What is spam in a nutshell. Methods of automatic filtering. What measures are being taken
Have you received emails with promotional content? Yes? Then you know what spam is. Almost all of those in the world today allocate a huge amount of funds to combat spam. Developers create a variety of programs and scripts that allow you to detect advertising messages and block them, as well as their senders.
Despite this, such letters continue to come. Some of them are indeed detected and automatically transferred to the Spam folder (every mail provider already has it now); the rest can really come to the Inbox section.
More about in e-mail, why it is sent and how to deal with it, we will tell in this article.
What is spam?
In general, the word "spam" comes from the name of spicy minced meat (from pork and beef), the name of which was used in a comedy series in 1971. As planned by the scriptwriter, in one cafe, visitors were so aggressively advertised this product that they literally did not stop using the word "SPAM". The meaning was precisely in the constant, excessive and at the same time aggressive repetition of the specified word.
Today, "spam" refers to automated mass mailing of advertising correspondence. Unlike simple advertising, such a mailing does not have - it is sent to a huge number of people without a specific purpose: simply hoping that some small part of the addressees will be interested in the offer.
In the era of electronic technology, we all know what spam is. Email, SMS, in social networks and even in ordinary mailboxes we can find a lot of messages that are sent on behalf of certain companies offering their services.
Spam can be very intrusive, and sometimes even dangerous for the recipient. We will talk about this in more detail below. In the meantime, more specifically about those who benefit from such mailings.
Who sends spam?
As already noted, we receive a lot of inappropriate advertising offers. All these letters (spam) act most often in the interests of the companies with which they are advertised (suppliers that are described in the offer). In some cases, spam mailings can be carried out in order to achieve the opposite effect - to scare away the consumer in order to annoy the competitor.
Of course, if you find a letter with an advertisement for a shoe store in your mailbox, this does not mean that the store itself makes such a mailing. Most likely, the messages were sent from a special server designed for such purposes. And the owner of the store could simply order a similar mailing list.
Another situation is when they try to send you spam with a request or an offer containing some obviously fraudulent nature. For example, these are the well-known "letters of happiness" that your distant rich relative left millions of dollars as an inheritance, and you are required to pay commissions in the amount of $ 200-300. This type of letter is most likely sent by just a group of people who have access to the necessary tools (for example, it can be a spam program, a server and a mailing list).
What are they advertising?
If we talk about what is advertised in spam emails, then this is a huge number of options. The newsletter can promote a particular company, product or service, online store or service. In such a case, of course, the spammers are trying to be covert so as not to harm the service provider. For example, official companies will not spam as it is illegal. For that, they can use a shim site or a front store.
In other cases, spam may contain links to various sites containing viruses; programs that can harm your computer, pornographic materials, various requests from fake people. Such mailings are carried out just by groups of people who simply earn money in illegal ways. It can even be hackers - specialists with special knowledge in this area.
Is it beneficial?
According to unofficial studies, spammers earn millions of dollars every year from their activities. They advertise sites for adults, stores with pharmaceutical preparations, send viruses and various fraudulent messages to millions of people. Imagine that, despite the fact that many are aware of what email spam is and how harmful it can be to the recipient, people continue to believe what is written and send money, buy access to websites, tablets, and even install programs.
If you give a specific answer, then yes - spam is very beneficial. Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing it. It's just that the other side of the coin is the question of how difficult it is to send mailings in terms of monetary costs. After all, even a non-professional understands that the spam program (or some special script) and the server from which the mailing will be carried out, as well as a host of other technical nuances, are additional costs that need to be recouped from the profits from the messages sent. Therefore, it is impossible to say that spam is a simple activity. A lot of people do this, but only a small part manage to earn really big money here.
Spam in email
Spam appeared in e-mail, probably, first of all. Of course, it was a particularly effective tool at the very beginning of the development of Internet technologies. At that time, people still did not know what spam was, what to do with incoming letters, that there really was no inheritance, and you could forget about the money sent to the specified details.
Later, of course, mail services took care of the problem of spam. They were forced to introduce the first mechanisms for blocking spammers, which were later successfully solved. This is how the anti-spam industry has been working for the last few years: those who send out emails come up with something new; and the task of mail services is to create a filter that will prevent letters from reaching users.
All modern Internet companies, including Yandex, are struggling with the phenomenon referred to in this article. Spam has become their main enemy, so the search engine development team has been constantly improving methods for selecting advertising letters for several years now. Their success so far has been mixed as unwanted mail keeps coming in.
