SPAM Ka Yat, Kei Comp 450 Spring 2008, CSUN

Thesis Statement Thesis Statement---Spam is becoming a bigger issue in the computer world. How do we keep away from receiving junk ?

Introduction

Junk mail, SPAM, bulk mail are other names of UCE, Unsolicited Commercial s.

Introduction A 2004 survey estimated that the lost productivity costs Internet users in the United Stated about $21.58 billion annually.

Background and History

Why people called junk mail as SPAM? In 1891, an American meat-packing company, Hormel Foods, was found by George Hormel in Minnesota. In 1937, the company was facing a huge crisis that was because they were over stock with meat and unable to sell it. A big amount of money had been “frozen” as well.

Background and History But then, George came up a solution to save his own company. His idea is to mix the meat with many kinds of spices and put them into the tin can. He named this kind of SPICED HAM as SPAM (in short form). As it was a brand new product to the market, the sale number was not very good at first.

Background and History So, the Hormel Foods Company tried to organize a massive advertising campaign. At the end, they succeeded.

Background and History As a result, later on, people call junk mail as SPAM because the word ”SPAM” had became associated with aggressive advertising in people memory. (Note: people also called other type of aggressive advertising like phone- marketing or mail advertisement as SPAM.)

Background and History

The first junk ing was on May 1st, 1978 by a DEC Company marketing employee to every Arpanet address on the West coast. In 1995, the first automatic bulk ing program came out. In response, the first junk filter was created in1999.

Why send junk mail?

Many SPAM contain web site link. By sending junk mail, the business web sites will able to have more potential customers to access which may lead to more business or scam victim.

How to prevent SPAM

Replace characters in the address with human readable-equivalent. For example, will become “abc at yahoo dot com” or “a.b.c.at.y.a.h.o.o.dot.c.o.m.”, etc. By doing this, the people who really want to contact you can still understand you, but the address harvesting software cannot.

Do You need this????

How to prevent SPAM We also can replace characters in the address with html-equivalent. For example, will become “abc@y&#097 ;hoo.c&#111 ;m ” Browser will still display the actual address But those software can only read that long string!!

How to prevent SPAM Spammer will also use “brute-force” and “dictionary” attacks to addresses e.g. etc. So, if your address is long and contains special characters, it is less likely to receive junk mail

How to prevent SPAM Use Software Junk mail filter SpamNet is over 98% successful rate Use Hardware Junk mail filter If a system Administrator put a hardware filter on the system, all the Users in the system can be benefited!!

How to prevent SPAM An Un-proved method: Put this link in your web site. This web page actually have many random generated addresses (which will be re-generated every time you go in) and have a link to the same page(an infinity loop). So as that is an infinity loop, the effectiveness of spamming of a spammer will be reduced. (His computer will keep running for hours for no-reason). So, in theory, the spammer will just skip your web site and search other sites when he found out.

How to prevent SPAM Also, many ISPs have junk mail filter, use them. Also, ISPs like Yahoo SBC will actually detect if their own customers send SPAM and they will void their massive outgoing SPAM.

How to prevent SPAM Many service Providers have junk mail filter, Join them. Also, we can use Disposable Address function. ---When we start receiving junk mail with certain DEA address, we can just delete that DEA address and lose the connection with the spammer

How to prevent SPAM Government Act. Under the new act, all legal SPAM must include a working return address, a valid postal address for the sending company, a working opt-out mechanism, and a relevant subject line.

How to prevent SPAM Also. if we receive any junk mail or possible scam, we can forward it to They will keep it in their data base.

Extra Junk mailers PAY about twenty cents an ounce. That means an eight pound package COSTS THEM about $25. And all of the proceeds go directly to the United States Postal Service (no more business as people use at all). Revenge!!

The End