Spam: why is it so bad?

by Tim North

Published on this site: February 8th, 2004

Spam (i.e. junk e-mail) has risen to nightmare proportions. Some sites are reporting that 98% of their incoming e-mail is spam.

It's worthwhile taking a moment to explain what's going on and what we can all can do to help control the problem.

What's causing all this junk e-mail?

First, let me quickly define a couple of terms:

A VIRUS is a computer program that can attach a copy of itself to another program (or document) on the same computer.

A WORM is similar to a virus but has the added ability to copy itself to other computers. (It's a "super" virus.)

A program with a virus or worm attached to it is said to be INFECTED.

Here, a little simplified, is how a typical worm works:

1. You receive an e-mail message with an infected attachment.
   
   
2. You open the attachment thus infecting your computer.
   
   
3. The worm program in your computer's memory now starts quietly e-mailing copies of itself to people whose e-mail addresses are stored on your computer; i.e. your friends and colleagues.
   
   
4. These people each receive an e-mail message with an infected attachment, and the cycle starts over for each of them.

To make matters worse, many worms put a fake address in the "From:" line of the infected e-mail they send. For example:

1. Alice's computer is infected with a worm. It searches her address book and finds adresses for Bob, Cathy, Don and Eric.
   
   
2. Without her knowledge, Alice's computer e-mails infected attachments to Bob, Cathy and Don, but the "From:" line claims they're all from Eric.
   
   
3. Bob, Cathy and Don abuse poor Eric (who is blameless).
   
   
4. Alice remains blissfully unaware that she's the source of the problem.

How can I stop getting all this spam?

Short answer: you can't. :-(

As long as other people (like Alice) remain unaware that their computer is infected, you'll continue to receive infected e-mail from them.

Okay, what can I do?

Be certain that your machine is uninfected.

Remember, the Alices of this world are a problem because they don't know they're the problem. :-)

How can you be certain? Simple:

1. Always use an anti-virus program; e.g Norton Anti-Virus or McAfee VirusScan.
   
   
2. Keep your virus definitions current.

Normally, getting an update every month is sufficient but, at present, I urge you to do update them if you haven't done so in the last seven days.

Updates can be found here:

Norton: www.symantec.com/avcenter/defs.download.html

McAfee: download.mcafee.com/us/updates/updates.asp

The fewer people whose computers are unintentionally infected, the less spam we'll all receive.

Please take the time to update your anti-virus definition files, it will help to stem the tide of unwanted e-mail that we're all receiving.

You'll find many more helpful tips like these in the SAMPLE CHAPTERS from Tim North's much applauded range of e-books:

http://www.BetterWritingSkills.com.