Spam in other services and services
In addition to mail, there are many other services used by spammers. In fact, these are various forums, blogs, regular sites, message boards, social networks, abandoned resources that are no longer being worked on. This indicates that, despite the fight against such a phenomenon, no one knows how to remove spam.
Unless you can learn from the experience of the most technologically advanced players in the IT market - the largest social networks (Facebook, Twitter), where spam is constantly detected and deleted. And then - even there you can find a huge amount of hidden (and not so much) spam.
How to fight?
Just the question arises: how to deal with such a negative phenomenon? Is it possible to make browser spam stop annoying ordinary users, who, for the most part, are not interested in the products offered?
It is necessary to fight intrusive messages, but it is still impossible to eradicate such a thing as spam. Most effective tools there are simply automatic and manual control over what users send to each other, as well as some restrictions that can be used to reduce the growth in the number of spam messages.
For example, in the same Gmail there are filters that reject messages containing links that are sent in large volumes to different people. Such accounts will be blocked very quickly, and spam emails will not reach the recipients.
The problem with this technique is the many variations of forms of spam. Roughly speaking, it can be sent not only in the form of links and not from one account. In fact, attackers can create many accounts on different IP addresses in such a way as to hide their real intentions. It will be more difficult for the postal service to detect such activity.
What measures are being taken?
In addition to the simple compilation of filters, mail services are conducting many innovative developments that allow spam to be recognized in one form or another. With their help, users will not think about how to remove spam, and this will make working with mail much more convenient.
However, no one knows how such solutions work, why they still miss intrusive advertising messages. It's just that in the technology news section, major mail providers sometimes publish information about the test of new protection mechanisms; and over time, you can see how the number of spam messages really decreases. How these mechanisms work remains a secret.
You have received spam. What to do?
If you see an unsolicited email in your mailbox that is clearly advertising (or fraudulent) in nature, do not panic. All you need to do is click the "Mark as spam" button (if your mail provider has one) in order to inform the service about the advertising nature of the message. If you don't have a "This is spam" button, just delete the email.
In no case do not follow the links indicated there and do not download the attached files! Don't forget what email spam is! It could be a program that can steal your data or infect your computer.
Newsletter Responsibility
If suddenly you would like to try to send spam on your own, we hasten to warn you that this is a criminally punishable activity, including in our country. Therefore, we do not recommend trying.
There are quite a few methods of attracting a person's attention, but spam has become widespread these days. What is spam and what does it represent?
Regular Internet users, who have been such for a long time, most likely already know what spam is, by the way they have encountered it more than once in their daily activities. But if most people are aware of the existence of spam, then their knowledge is usually limited, but spam requires more attention.
Without a doubt, spam is one of the cheapest ways to get people's attention. And many advertisers use spam without remorse. But it is difficult to get customers for illegal products or materials that even adults do not need to familiarize themselves with in a pious way, for this spam is almost ideal, and sometimes even the only distribution option.
What is spam and how to understand it
In everyday understanding, absolutely all unwanted information that sometimes arrives in an incomprehensible way to e-mail can be considered spam, this is certainly correct, but modern spam is no longer limited to e-mail. Now spam is distributed not only through the Internet, it is part of the Internet. Spam can be considered an excessive presence of any information that a person has to meet or even interact with without his consent, thereby not only interfering and slowing down his activity, but provoking a danger to both the confidentiality of personal data and other unfavorable phenomena.
Based on the same e-mail, then some messages may not be spam, but let's say it will be unwanted information. In fact, it will be correct if everyone singles out for themselves what is junk mail and what is spam.
Spam- this is a mass mailing of unwanted information to users, the overwhelming majority of which is automatic, in turn, which initially do not need it. This is a slightly outdated definition, although it can be associated not only with mail, but also with other types of messages.
Samo spam concept, is a kind of disease of the Internet, it applies not only to junk mailing lists, but also to instant messaging services, social networks and even websites, search results, etc. For a spammer, spam in some cases is a way to attract attention, advertising and anti-advertising, and sometimes it is a way to enrich the ignorance of the final recipient of information.
Why are mass mailings and mass publications used? Everything is simpler than it might seem, because with a large list of both mailing lists and recipients of information found in other ways, if it is advertising, you can find more potential customers or attract visitors to the site with almost no difficulty. Also, the possibility is not ruled out, and usually it is pursued, this is the search for potential victims of fraud.
