OT: Re: Spam

OK, short story.

Spammers will stop at nothing in their efforts to try to get you to open their messages. Why?

1. They want you to read their useless advertising
2. They want to "own" (computer jargon for "being able to use *your* computer for their purposes) your machine by putting a virus on it. Once they "own" your computer, they can send SPAM to you (that you won't necessarily see) which gets relayed to their victims by using your computer and username/email address/address book

If you have HTML or Rich Text enabled in your email software, they can embed images inside their crap so that they can tell that you have actually opened the message and then they know that they have a valid email address to SPAM or try to exploit later via illicit virus installation.

They will try to trick you into opening their crap emails with various technical-sounding error message subject lines.

This is why I always recommend disabling HTML email.

SPAM is like 10 million ants attacking an elephant or the boiling frog experiment ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog ).

I'm CCing this to the group, maybe it will help.

Paul

• Original Message ----- From: <Zope_Tushar@fwuk.fwc.com> To: "Paul Bowers" <pbowers@pipingdesign.com> Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 8:59 PM Subject: Re: Spam

> Thanks Paul.
>
> I forwarded the message for your info., thinking that only I might
have
> recd it.
>
> I am using the office email id and located in Thailand. Our IT group
is
> trying to tackle the problem of emails recd from unknown addresses but
they
> are not yet successful. It's never ending story. Some users did
receive the
> email saying that their email was virus affected etc etc. The reply
was
> from the address where they never sent any email.
>
> Hopefully, this problem doesn't worsen and don't become a threat to
the
> corporates and individual. But at the same time it's good opportunity
for
> the anti-spam software makers to get handsome profit.
>
> If you know any such softwares, please post to the group list.
>
> Best Regards.
>
> Tushar Zope
> Extn: 162
> "Paul Bowers"
> <pbowers@pipingde To: Zope
Tushar/D153/DEPTS/TH/FWUK/GB@FWUK
> sign.com> cc:
> Subject: Re: Spam
> 04/01/2004 08:49
> AM
>
> Tushar, to me, that is SPAM. It is addressed to
> PipingDesign-owner@yahoogroups.com but you got it? Last I heard, I was
> the owner of the PipingDesign group at YahooGroups.
>
> Are you located in North America? If so, give me a call Thursday.
> [_____] x25. I only ask this because if I was to explain all the
> possible reasons why you might have received junk like this in your
> email inbox I might have to write a book. It's much easier to explain
> and address any questions verbally - otherwise we will end up going
> around in email circles.
>
> I am personally fed up with SPAM, having to deal with over a hundred
of
> these crap messages per day. I assure you that I don't SPAM or give
any
> addresses out to any other third party.
>
> If you still have the message in question, forward it to me and I'll
try
> to discern the actual source (there are ways to look ito this and
report
> it). It probably won't do any good though, email has become a losing
> battle over the past couple of years.
>
> Try using Mailwasher, a free program that allows you to review and
> delete messages on your server before it hits your inbox. I've been
> using it for a few months and it works pretty well although it can be
> easy for it to find a few false positives.
>
> Paul
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Zope_Tushar@fwuk.fwc.com>
> To: <pbowers@pipingdesign.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 8:18 PM
> Subject: Re: Spam
>
> > Paul,
> >
> > What's this email rced on the list? Is this a spam??
> >
> > Best Regards.
> >
> > Tushar Zope
> > Extn: 162
Received on Wed Mar 31 21:42:00 2004