Spyware Remover: Free Spyware, Adware Removal Programs, Popup Blockers

Just Imagine a Spam Free Mailbox - It is Achievable

staff — Thu, 31 May 2007 07:46:09 +0000

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Spam Email and Viruses - 11 Tips for Reducing the Spam Epidemic

staff — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:04:06 +0000

According to Don Evett, in his spam Statistics 2006, 40% of all email in 2006 was considered spam. Evett predicts that the amount of spam will increase 63% in 2007. Of the spam received in 2006, 19% of total spam messages (2.5 billion messages daily) were pornographic in nature. So what can you do to protect your email address from all of these spammers? Below are eleven simple ways you can help lessen the negative impact of spam on your computer as well as the Internet:

1. Don�t unsubscribe to �subscription� emails from sources you didn�t subscribe to by using their �unsubscribe� link. Simply add the email address of their entire domain to your inbox blacklist. Many spammers will use this �unsubscribe� link as a means of verifying that your email address is real and then turn around and provide it to other spam marketers for money.

2. Do not click on the links of an email claiming to be from a famous organization, unless you have contacted them first and are expecting a reply. Clicking on these links can cause drive-by downloads of viruses or even barrages of pornographic Pop-ups.

3. Never publish your email address online. Don�t put it on an online resume�, contact page or homepage. There are �spiders� continuously crawling the net looking for email addresses to add to their spam mailing lists.

4. Keep your computer clean. Run a virus checker with an updated virus database daily. Many viruses are written explicitly to harvest email addresses from your computer and then spam those people in your name.

5. Don�t fall for �phishing� email schemes. Messages claiming to be from Western Union, Paypal and other financial institutions promising account closure and balance forfeiture if the user does not click on �confirm� or �verify� account links are a sure sign of a phishing scam. Once the user clicks on these links (that look legitimate, they are taken to a fake (but real looking) site asking for credit card information, password details, etc� Legitimate, honest companies will never send an email asking you to click on an enclosed link to save your account from shutting down.

6. Never participate in an online forum site, if they post your email address to their site. If you find a site that does not disguise your email address, let the administrator know they are helping serve email addresses to spammers.

7. Set up a separate email address dedicated to only Internet transactions. Use a free email service for this and keep your primary email address private. If you are getting too much spam at your free address, simply delete it and create a new one.

8. Watch out for pre-checked boxes. Many companies will use pre-selected checkboxes defaulted to indicate your approval to sell or give away your email address to third parties.

9. Don�t forward chain e-mail messages. Some spammers actually start chain letters to gather email addresses. When you forward chain email messages, you lose control over your email address and may further a hoax, aid in a phishing scam or help spread a virus also.

10. Whenever you send email to a large group of people, always use the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) address field instead of To. When you BCC your message, everyone else viewing the message cannot see the addresses of the other recipients. This simple method will help protect your friend�s email addresses from being unknowingly spammed.

11. Make sure you use an antivirus product with a powerful built-in spam filtering device like Stop-Sign Internet Security.

REPRINT RIGHTS

Jason Dick is an Internet Security Specialist. Mr. Dick is a Tier-3 certified antivirus technician with extensive experience creating customized antivirus solutions for new and resistant spyware and virus infections. In addition, he has spent several years consulting with the average home computer user helping them get the most from their Internet Security Software. He is currently writing a series of articles entitled “Internet Security Tips for the Home User” to share his knowledge and expertise.To follow Jason’s entire series and read a multitude of other exciting and up-to-date articles on Internet Security visit: http://home.stopsign.com

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Four Tips To Reduce Spam or Unsolicited Email, Today

staff — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:47:24 +0000

Unwanted email is no joke.

At the very least, unsolicited email wastes everyone’s time. Much worse however, are the online dangers that this unwanted email (also known as unsolicited email or spam) brings.

I’m talking about the problems of spyware and adware; of computer viruses; and of so-called phishing attacks that enable identity theft and threaten your financial security.

There’s no doubt that reducing unwanted email helps just about everyone, whether site owner or site visitor. This article aims to help both.

So, here’s how webmasters, site owners and web visitors can reduce unwanted email, today:

Tip 1. Use A Challenge Response System

What is a challenge response email system?

Well, according to Domains-dns.com, “it is an anti-spam system which is designed to shift the filtering workload from the recipient to the spammer (or the legitimate sender).

“The fundamental idea is that spammers will not take the time to confirm that they want to send you email, but a legitimate sender will.”