The emergence of spam, how it all began
The term Spam itself comes from the overabundance of advertisements for canned meats left unused by US soldiers after the end of World War II. They were called spicy or peppered ham from the English. SPicedhAM. People for a long time remembered the SPAM they encountered, and subsequently one of the unintentional mass mailings of e-mail messages was now associated with this parietal in 1993. This was caused by a program written with an error, with the help of which 200 exactly identical e-mails were sent. But that spam was just a mistake, which is not true of many of today's mailing lists.
Types of spam and where you can usually find it
As mentioned earlier, such junk mailings cost practically nothing to a spammer, but the recipient, for the wrong actions, can pay quite seriously. In addition, each Internet provider has its own tariffs and rates, and searching among unwanted mail and web spam for the necessary information due to traffic overruns can cost more.
Except various ways self-collection of e-mail addresses, including automated ones, whole organizations are engaged in this not the most noble way, and mailing lists can also be purchased. Mailing can also be carried out using any poorly protected computer, which is possible after activating specialized software on it.
Spam email
The existence of the possibility of receiving a potential threat is no longer a rarity, which in the end can force or convince to transfer any amount of money to an unknown account. This is nothing more than extortion of money, and for an attacker, the dissemination of such information is a simple and sure way. The spammer hopes that due to the large number of recipients of spam, whoever responds to it and falls into a trap.
In order not to fall for a scam, you need to understand the meaning of Phishing, this method of mailing fraud is used to lure out confidential information. Such information can actually be information about a bank account, the attacker's goal may be the ability to obtain his login and password. Such mailings are disguised as closely as possible as official organizations with their own clones of official websites, on behalf of which the message was allegedly received. As you know, serious organizations do not ask you to provide them with personal information by e-mail.
Very often, mailing lists may contain attachments, sometimes even the first time and do not understand that the content is a computer virus or a mail worm, which, for example, independently distributes itself, they can collect all the necessary information and send it all to correct address.
Comments on websites: blogs, forums and bulletin boards
At the moment, there are quite a lot of spammers, especially among webmasters, who want to leave a link in the comments of a blog or forum, which, if right approach can be a plus for his site, and for a site with too many outgoing links, this can be a verdict, because it is such an Internet resource for the search engine that will be spammed. Owners of such sites should not forget about the need to moderate posts and comments.
With regard to bulletin boards, texts very similar to real announcements may be published, with a large number outgoing links, and if an inattentive moderator missed this type of spam, then this will affect not only the fact that the search engine considers the board, the site spam, but users will treat such Internet resources with caution, strange ads will arouse suspicion.
Increasingly, you can stumble upon the supposedly blog of a taxi driver Roman, who earns millions, weight loss methods and other sites that are actually useless for a person. Separate sites are created to praise their site, which, apparently, due to its low information content and usefulness, cannot achieve the desired traffic. What can we say about filling such sites with machine text. An overabundance of advertising, including pop-up windows that interfere with viewing the necessary information, which is not always possible to close without difficulty, is the lot of dishonest site owners.
Search engine spam is a type of clogging search results with sites that do not carry anything useful, except for the needs for which they were created by the owner. These sites very often appear in the first places in the search results, but thanks to the constantly improving search algorithms, they also quickly fall under the filter, still be vigilant.
Spam on social networks
What is spam is most likely already clear from some of the material read, but social spam is a slightly different method of attracting attention.
For spam on social networks, hacked accounts of the most ordinary users are very often used, as well as accounts can be created on purpose, false groups are created. You and your friends can also get into such trouble, and the strange message that has arrived can only testify to his not quite human activity. Just as with receiving suspicious mail and spending time on the site, you should beware of fraud.
Often, people using social networks are invited to groups they don’t need, they are invited to be friends, since this can be a mass invitation, this method is rightfully considered spam. Many social media pages networks to which attraction is carried out can have, like sites, not reliable information, offer low-quality goods, although this is not a regularity, but the administration is constantly fighting this type of fraud.
SMS messages can also be spam
SMS messages with advertising or spam are no longer a rarity for a mobile phone, and here, just like everywhere else, you need to distinguish truth from lies. Otherwise, it is possible to subscribe to paid SMS news channels, the availability of which will be known only over time. Spam for smartphones is not much different, in such messages it very often sends links to malicious programs, under the pretext of, for example, viewing a photo or updating a browser.
A few years ago, the request of a parent to replenish the account for any amount was especially popular, in connection with a problem with a child, but there were those who fell into such a trap.
How to protect yourself from spam and its consequences
No matter how much you would like to have a short and beautiful mailbox name - this will not be a good option to protect yourself from spam, because such addresses most often end up in the mailing list.
