If you have an e-mail account, there is a good possibility that you are getting a deluge of spam e-mails through no fault of your own. Even if you have never given your e-mail address out, there is a chance that you could be bombarded with e-mails simply through someone sending to a random e-mail address.
Sensible precautions can only protect you so far, so it is a good idea to take advantage of some of the free anti-spam products on offer.
Some of the better and free options to choose from are:
Windows Mail / Outlook Junk Mail Filter - If you use Windows Mail or Outlook you will have the option of enabling the Junk mail filter. This is surprisingly effective and should be the first line of defence if you use one of these applications. It’s free and updates regularly via Windows Update.
SpamFighter - Spamfighter has a free for private use version, ideal for protecting your home e-mail. This advanced application tags your e-mail with an advertising line (in the free version), but is worth using if you have real spam problems.
MailWasher - The free version allows you to protect a single e-mail address from spam, however it isn’t as automated as some other spam software.
Spamihilator - This is a freeware application that works quite well and can be trained to recognise spam or safe e-mails. Great for a free application.
POP File - Pop File is an open source project that can sort your e-mails quickly (i.e. spam, and not spam). If you are after something free, powerful and configurable then this may be the best option.
Archive for the ‘Anti Spam’ Category
Spam celebrates its 30th birthday on Saturday (3 May).
On that day in 1978, 393 Arpanet subscribers were sent what’s reckoned to be the first ever spam email1 in history (the message itself was written on 1 May 1978).
DEC marketing rep Gary Thuerk came up with the wheeze which produced a fierce backlash from Arpanet (military) administrators, as well as a small number of sales.
After first appearing on Arpanet, unsolicited bulk commercial ads moved over to Usenet, email and websites links. Much to the chagrin of Hormel Foods, the term spam was applied to the phenomenon in a pop-culture reference to the spam skit from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, where all meals in a restaurant come with spam, spam and more spam. Junk email - not nourishing luncheon meat - has become the principal meaning of the word spam.
A lot has changed in the three decades since. Instead of a select group of academics, practically the entire online population (estimated at 1.3 billion) is subjected to a daily deluge of junk mail messages.
Spam filtering technology has come on a long way in the last three or four years in particular, but eradicating the problem has proved a far more difficult task than originally imagined.
In January 2004, Bill Gates predicted that spam email would be eradicated as a problem within 24 months. Gates outlined a three-stage plan to eradicate spam within two years.
Microsoft’s scheme called for better filters to weed out spam messages and sender authentication via a form of challenge-response system. Secondly, Microsoft wanted to see tar-pitting so that emails coming from unknown senders were slowed down to a point where bulk mail runs become impractical.
Lastly, and most promisingly as far as Gates was concerned, was a digital equivalent of stamps for email, to be paid out only if the recipient considers an email to be spam.
The third idea never really got off the ground while the first two (already in the works when Gates made his speech) have been applied across the industry, at least in part.
But as anti-spam defences have advanced, so have spamming methods. Using compromised email gateways, which can be relatively quickly blacklisted, is a thing of the past as junk mail miscreants have moved over to using networks of compromised PCs (botnets).
As techniques for identifying and taking down botnet control servers have evolved so too have hacker techniques so that, for example, compromised nodes search for control servers and communicate using HTTP rather than IRC channels.
Meanwhile, spam has begun appearing on other platforms, such as mobile phones. According to research from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), more than 80 per cent of phone users worldwide have received spam on their mobile.
An estimated 95 per cent of all email is spam. If nobody responded to spam the tactic would not be commercially viable, but a recent survey conducted by Sophos revealed that 11 per cent of people admit to having bought goods in response to spam messages.
Sophos launched a campaign on Thursday urging people to resist clicking on spam links, in the hope that spam will not reach its next landmark anniversary. ®
1 A copy of Thuerk’s messages, advertising West Coast demos of a new hardware system from DEC, along with the negative reactions it provoked can be found here in an article by Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A young Richard Stallman was among the minority who suggested DEC’s mass message was nothing to get upset about.
More than 12,000 cans of Spam luncheon meat were discovered by government anti-smuggling group in a warehouse at Currimao Port in Ilocos Norte Wednesday, police said Thursday.
The Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group is determining if these were smuggled goods.
A government official reportedly owns the warehouse but Aurum Pacific is renting the facility.
PASG agents had with them a seizure and detention warrant signed by PASG Undersecretary Antonio Villar.
Reports said that the canned goods were delivered in five container vans that came from Subic Port.