Basically, a challenge response system aims to prevent unwanted email getting through to your inbox, by getting the sender of the email to confirm that they sent the email. (Spammers would simply not have the time to confirm millions of messages a day.)

Email Publisher Comment on Tip 1:

Challenge response email systems are time-consuming to say the least, for those email publishers that send legitimate emails to hundreds or thousands of double-opt-in subscribers. So some email publishers will not confirm details and you will not receive the email subscription you requested.

To find out more, do a search for “email challenge response systems”.

Tip 2. Use Disposable Email Addresses

What are disposable email addresses?

Well, without stating the obvious, they’re email addresses you can dispose of. They’re easy to set up, use once, and forget. So if someone sends unwanted email to this email address you’ll most likely never know about it.

These email addresses are mostly used to register at sites that people don’t really want to register at.

Site Owner Comment on Tip 2:

These email addresses are not liked by site owners who obviously want to maintain contact with people by sending further emails in the future. (Responsible email marketing is one method that site owners use to keep their site free, after all.) Quite often, therefore, these email addresses are banned from being used to register for a site.

To find out more, do a search for “disposable email”.

Tip 3. Hide Your Email Address

This tip is aimed at anyone who leaves their email address on a website or online forum.

Basically, so-called spambot programs scour the web looking for email addresses to add to databases. These databases get sold to spammers who then send you unwanted email.

So either replace all email links on your site with “contact forms” or encrypt your email address somehow. And be careful when leaving your email on a forum (some forums automatically encrypt your email or just do not publish it).

There are several ways you can ‘hide’ your email address but the basic idea is to try not to leave a ‘live’ email address on a site or forum. (Technically speaking, I’m talking about not using mailto: for your email addresses.)

You can do this by:

o Encrypting your email address with ASCII-code;
o Encrypting your email address using JavaScript;
o Using an anti-spam feedback form, only;
o Putting your email address in an image.

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As simple as that, really.

Site Owner Comment on Tip 3:

Removing live mailto: links from your website may take some time, but the amount of time site owners will eventually save make this a worthwhile activity. Not all of the methods discussed above are 100% spam-proof, however.

Here is an example of a contact form that uses several of the above techniques: - http://www.textmefree.com/contact_us.html

To find out more, do a search for “mailto encrypter” or “anti-spam feedback form” or visit the following pages at Willmaster.com:
- http://willmaster.com/master/spambotbuster/
- http://willmaster.com/master/feedback/

Site Owner Comment (#2) on Tip 3:

Try and make sure that your email is set up to reject anything_goes_here@yoursitename.com (this is easy to configure on a good web host). This will mean that spammers can’t guess what your email address is and spam you even if you don’t put this email address live on your site.

Site Visitor Comment on Tip 3:

You’re relying on either not using your real email address (see Tip 2, above), or on hoping that the owner of the site you’re using has anti spam measures in place to hide your email address on the site forum or guest book. Do take care.

Tip 4. Filter Your Email

If all else fails, and you’re receiving lots and lots of spam, you simply have to filter your email.

That means automatically deleting the junk via a set of rules (or filters). How you do this depends on what email software you use: Outlook, Outlook Express and Eudora have email filters (spam filters) that are easy to train.

You can also buy anti-spam email software to filter your email before it even reaches your email client (e.g. Outlook).

Web-based email sites like AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! etc. also allow you to filter your email.

General Comment on Tip 4:

Filters never stop all of the junk, alas. One thing to consider is setting up special email addresses that you can track and swap to another email address should it start to receive too much spam. This would be more a temporary email address than a disposable one.

–

So, there you have it: four tips site owners as well as site visitors can use today to reduce unwanted email, or spam.

Unwanted email is, at the very least an unpleasant waste of time, and it really can be reduced if you follow the tips above. It is important that you try at least one of the spam-reduction tips shown.

Above all, site owners should remove their mailto: links from their website, and site visitors should simply take care when and where they use their email address online.

Read more about stopping spam etc., and find links that show you how, simply by visiting http://www.buildpromoteprofittips.com/stop-spam.shtml

And you can learn how to remove spyware and adware, right now, by visiting http://www.buildpromoteprofittips.com/remove-spyware.shtml

Why Spam Filters & Blockers May Not Be The Solution To Unsolicited Email

staff — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:17:51 +0000

One huge advantage of email marketing is that it is free. But one major disadvantage is spam. Would spam be so popular if it were not so cheap? I do not think so.