If possible, you should refrain from publicly publishing your email address in places accessible to everyone. In addition to manual addition, such addresses can be added completely automatically using specialized software to the spam database. Even if the need for such publication is still required, you need to do this with minor changes, for example, change the @ symbol to the word of the same name or separate some characters with a space.
This method will help, albeit a little, but protect against automated matching of your email address to a spam database. Actually, approximately this method can be used for ICQ and other network identifiers.
To register on sites, it would not be bad to have an additional mailbox, thereby securing your main one. On GSM devices, you just need to ignore the incoming message, and also not respond to it, the principles of the attackers' work remain practically unchanged.
If the message - spam nevertheless reached you, then you should not follow the links in it and test the security of your computer by opening unknown attachments, and the response to such a message will only confirm that the mail is being used, and the spam has reached the addressee.
Modern email clients provide one of better ways anti-spam is the filtering of incoming messages. Although there are a lot of automatic filtering methods, all of them are not ideal, so the most ordinary message can be blocked, so many services create a separate folder for such messages, the contents of which the user can familiarize themselves with.
Also, to combat spam, you can set up rules that automatically transfer messages from permanent spam addresses to a specific folder, this is possible with most email clients. As for the fight against spam on sites, a lot depends on their owners, and avoiding such web resources is perhaps the best option to secure your computer.
Spam has become so integrated into our lives that many people don't even notice it. What can we say about the Internet? When asking what spam is, you need to look around, on the poles, in your mailbox you can sometimes notice a lot of excessive advertising, which can also be called spam, albeit household.
Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Surely you have already encountered spam, even if you did not know exactly what this disgrace is called. And this is not even necessary. Spam pours with enviable regularity into a regular mailbox - these are the same countless advertising booklets that are slipped to you in the hope that you will order or buy something.
So here it is spam is just there is an annoying, climbing from all sides advertising(but not only advertising - it can be worse). You didn’t order it, you don’t need it, but it rushes and rushes from all cracks. In this heap, the information you need can easily be lost and you have to spend a lot of time sifting it out.
In our computer age, the main source of spam is . Besides advertising spam mailings can also be dangerous both for your wallet (phishing, social engineering, wires) and for your computer (viruses, worms, trojans).
What does the word Spam mean, what it is and how you can fight it, you will learn by looking at this short note. I hope it will be interesting (well, certainly useful - I promise you).
Spam - what is it
What does SPAM mean?
Samo spam word comes from the name of canned meat, which was vehemently advertised after the end of the Second World War (obviously, it was necessary to urgently sell the soldiers' meat rations).
Advertising was so aggressive, all-encompassing and ubiquitous that this word (and the “sediment” associated with it) was remembered, but already about the intrusive advertising that appeared along with it in conferences (then still in the fidonet, if anyone remembers).
The word has taken root, especially since intrusive advertising has not become less, but rather the opposite. When e-mail gained popularity, then unauthorized mass advertising and malicious mailings of letters became commonplace. Such mailings were beneficial for spammers, because the necessary information was brought to a large number of people without any special costs.
But Email is not limited. They spam in the personal of social networks, on forums, in instant messengers, on bulletin boards, in comments on blogs, it is open for editing and adding text by everyone. They also spam on your phone, for example, by advertising calls or by sending promotional SMS messages.
Where can you find it on the internet?
- Email- it's just a Klondike for spammers. With the help of mass mailings, you can sell anything, you can cheat and rob, you can infect computers and send worms. Bases for mass mailings are collected independently (with the help of programs), or bought from those who do this professionally.
- Forums, comments blogs, wikis, and message boards - basically everyone is allowed to post here, and it's hard for spammers to stop spamming. This is not always advertising - often in this way webmasters try to get a free link to their site so that it ranks higher in Yandex or Google search results for various queries. This brings them traffic and money.
- Social media and dating sites - spam is very common among incoming personal messages. It is also available in the comments to the posts.
- Messengers (like ) are also subject to this scourge.
- SMS- messages from unknown people of an advertising nature. Probably everyone is familiar.
- Search spam- a rather specific thing, but familiar to everyone. Did you have such that you enter a query into Yandex (Google), and in the answers there are entirely sites with some kind of gibberish that have nothing to do with the case. These are the so-called doorways (sites with automatically generated useless texts). They spam the results of search engines, but they earn on visits to them by visitors (in various ways).
Those. all letters in your mailbox (or messages on the forum, comments on the blog, messages in a personal message) of an advertising or other nature from an unknown sender - this is spam. True, the mailing lists to which you subscribed can also be annoying, but you can still unsubscribe from them (refuse to receive them further).
