of the 1600 emails offering free gifts, conditional gifts, cash awards or grants has produced anything worthwhile. None of the friendships have materialised. All they do is send me a few more identical "straws" to put on this weary camel's back.'
So, are the scammers slowly giving up trying to tap our funds? Or are these emails generating something more sinister? Or perhaps just more spam? In any case, some things are best left undiscovered.
Stopping Spam
So, spam is here to stay. However, there are some measures you can take to minimise the amount of spam you receive.
The easiest and most common way of stopping spam is spam filtering software. In most cases, your email service will already have a spam filter separating the good and bad from the ugly.
However, there will always be some emails that slip through the net. If spam does reach your inbox, move it straight into your junk email folder. Don't open it.
Secondly, turn on your firewall, which will shield your computer from external attacks, as well as stopping unwanted sending of secretly collected data to external third parties.
Thirdly, use an free anti adware program such as Lavasoft AdAware. This scans your computer for unwanted programs and stops pop-ups from hindering your computer.
For added protection use some all-round security software such as Norton 360, or McAfee's own Security Suite to protect your computer from a range of potentially harmful programs.
Finally, never give your personal details to anyone, no matter what the security update or promises of cash.
Whether it's Lord Smithe-Jones or your bank, a legitimate organisation would never ask you to submit your full bank details or passwords. So don't so it - no matter how regal they may sound.
Happy surfing!
*Posts have been edited for clarity. You can read the full blogs here.