You will laugh next time you see an unknown email message in your Inbox. This knowledge will help you understand more what spammers and phishers look like. read full article…

Nobody likes it. It’s a wonder anybody still does it. It’s what makes some people so leery of ever embracing email and it’s what has lead to so many others opening up secondary, “junk” email accounts. As such, it’s also the bane of ISPs and hosting providers everywhere. As of the writing of this article, spam has constituted almost 50% of the content of people’s email inboxes and internet users, ISPs, and hosting providers have just about had enough. read full article…

Shopping and selling on eBay can be one of the most rewarding experiences on the Internet. However you need to be careful of scam artists who will try to take advantage of you through various types of fraud. If you do get scammed on eBay there are ways you can get your money back. However, it is very difficult to ever catch the fraud artist and it is a lot simpler if you can recognize and avoid frauds from the beginning. read full article…

Spammers commonly find email recipients by using a spambot by searching for addresses on websites, forums, or Usenet groups, for example. Another way is to use a name generating type of software which produces likely common words, names, or numerical combinations of email addresses for the sole purpose of sending spam. The more popular an ISP, the more spam is mailed to its members. read full article…

It’s not always easy to spot a scam. Many times, checking with the BBB and other resources simply is not sufficient because the scam is too new. But when you are looking for a work at home opportunity of any kind, it helps to know what red flags to be aware of, whether in a job or business opportunity. read full article…

Over the past few years there’s been a worrying increase in the number of spoof e-mails that claim to be from eBay or Paypal. These are an attempt to gain your username and password so that fraudsters can use your account for illegal activities.

Even more worrying is the sophisticated tactics that they now use. Sometimes it’s very hard indeed to tell whether an email really is from eBay, or whether in fact it’s a spoof. read full article…

You have probably seen an increase in the amount of junk mail which shows up in your email box, or on your favorite newsgroup. The activities of a small number of people are becoming a bigger problem for the Internet.

Chain letters that ask for money, whether for reports or just straight up, are illegal in the US whether they are in postal mail or e-mail. Report these frauds to your local US Postmaster. read full article…

Just about everyone has opened up their email to find correspondence from people and websites that we have never heard of selling all manner of commercial products. This sort of mail often concerns gambling, pharmaceutical products, diet methods, and sexual enhancement aids, and get rich quick schemes. read full article…

There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancellable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at lurkers, people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. read full article…

It’s been nearly a decade since spammers and their enemies begun evolving competitively. As with the classic cheetah/gazelle model originally formulated by Darwin, each time one group becomes a little faster or more agile, its adversaries develop traits for outwitting and outrunning it.

In addition to wasting people’s time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. read full article…