There are some simple steps that you can take to help reduce the number of messages that get blocked by spam filters. Of course, this may result in more people actually getting your email messages, thus making your marketing efforts more profitable.

1. Word selection. The words you use in an email are analyzed by spam filters. There are many obvious spam trigger words that you should avoid while remembering to keep your messages as professional as possible.

2. Formatting. Just keep it simple. Avoid using different fonts, sizes, images, colors. Keep it clean and stick to normal size fonts while avoiding large fonts which will flag your message as spam.

3. Be consistent. If you send out a newsletter then make sure to use a template. This will help to brand your newsletter and also will enable your readers to pick out your newsletter and not report it as spam.

4. Use double opt in. When someone subscribes to your newsletter or list they will then be sent an email with a link that they must click on for confirmation. This actually can help you build a valid mailing list since some people may accidentally enter a wrong address.

5. Unsubscribe. You should always include a way for your readers to unsubscribe.

6. Contact information. Display your contact information in every email you send out so your potential customers can contact you and so that you conform to spam laws in the US.

7. Test. One of easiest ways to avoid spam filters is by testing. Send your newsletters to different email accounts and see if they end up in the junk folder. If they do, then you have some work to do.

8. If you are sending out a newsletter use marketing software or a service that allows you to send out both an HTML and text only version of your newsletter. There are many email clients that only accept text only messages.

9. Avoid using to many caps in the subject line and make sure you do not have to many blank lines in your message.

By using the above techniques you could keep your newsletters and messages out of the spam folders while building your mailing list and thus benefiting from the time spent actually getting your email messages to your recipients.

One way that providers are using to combat spam is through the use of volume filters. This may seem like an easy way to fight spam, but it could be a big problem for affiliate marketers.

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What is an average volume of email? This varies from provider to provider, but depending on the amount of email you send an hour then you may not know whether your email has ever arrived at its intended destination.

Once your provider sets a volume per sender, anything over that gets set aside. There are ways around these volume filters, but they are mostly illegal.

When a volume filter blocks your email, there is no way to know that it happened. Most of the time the email is not bounced back, and you think it went through - but there is just no way to know for sure.

What can you do?

- The obvious solution is to send fewer emails. If you have a big list then find out who really is opening your emails and remove the people who are not. Most marketers get 10 percent open rates, so that means 90 percent of your list may be ignoring your messages.

- Separate your list into smaller groups. You could have one list for prospects, one for buyers and one for multiple buyers.

- Make sure your list does not contain addresses from only one provider. It should contain different providers or you will increase your chances of your email getting blocked.

- Put your own free email addresses, such as Hotmail or Yahoo on your email list and then verify that your message got through or if they are filtered.

Just like search engine positioning, getting your messages to your recipients and having them opened is a game that can change monthly. Successful email marketers learn to adapt and be vigilant.

Be aware of the impact these filter are having on your efforts. Think of it as part of the normal process of online marketing.

Having a targeted email list can be much more valuable then a list of 10 million useless names.

In the end, less can be more and this will make your email marketing better and more profitable.

Joe Rispoli has been gathering free advertising resources online for over 10 years. They can be found at his website UcanTo.com. You can also subscribe to his Free Advertising Resources Ezine which includes Free Email Marketing Software with subscription.

4 Quick Tips To Stop Spam Robots Getting Your Email While Maintaining Customer Service

staff — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:53:55 +0000

One of the most important things for a website which hopes to provide good quality support is to be readily contactable and the best way of doing this has been to provide a support email address. Unfortunately, such addresses are easily harvested by spam robots, who’s task is simply to trawl the internet looking for ‘naked’ or poorly concealed email addresses and adding them to the spammers lists.

Traditional tricks to combat this included replacing the ‘@’ with an ‘at’, hiding the email address amongst meaningless HTML like this so it would display on the page but be all but unreadable in the code, or replacing the periods with the word ‘dot’. The first and third tricks are also used by spammers to hide web addresses from filters in their e-mails, and the second trick is actually learned from spammers who want to hide words marked heavily by Bayesian filters. In the eternal battle between spammers and the good guys, these types of tactics are continually developed and then integrated into spammers robots and while they still offer some protection, it only makes it slightly harder for spammers to get your address, not impossible.

There are however alternatives, enabling you to offer good customer service without opening yourselves up to massive spamming.

