Today we are going to talk about spam e-mail and how it happens. Often times when you open your inbox you get several if not hundreds of spam messages, sometimes they are not even addressed to you. There are several methods that these guys use to get through the spam filters to your mailbox, even if you have all your filters in place.
One common way that spammers get through to your to your inbox is by the use of the bcc trick. This is one of the settings you can use when sending e-mail. When you send an e-mail, you will notice several options in the send window. You will see Cc and Bcc. Cc simply is used to send a carbon copy to another person other then the original. This option is often used in office e-mails and when you want to send an interesting e-mail to many of your friends. The Bcc option is for sending a “Blind Copy”, usually to a very large group of people. This option is very useful if you have an e-mail group that you send out newsletters to on a regular basis. This option is useful because it keeps all the other recipients e-mail address private. You only see your address listed in the header. Even with its useful function, this method can also be used by spammers in order to try and get around the filters set up by you and your ISP.
Another way that spammers can get to you actually stems from your own actions. Often times when we get spam e-mail, your first reaction is to reply and unsubscribe from the e-mail. While this will work with real companies, it will not work with a spam message. As a matter of fact, it will just increase your number of spam e-mails to your inbox. When you respond to a spam message, you are confirming that the address is valid. Once the spammer has this information, the onslaught will continue and most likely even escalate. Your best defense is to just mark the message as junk and delete it. Do not respond to the message.
I often get calls from customers that want to stop spam messages from coming into their inbox completely. This is an impossible task. There will always be spam. There is no way to completely stop it or have total control over it. All you can do is set up your filters to the best of your ability and when one of those pesky critters gets past it, simply use the delete button. Spam is here to stay and it something we will all have to deal with.
Author: Joe Zelenak, Staff Writer
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