THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, COMMUNITY, AND VALUES
by Lenny Charnoff <Lenny@learningtips4u.com>
Internet Consultant
.03 Fuzzy Math
.04 Who is to Blame?
.05 What is the Real Cost of Spam
.06 Solution 1 -- Diversify Your E-mail Addresses
.07 Solution 2 -- Install Pre-Download Spam Filters
.08 Solution 3 -- Use the Filters on Your Resident E-mail Program
.09 Summary
.01 A Little Pre-Spam History (return to index)
Thirty-one years ago an undecorated computer engineer named Ray Tomlison sent the first e-mail message. He can't remember if the message between the two PDP-10 computer was "testing" or "QWERTYUIOP" but the symbol "@" was used to separate the name of the user from the computers that were sending and receiving messages. Tomlison had no idea that 31 years later his "@" sign would be present in more than 7 billion daily e-mail messages generated on the Internet. Unfortunately, today more than 40% of e-mail is unsolicited commercial e-mail, commonly referred to as SPAM. SPAM is more than just an annoyance for e-mail users. SPAM has a serious potential to close down the Internet.
.02 Why Does SPAM Exist? (return to index)
The only reason it exists is that lots of people are making money at it. Here is just one example of the insidious nature of SPAM.
An e-mail sent to me from dbase119854 at Yahoo explained that they could put me in touch with over 200 million people for $99. For another $99 they would sell me their version of bulk mailing list software. They summed up their e-mail by saying "If I could make one cent from each of the addresses then I would have a profit of $2 million". Of course I would have to send my money to Singapore. P.T. Barnum was almost right when he said, " a sucker is born every minute". The Internet version should be "A stupid sucker is born every second" because the math just is not sound."
.03 Fuzzy Math (return to index)
Let's take a look at the Singapore offer. Let us assume that the disk and the software are completely bogus. But we will assume that it cost the scammer $200 to buy 200 million addresses, of which 20 million are valid, current addresses. Another $380 is spent to buy a powerful Bulk E-mailer (such as Mailoop). If the scammer received even a .00001% return on every mailing, the profit from the first mailing is nearly $4000. Now, before everyone runs out to buy mailing lists, lets look at some other concerns. It is important to know there is not a legitimate ISP (Internet Service Provider ) on the planet that would permit a scammer to send out this kind of irresponsible e-mail. Secondly, the scammer must be constantly switching ISP's, buying time on new ISPs because many of the scam-based ISP's are shut down.
.04 Who Is To Blame? (return to index)
1. First and foremost it is the individual user who is responsible. It seems to me that instead of throwing the blame at scammers and spammers, who undoubtedly deserve some blame, we should start taking responsibility. Come on, readers. There is never going to be a Nigerian prince giving us money to hold and share, or that we can earn money just by staying home, wishing ourselves rich. I receive at least 3 pieces of e-mail per day in my junk e-mail about "be your own boss and work at home". Does anyone else think there is something wrong if large segments of our society seriously think they can receive payments and get rich without any labor?
2. The World Banks - Banks are making large sums of money by allowing spammers and companies supporting spammers to become credit card merchants. As a home-based business, I had to jump through many hoops and credit checks to obtain my merchant account. Lending agencies need to use prudent judgment regarding all credit merchant accounts. In the end, it is the law-abiding consumer who pays for the charge-backs with high interest rates after credit merchants fail.
3. Lack Of Penalties- It is neither the objective nor the scope of this article to accuse other countries or federal and state governments here in the U.S. However, spammers are not stupid. They quickly discover which countries or states have few enforced penalties for perpetrators of spam and scams.
.05 What Is The Real Cost Of SPAM? (return to index)
The simple one word answer is productivity. Let's say you spend 15 minutes a day dealing with SPAM, 200 days a year. If we value your time at $1.00 per minute, that adds up to more than $3000 per year. ISP's and hosting companies now have to buy additional servers and software filters to handle the extra e-mail that is created by SPAM. Of course these costs are passed on to the consumers in higher subscription and access fees. One cannot put a cost on the embarrassment one faces when an unsolicited pornographic e-mail escapes through your filters and arrives on your front screen just as your child enters your office to say hello after school. And we have not even addressed the clogged lines slowing down access due to millions upon millions of unwanted spam messages flying through cyberspace.