1. Use Live Support - A live support module is appreciated by users because they can get an answer right on the spot. If you can afford the staff to man it then it is well worth it for this reason alone. The anti-spam implications are also clear, as the robot needs it’s own built in spammer to annoy the support staff, and while these do exist, they are practically unused because they simply don’t offer a good return.

2. Use a lead in question before supplying an address. This is a simple tactic using good ASP or PHP programming which asks the user a simple question - such as who they want to contact or what they need help with and then follows up with either a mail form, a faq, a contact address or a combination of these things. When well programmed the spammer needs to make custom code in their robot to get past it - in other words it is more trouble than getting the email address manually.

3. Use an image - or better yet a series of images. Software that recognises images does exist and is used, but again it is nowhere near as prevalent as software that reads text and generally is more trouble than it is worth for a spammer.

4. Use a telephone number. One thing people like is actually knowing that a person is dealing with their enquiry. There is still no better way of doing this than offering telephone support. Toll free numbers are best, but even VoIP calling or a regular number will work as a means of contact.

Regardless of the method you use to offer your customer support, the most important thing to remember is that your customer wants a response and wants to know their problem is being worked on. It’s possible to design a very elaborate system to stop spammers getting through to you, but if you stop your customers getting through to you then you’ve rather defeated the purpose.

With an estimated 70-90 billion spam messages sent every day, the problem is not going away. Don’t wait for someone to solve the problem for you, visit The Stop Spam Now Site and review the very best methods of stopping spam.

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4 Simple Do-It-Yourself Solutions To Spam Email

staff — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:56:24 +0000

If you are as sick and tired of spam showing up in your email and don’t want to spend a lot of dollars or do the programming for anti-spam programs, here are 4 easy and free suggestions to nearly eliminate the problem.

1. Never use just your first name, if it is common, for a moniker. Using mary@ or mark@ is like low hanging fruit to a spammer. They will mine for domains and then just pound them for the common names and see which ones don’t bounce. If they get through, grab your shorts because they will not stop, ever. They’ll even sell their success list to other spammers and the pile will then grow.

Solution: Hide your moniker using things like mary2945@ or mark9054@. They will never get to you or figure it out unless you post it where you shouldn’t. I simply us my first and last initial.

2. You go to numerous Web sites and use your email address for newsletters or information. They may or may not sell those address to others. If they do, you are dead meat. If you are unsure, there is a simple free way to get what you want without the risk.

Solution: Use www.spammotel.com. It is simple and free. You set up a log-in and put in your real email address. Use the service to generate a pseudo address moniker which will be something like 1Ak34982 @ spammotel.com. Any email sent to that pseudo address will be forwarded to you. If you want to cut it off, just go back to spammotel.com and eliminate the address and you have kept your real email address intact and protected.

3. If you have a business or personnel Web site with a contact form, your web designer may have placed a file like contact.php or contact.asp to do the processing of the request to forward it to you. Spam robots search for those files and then read the email addresses inside. Then guess what they do?

Solution: Contact your Web designer and ask them to change the name to something less obvious like 2957.php or np48ut.asp. It doesn’t matter what it is named as long as it is properly named in your online form. Otherwise, they mine it and your day goes real bad.

4. Do you have your email address displayed on your Web site somewhere? If so, you you might as well also send a registered letter to your favorite spammers and invite them to dinner. So how can you have your email on the site and not get spammed?

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Solution: Disguise your emails with java script code. I have three simple methods that really work. Here is one that is “cut and paste”.

Input the following code for making a visible link to your email on a Web page. It can be seen only with your physical eyes and is clickable for sending email. Stupid spiders can’t read it:

Just replace “username” and “yourdomain.com” with what you use and presto! There are other variations you can use for even hiding them from being read by the eyes, yet clickable or showing to your eyes only and not clickable. Your Web designer should know how to do this. If not, show them the above code. If you are already being spammed it is only left for you to bury the address and create a new one. There is no other way.Spending money on anti-spam programs will help but if you start with the above you may just be able to spend that money on a nice dinner a your favorite bistro.

John Clark is the President of Wow Web Works in Kalamazoo, MI. He is a Web Design, Marketing and SEO professional with a growing company. For obvious reasons his email address will not be shown here but you can contact him at http://www.wowwebworks.com Much more information and many more marketing ideas are available at his blog, http://www.wowwebworks.com/blog

Why You Should Use A Spyware Removal Tool

staff — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 10:45:03 +0000

All computer users that access the internet should be using a spyware removal tool. If you don’t know why then keep reading.

