A common question our customers ask is “why am I getting so much spam?” This is a great question as we rely on our email program to identify spam and quickly file it in our Junk (or Spam) folder. Spam messages received offering pills we don’t want or giving us things we don’t want to be given or warning us of the wealth found in Nigeria are usually removed immediately. So I still get them?
Believe it or not, there are people who take the bait and buy V1aGra or think they can earn thousands a week by clicking on websites or are eager to collect their newfound Nigerian wealth. Anti-spam experts predict that spam will end when people stop acting on it. Hmm, when do you think it will happen?
While gullible souls create the demand side of the value proposition, what is the cost of creating the spam in the first place? For a few thousand dollars, one can rent software agents, or robots that run anonymously and can automatically send 100 million emails. It probably doesn’t take more than 25 orders of V1agra to cover the cost. That’s only .000025%! This means that they start earning money from the 26th taker. How many fools do you think there are in 100 million people? That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? PT Barnum said that a sucker was born every minute, so it looks like spam’s target market will support those who create it for the foreseeable future.
Successful spammers are smart people. Emails that contained the word Viagra in the message were classified as spam by spam filters, so the spammers changed the spelling to V1agra. Then spam filters got smarter, so spammers started sending URLs or images. Google implemented technology to capture those images, and the spammers responded by splitting the images into multiple out-of-focus parts of the original image. Large ISPs (AT&T, Verizon, Yahoo, Google, et al) determine the IP addresses spammers use and block (blacklist) them from receiving email from them. Spammers then find unused IP addresses from trusted sources or hack email accounts of innocent people and use them to beat the blacklist. So the catch-22 effect continues.
The good news is that the anti-spam guys are just as smart, if not smarter, in their quest to stop spam. They continue to find ways to block spam from reaching your inbox. The challenge is that you don’t want legitimate messages to be classified as spam, so spam filters need to be a bit flexible. After all, it is legitimate for a urologist to email their provider, patient, or partner regarding Viagra. This is the reason why some of the spam arrives in your inbox.
Most email software gives you the ability to identify a message as spam or to identify a message that has been classified as spam as not spam. You can help the spam filter do a better job in the future if, instead of deleting a spam message from your inbox, you use your email client’s feature to mark it as spam. This should influence future decisions made by the spam filter.
It is also up to each user to do a quick scan of their Junk Mail Folder to make sure there are no legitimate messages there. If there are, use your email program to mark it as Safe Sender (or Not Spam, each email program is a little different). When you’re done with your scan, empty the folder and let it start filling up again.
If you have questions about a better anti spam solution software or the features of your email software, please leave us a support ticket or contact us and we will get back to you.
