Spam

Spam


The unwanted, beastly mail in your inbox.  The wretched element of email that takes up your time and mortifies you with crude language.  Spam is like a parasite.  Now that it is rampant, how do you deal with it? 

First, let's define spam. 

Spam (spam)
n. Unsolicited email, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk email.

tr.v. spammed, spam·ming, spams
1.  To send unsolicited email to.
2.  To send (a message) indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups.

Take note:  if you sign up for newsletters or online offers, the subsequent emails sent to you are not spam. 

How is it possible that you receive unsolicited email, you ask?  There are many ways.  Below are the practices that you should avoid if you would like to keep peace in your inbox.

Discussion Groups
When you post messages on these sites, your post along with your email address can be spread across the internet in a very short period of time.  Anyone posting to a discussion group is putting their email address in a very vulnerable position because it makes it so easy for spammers to scoop it up.

Web pages
If your email is listed on any website for business or personal reasons you have practically handed your address to spammers.  To find out if your email address is on any sites, do a Google search.  If your address comes up you can be certain that the spammers easily gleaned your address off of those sites.

Hand-Me-Down Email Accounts
If you managed to recently nab yourself an awesome email address at Yahoo!, Hotmail or any of the other major email distributors then you are very likely the recipient of a hand-me-down email address.  Congratulations, you just inherited someone's spam.  Because more than likely, that email address was abandoned due to the amount of spam it was receiving.

Chain Letters & Forwarding
Do not participate in chain letters or forwarding of emails.  When you forward emails you are attaching your address to an email that is zooming around the internet at lightning speed.   At any moment, these emails could land in the inbox of a spammer.

Replying to Spam
Do not even open an email that you know is spam, certainly do not respond.  Many people believe that sending a curt response will get them taken off the spammers' list.  Spammers do not care about upsetting you.  They will happily continue to send you spam with the knowledge that they are sending to an active address.

Buying from the Spam
Never ever buy something from a spam email.  You are confirming that your address is active by purchasing and therefore ensuring that you will receive more spam than you could have ever thought possible.  Worse, you could be allowing someone to steal your credit card information and identity.

Taking Your Name off the Mailing List
If you receive spam do not under any circumstance follow the procedure to take your name off of their mailing list.  By following their procedure, you are verifying that your address is active.  Also, do not give your address at a website claiming to not mail you if you give them your email address.  Why would they want your email address if they do not want to send you something? 

You might be required to give your email address if you are shopping online.  If you must give your email, make sure that you are at a reputable site before you purchase.  If you have any reserves about the site, go with your gut, don't buy from them.

Automated Heist
Spammers can and will connect to a server and ask to deliver mail to inbox A, AB, AC, AD, etc...  They will try every combination of letters in their dictionary.  If the server confirms an address, it goes on the list.  Unfortunately, there is nothing you did or can do about this one. 

What Can You Do About Spam?
If you are already receiving spam, you will likely continue to receive it.  Do not despair, there are ways to shield your eyes from it.  An excellent way to remove nasty spam is to use your "White/Black" and "Allow/Deny" lists that the Smart Solutions filtration system employs.

Be sure to check your "Junk Mail" folder or mail "Quarantine" frequently for legitimate correspondence.  If you find legitimate correspondence in your junk mail, you can easily flag the address as a known good correspondent, which will keep emails from that person in your inbox.   You can do the same for known bad correspondence in your inbox.  Flag the email as "Black" or "Deny" and messages from that address will go directly into your junk mail box.

To combat spam, it has become popular to create a separate email that is used only for newsletter sign-ups, promotional items, discussion groups or online purchases.  This can help but as you can see from the above ways you could be getting spammed, it does not cover all of your bases.   We still recommend it though, as every little bit helps.

If your spam is taking over your inbox and suffocating your legitimate correspondence, it might be time to get a new email address.  This should be your last-ditch effort in combating spam.  You would be able to start with a clean slate and if you avoid the above list of missteps like the plague, you could keep a very happy inbox for quite a long time.

If you have email hosting provided to you by Smart Solutions, we are happy to help you through any of your spam issues.  Smart Solutions offers a world-class perimeter-based email defense solution with all of our email accounts.  If you have questions about our highly-accurate threat protection with industry-leading low false positive rates, please contact us.


Smart Solutions · 2525 NE Twin Knolls Suite 1 Bend OR 97701 · 541.388.4398 · fax 541.385.4798 EMAIL US