Spyware can have many names including adware, malware, trackware, and snoopware but for most internet users it is not the names they are familiar with but the symptoms of a spyware software infection.

Being infected by spyware software means that your computer will be performing very sluggishly, you will have an increased amount of pop up ads appearing, you homepage may change unexpectedly, and you might also find that you get strange search results whilst browsing the internet.

Make no mistake about it, spyware is a nuisance, and the only thing that will help to keep it from your computer is installing and using a spyware removal tool.

Spyware software left undetected on your computer can have disastrous effects. Once of the greatest threats is identity theft. This may seem a little severe but spyware software can include keyloggers that will capture all your keystrokes including passwords, personal information, and even bank details. So you see a spyware removal tool really is essential.

Spyware Facts You Should Know

Did you know that nine out of ten computers that are connected to the internet become infected with spyware software? When a spyware blocker is installed, 88% of scans will reveal some form of spyware or adware. Spyware does not just come from adult orientated websites; in fact your computer can be infected no matter what your surfing habits.

As you can see installing a spyware blocker really is essential especially if you want to protect your information. Spyware will not go away and you need to stay protected. A spyware removal tool can help you do just this and there are a wide range of free spyware downloads available. Install a spyware blocker now or else turn off your computer.

Find more about Spyware Removal on http://www.LeanderNet.com/Spyware_removal/Spyware_removal.php . More useful content on LeanderNet - http://www.LeanderNet.com

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Are You the Best Anti Spam Product?

staff — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:57:45 +0000

While we still get junk mail in the post box it is no where near has annoying has the spam in our Inbox. Even though it causes no waste in the dumps and does not consume earth’s resources it takes one precious thing away and that is time.

Have you been looking for the best way to decrease spam or stop it all together? Well my friend the best anti spam product is YOU!

Yes if you are proactive you can avoid most spam. With a little forethought and planning you can alleviate yourself from spam. Bear in mind however it is impossible to get rid of spam completely.

However these tips below should and will help:

1.) Never click on a un-subscribe link unless you subscribed to the message yourself. This only tells the sender that this address is a “real live address” and someone read the message.

2.) Never post your address in newsgroups or web pages. If you must do so then try some form of masking your address so a bot cannot scour the page and harvest your address.

Example: user@nobody.com is a bad idea to post but user[at]nobody[dot]com is a safer way. If someone really wants to write you they can decipher your address themselves. Also email harvesters should have a harder time getting your address.

3.) If you must use an address to sign up for a service that you are not sure of or you want a free download etc then have a secondary address for those occasions. Make sure you log in and check this account to delete the junk mail in bulk so your account does not get deleted if it is inactive for a long time. Also never give this address to friends or else you may not get the message because you inadvertently deleted it with the spam.

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4.) If you have a website and you want the email to go to your address use a web based submission form.

5.) Run your own email.

Personally I have my own domain and run several email addresses and forwarders so I can delete and create them at will. This can be done cheaply too.

All you need is a domain name which you can get from Namecheap.com or Godaddy.com for under $10. They do provide email hosting but I prefer to do it myself using a web hosting provider. Some web hosting services I have used in the past are hostdime.com hostony.com and surpasshosting.com.

Most hosting providers also have their own spam blocking software installed.

For a last line of defense you can get software installed on your machine to sort or filter spam.

Now that you know that you yourself can be the best anti spam blocker take the last step and end the spam nightmare by giving yourself that last line of protection.

Read more about me on my new blog coming soon at http://professorduck.blogspot.com

Also a volunteer firefighter/EMT.

How Spyware Programs Started Off Innocently Enough

staff — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 03:45:18 +0000

Many people wonder how something potentially damaging as spyware started off. The truth is that spyware started off so innocently that it is laughable just thinking about it.

Spyware started out with programs that were the best thing that has ever happened to online advertisers. That is software that was designed to track the behavior of would-be clients. It meant that major advertisers and even smaller advertisers with limited budgets were able to plan their ad campaigns based on the tracked behavior and habits of potential clients. The tracking software mainly focused on products bought and sold online which told advertisers exactly where the demand was.

Alas, it was only a matter of time before hackers saw the huge potential in using the same software to steal passwords and personal information of surfers with the intention of defrauding them and looting their online accounts. The rest as they say is history.

