Article Describing How The Internet Works

Symantec has just produced a report on spam messages, what they promote and how they attempt to bypass filters designed to stop spam. The report doesn’t really contain any major surprises to me, although it does confirm what I have been seeing in my own studies.

The overall amount of spam made up 70% of all email messages, which is lower than several other sources estimate, but it must be remembered that Symantec takes samples from their own sources and spam may have already been filtered (at the network level) prior to entering this sample data.

Spammers are using Microsoft Excel as the newest packaging for their spam, says Commtouch, a Nasdaq-listed anti-spam technology provider. The finding is based on the company’s analysis of billions of email messages globally.

“Like other types of spam messages, the Excel spam is being sent from zombie computers or bots typically home PCs that have previously been infected by Trojan malware,” the company says in a media statement.

The Excel spam packaging promotes stocks in file attachments with names like “invoice20202.xls,” “stock information-3572.xls,” and “requested report.xls.”

Right from Viagra to Software Download, from non-English character mails to Phishing emails, Spam is hot and vibrant, and of course, in plenty. Some of the studies say that an average mail box is getting 3600 spam mails per day. Last year it was around 2400. With this rate, soon 9 out of 10 mails may be spam.

But why so much fixation with Spam?

First of all, we must understand that majority of these mails which we term as Spam, are source of livelihood for the senders. With global market and intense competition in every business, newer marketing tools are required to sell the services. Marketers of the new generation have targeted Mobiles and Emails as the latest weapons.

Efficiency and accuracy in communication may be more important today than at any time in human history. The number of spam messages passed between individuals and businesses continues to increase significantly each day, to the point that some are literally overwhelmed by their sheer volume. Now, more than ever, it is vital that true non-spam email messages be absolutely accurate and arrive at the correct location, on time.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the US. Your personal information can also be stolen on the Internet by using fraudulent websites. This is called Phishing.

Thieves will try to collect personal and sensitive information from you by impersonating well known companies through websites or emails.

For example, you may get an email from a company requesting you to update your personal information for their records. The email may ask you to click on a link to do this. This will take you to the fraudulent website, which may look very similar to the real one.

Some months ago I decided to get serious about stopping spam. I did an awful lot of research into spam, where it comes from, why it profits the spammer so much and the evolving methods of both sending and combating spam.

The culmination of this work was my informational website, and the e-book which covers the more easy to implement ideas for stopping spam. I also started a mailing list to send tips and tricks for combating spam to those with a similar dislike of the annoyances that flood mailing boxes.

It’s like a clog in your plumbing…

Every day you open up your email browser and every day there they are. Pharmaceuticals. ED aids. Make money from home. Come chat with me because I’m bored. The list goes on and on.

Sound familiar? It should, because I’m talking about something everyone hates–SPAM!

It’s like a plague that spreads throughout the net and gets nastier and nastier with each passing day. And there’s no end in sight.

I know of a guy who works for a mid-sized company as the IT Director, and he once told me he deletes literally thousands of spam emails from their filters every day. EVERY DAY.

Have you ever wondered how many pieces of spam arrive in your email box annually? Did you know that you may be dealing with literally tens of thousands, or even more, pieces of spam each year? Have you considered what a drain on resources it is to spend time dealing with this spam over an annual period?

Recently I decided determine roughly out how many pieces of spam I receive into my business email account on an annual basis. Normally, I empty the Spam folder every couple days, but a few weeks ago I decided to let it fill up for a week. So after seven days, there were 307 pieces of spam in that folder.

Social media optimization is all the rage in the SEO world. Social networking and media sites are a very useful tool for the average SEO specialist. Social websites allow you to build back links, create and encourage your website popularity and bring in tons of new traffic. In fact if performed well one could probably make their website based upon link bait alone. Some of the more notable websites like Digg, News vine and Reddit have been used since their inception. And with tons of new social sites popping up, there is not shortage of un-gamed websites. Digg amongst other website has become difficult to manipulate. While the website as a whole is manipulated by the Digg mafia, regular users would have to spend limitless amounts of time in order to land a first page story on Digg. In many ways the traffic is not worth the effort.