.06 Solution 1 – Diversify Your E-mail Addresses (return to index)
I advise everyone to use 5 different e-mail addresses. The first piece of spam you received was probably a result of entering your e-mail address on the wrong mailing list or a web page you visited where you did not check for an authentic privacy policy. Each one of your five e-mail addresses should be allocated to a specific contact group. Your present e-mail address is probably on your business card and in the address books of many clients or colleagues. Your second e-mail address should be just for mailing lists, listserves and used when you are requesting information from the web. All of your supplemental e-mail addresses can be acquired from web-based services. The third address should given be for family and trusted personal friends who will not "Cc" you on cute messages, thereby sharing your address with unknown others who may, in turn, "Cc" to dozens of other strangers in a snowball effect that eventually produces a blizzard of unwanted spam for you. Your fourth e-mail address should be similar to an unlisted telephone number. Only your most trusted business associates should be given with this one. They should also know never to include your address on a distributed mailing that has more than 3 other e-mail addresses. The fifth account should be your "competitive intelligence" account. This is the account you keep without any identifying information. Create a pseudonym so that you may ask for information either from your competition or from companies before you can trust their privacy policy.
Source Of Additional Web-Based E-mail Accounts (return to index)
One excellent resource is the "Free E-mail Providers Guide" http://www.fepg.net/ Use extreme caution in signing up with specific identification about yourself. Three services I highly recommend are the following:
- UReach – free and fee-based service. Includes checking your office mail, spelling check, calendar, voice-mail, filters, the ability to send faxes and 6mb of storage. The fee-based version has more features and does not contain advertising or pop-up ads. The basic fee is modest. www.ureach.com
- Myrealbox- free with calendar, imap, 10mb storage. Does not contain advertising or pop up ads. This is a Novell product.
www.myrealbox.com- Oddpost- fee-based service with a free 30-day trial. $30 gets you excellent service and the humor of the two founders. A good choice for competitive intelligence. www.outpost.com
.07 Solution 2 – Install Pre-download SPAM Filters (return to index)
Even though I receive about 200 pieces of Spam a day, only about 5% of that SPAM ever gets downloaded to my hard disk. I use Mail Washer, a spam killer software product from New Zealand. http://www.mailwasher.net Mail washer checks my e-mail while it is still on my hosting service's mail server. You set your spam preferences before using Mail Washer for the first time. I set up a "friends list" and a "blacklist". Every time I receive a piece of spam from the blacklist, Mail Washer deletes it off the mail server and bounces it back to the originator of the e-mail.
You can also develop sophisticated filters that create rules for deletion. If you're really brave, you can have the black list deleted before you check it. This requires you to check the blacklist for names that may have been put there because your sender used words that you declared as "spammer terms". The software is free with banner advertising or the cost is $10 without the banner. The software is created by a man who really cares about the damaging effect of SPAM.
.08 Solution 3 – Use The Filters On Your Resident E-mail Program (return to index)
I understand that many of the readers of this column will have no choice in their choice of e-mail software (client). Those readers are probably using Microsoft Outlook or Eudora Pro. Both of these clients have excellent junk filters. Both programs allow you to use sound as well as graphics to eliminate unwanted material. I highly recommend PocoMail 2.6 http://www.pocomail.com This program is created and supported in Vancouver, British Columbia. PocoMail has excellent support and helpful features, making it well worth the $25 price. The most powerful feature is the ability to script your e-mail filters. For example, I can create a vacation message that alerts only people in my address book that I am out of the office. PocoMail also has a junk filter-weighting program so you can key certain phrases and automatically filter them to a junk mailbox.
.09 Summary (return to index)
Never ever supply your primary e-mail address on the web before carefully reading the privacy policy of the web site. Do not enter your e-mail address if the owner of the web site includes something like the following "from time to time we share information with responsible 3rd parties". Who defines "responsible" and what happens to your information when the 3rd parties abuse that privilege? Seriously consider using one of the best weapons against Spam, a program that deletes and blocks the Spam before it arrives on your hard disk (see recommendations above). Finally, get involved in registering your opinions about spam with one of the resources below.
Additional Anti-Spam Resources (return to index)
Lenny Charnoff is an Internet Consultant living near Gaston, Oregon. He specializes in helping organizations use the Internet more effectively through the use of marketing with digital media.
503-985-9539
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