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Today it is estimated that at least 9 out of every 10 computers in the world are infested with spyware, adware or both. This means that there is clearly a breach of security in a staggering 90 per cent of the computers out there. That is really a scary statistic

Always remember that spyware programs are designed to operate invisibly without any detection as they track everything that you do online and pass this information to the designated site and into the hands of the hacker who unleashed it in the first place.

This is exactly why everybody should take the spyware threat very seriously indeed.

You can get more information now on the history of spyware.

Spammers Replying To E-mail You Did Not Send

staff — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:48:37 +0000

Last year I came across a poster on Yahoo! Answers asking for advice on a strange e-mail she received. According to this poster she received a reply from someone on an e-mail she never sent. She immediately thought that the spammer hacked her e-mail account, sent an e-mail to himself and then replied to it. This is not impossible, but there are easier ways to do this, without hacking an e-mail account.

E-mails are plain text documents and can be modified and manipulated with a simple text editor like Notepad. The spammer simply saves any e-mail to a file, opens it with Notepad and puts your e-mail address in the �From� field. The spammer then imports it into an e-mail client and replies to this manipulated e-mail. This is only one of many ways to manipulate an e-mail message.

Spammers normally use a technique called hash busting. Hash busting is when you add random text at the beginning or at the end of an e-mail. The text makes no sense and consists of excerpts from books, articles and news bulletins. This text randomises the size, as well as the contents of the e-mail, making it hard for spam filters to find a pattern in the e-mail to base its filtering decisions on. For instance, an e-mail consisting of an image only will normally be flagged as spam, but if someone adds random text below the image, it changes the pattern of the e-mail and the spam filter can no longer use the criteria mentioned earlier to label the e-mail as spam. There are legitimate e-mails like this and the spam filter needs additional training to know which e-mails with embedded images, containing text below the image, are spam and which ones are not.

Some spammers realised that people became suspicious of the senseless text in spam e-mails, so they started to hide the text by making the colour of the text the same as the background colour. Other spammers make the size of the text so small that it appears like a horizontal line between paragraphs or at the bottom of the e-mail. The techniques used to conceal the hash buster text are easily detectable by a good spam filter because no decent person will send someone else an e-mail with hidden text or text that cannot be seen with the naked eye. So the spammers fail more often to get their e-mails through the spam filters when they use cloaking techniques like this.

Spammers needed a way to make the hash buster text look legitimate to the user as well as the spam filter. This is when they came up with the idea of pretending to reply to an e-mail message that was never really sent to them in the first place. The spammer creates the forged e-mail with hash buster text and then replies to it. The spammer still enjoys the benefits of the hash buster text coupled with a better chance to get past any spam filter, because the e-mail appears like a legitimate reply to a previous e-mail sent by the victim. A reply to an e-mail you sent to someone else is seldom unwanted and the spam filter will therefore be less suspicious about it, unless it contains specific keywords and phrases that trigger the spam filter.

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But there are more consequences for the victim than just a spam filter not being able to filter the e-mail as spam. Spammers can include anything in these fake e-mails. They can even pretend that you enquired about one of their products. Instead of spamming you with an unwanted e-mail, they pretend to send you a reply to your initial enquiry, an enquiry you never sent. Abuse departments can easily use this as an excuse not to take action against the spammer. They may argue that the spam victim did not receive an unwanted commercial e-mail, because the victim enquired about something and the accused simply replied to that enquiry. Luckily abuse departments need to prove that the original e-mail was really sent before rejecting the complaint, but we all know that very few abuse departments actually take any spam reports serious these days.

It is because of the lack of proper legislation and poor implementation and enforcement of existing legislation that we have to deal with waves of spam every day. We are constantly one step behind cyber criminals and our current spam filters cannot keep up with all the tricks and techniques used by spammers to force their junk down our throats. There is a widespread appeal for better filtering and alternative communication methods. There is merit in developing better spam filters, but how do you replace a communication medium like e-mail without disrupting individuals and businesses that depend on it every day to stay in contact with friends, family and clients? What�s the use of taking away a communication medium if you do not take action against the individuals who abuse it? It will only be a matter of time before spammers start to abuse the system replacing e-mail. You need to take action against the root of the problem and not the infrastructure through which the problem occurs.

About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, prevention of online fraud and educating users about online scams and malicious software. Visit Cyber Top Cops Articles: The Latest In Cyber Security for more articles related to cyber security.