Issue Project - SPAM - EDCI 564 Vaithinathan Vanitha & Sookeun Byun

Contents  Definiton  The origin of spam  Medium for spamming  Statistics  How to block spam  Discussion

What is “SPAM”?  The use of any electronic communications medium to send unsolicited messages in bulk, indiscriminately

The origin of Spam  Door-to-door salespeople - used the direct approach to solicit response to reach every person in a given geo area  Junk mail (20 th Century) - with the development of the General Post Office, this has become especially true of all mass postings  Telemarketing - used for mass advertising

Spamming in different medium   Instant messenger  News group  Mobile phone  Search engine website  Other new forms..

Spam  Sending identical or nearly identical messages to a large number of recipients.  Frequently contains various tricks to bypass filters.  Many spammers utilize programs called “web spiders” to find addresses on web pages.

Spam

Messaging Spam  A type of spam where the target is instant messaging services such as AOL Instant Messenger or ICQ.  Take advantage of directory service of users, including demographic information such as age and sex.

Newsgroup Spam  A type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups  Usenet convention defines spamming as “excessive multiple posting”, that is, the repeated posting of a message

Mobile Phone Spam  Mobile phone spam is directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone  This can be especially irritating to consumers not only for the inconvenience but also because they sometimes have to “pay” to receive the text message

Mobile Phone Spam I get this weird SMS sent to me on 10th July 03...U have WON GUARANTEED free holiday inc flight & Accom OR £600 in CASH Call NOW Genuine gift TCs visitww. redm. tv1st...£1.50pm mobvary Valid 12mth.....I mean as if i would even bother wasting my money on phonecalls like this. This is such BOGUS.... if only life was that generous! However that web address lead me to THIS site.... mmmmmmmmm.... and here you are going on about spam text messages.... so who's responsible for my spam text message?!?!?!?!?!

Search Engine Spam  “Spamdexing“- spam targeting search engines  The practice of deliberately and dishonestly modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of them being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a dishonest manner

Personal Spam Statistics

Blocking spam

Anti-spam Methods  DNSBLs (DNS-based Blackhole Lists) - a site publishes lists of IP addresses via the DNS, in such a way that mail servers can easily be set to reject mail from those addresses  Content-based filtering - an administrator can place some words in the filter configuration. The mail server would thence reject any message containing the phrase.

Anti-spam Methods  Statistical filtering - users mark messages as spam or nonspam and the filtering software learns from these judgements. But it does reflect the user's biases as to content  Checksum-based filtering - it lets ordinary users help identify spam, and not just administrators, thus vastly increasing the pool of spam fighters.

Blocking messaging spam  Using privacy options to guard against messaging spam - To combat messaging spam, many users choose to receive instant messengers only from people already on their contact list. Ex) With Yahoo Messenger, users can click Messenger -> Preferences -> Ignore List and check the box "Ignore anyone who is not on my Messenger List."

What do you do to Block Spam?  Delete the messages before opening.  Install a filtering Program.  Be careful in giving your personal information.  Read the private policy of the websites before submitting information.  Set preferences in Messenger spam.

What not to do?  Do not click the Remove Me Link.  Do not attack the Spammer.  Hack in to the site.  Threaten violence.  Don’t use spam to fight spam.

Why is Spam bad?  Cost.  Fraud.  Waste of other’s resources.  Annoyance Factor.

Discussion  Why do they send spam?  Is the spam effective as an advertisement?  Is the broadcasting also spam?

Discussion  Why spam is bad?  Which technology is more advanced? Technology for spamming or technology for anti-spamming?

Discussion  Personal experiences.. How often? How many? What contents?  What do you do to block spam?

References SMS+Spam+-+