By itself, spam is annoying and disturbing, because it litters where it appears. Most often this is your mailbox, and it can be quite difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff when there are too many unwanted messages. But spam can also be a real danger to both you and your computer. Let's deal with all this.
We understand the varieties of spam (harmless and dangerous)
From now on, I will mainly talk about spam email messages, because it is this channel that is considered especially susceptible to this phenomenon. Everything else is not so neglected and not so actively used by spammers, and this does not apply to all network users. And here is the problem of their protection from unwanted messages is acute.
Varieties of harmless spam
- Advertising of legal goods and services- in this case, the business owner simply chose spam mailings as one of the channels to attract customers and customers, because it is not expensive, fast and brings results. Naturally, he does not really think about the moral (or rather immoral) side of this matter.
- Prohibited advertising- there are goods and services that are prohibited by law from advertising, and for them spam mailings can be the main channel for attracting customers. By the way, spammers also advertise their services with the help of mass mailings, because this activity is prohibited by law. This also includes advertising discrediting competitors, because this is also prohibited by law (praise yourself, but do not scold others).
- Impact on public opinion- very often spam becomes a good choice for those who are trying to manipulate public opinion in the right direction. It can be politics, as well as commerce. Letters in general can be sent ostensibly from some person in order to compromise him, change his opinion about him or use his authority for profit. But personally, this does not pose a danger to you.
- Letters that ask to be forwarded to others- these can be varieties of so-called "letters of happiness" (send it to 10 friends and you will be happy), or asking to send information to friends for some other reason. Often such emails are used by spammers to collect or replenish an existing email database for subsequent mass mailings.
High-risk spam - what it can be
If regular (harmless) spam can only slightly affect your peace of mind and mental health, then the examples below can be quite dangerous for your wallet or computer. And this is not a joke.
I myself (the one who teaches and teaches everyone) a couple of years ago "bought" a letter of this kind (phishing) and parted with several thousand rubles (read ""). I just wrapped myself up and did everything “on the machine”, just to fall behind, well, and when I realized it, it was too late.
- - Very effective method deceiving not only gullible, but also simply busy or inattentive people (anyone has his own hook). They send you a letter supposedly from your bank, electronic money service or from somewhere else. In this letter, you are sure to be taken aback by something (unsettled) and asked to log in to the site to solve the problem. You log in, but the site will be fake (although it looks like a real one as two drops) and the data you provided is immediately used to steal all your money.
- Nigerian letters- you will find out that you can get a large amount of money (the pretexts are different - from an unexpected inheritance to helping a prince in exile). You do not believe for a long time, but you are convinced. When you believe it, you will be asked to transfer some money for "related expenses." You transfer and no one will bother you anymore.
- Viruses, worms, trojans- the letter may contain an attached file with a malicious program (or a link leading to a site with a virus). She can immediately cause problems with the computer or sit quietly in a corner and carefully record all the passwords you enter, logins and other things useful in the household. Worms, among other things, also know how to send themselves to your friends at the addresses found in the Email contacts (as they will then be ...).
Spam Protection
Where do spammers get email databases from?
- Spammers (those who produce mass mailings) collect email addresses from all available sources. These can be forums, guest books, chat rooms, social networks and other sites where email addresses can be publicly available.
- Hackers manage to get to some databases of addresses stored on websites.
- The collection of emails is carried out in most cases by a program method (using search bots - harvesters) and this is not required. special efforts(only time and then not very much). Moreover, such email spam databases you don’t have to collect, but buy them from those who specialize in this business ().
- Billions of postal addresses are registered all over the world, and therefore you can simply try to generate emails using special programs using the appropriate dictionaries. With a high degree of probability, many of them will actually exist. Read below to learn how spammers check the reality of addresses.
- There are special worms (viruses) that can send themselves to the database of addresses found on the victim's computer. The database collected in this way will already be cleared of non-working mailboxes.
How do spammers clean the databases from inactive email addresses?
Those who collect the database of addresses, in fact, do not care who owns this or that address - they send letters to everyone in a row, because there will still be someone who will respond to them (as they say, they hit the squares).
But still, in order to optimize costs and increase the return on mailings, it is beneficial for them to clear the databases of non-existent addresses. How do they do it? Let's get a look.
- The simplest thing is to place a picture in the letter (maybe not even visible - one pixel in size), which will be loaded from the site owned by the spammer when the user opens the letter. If the picture is loaded, then the letter was opened and the email is valid.
- Many mail clients (programs for working with e-mail) automatically send a message about reading the letter, which again plays into the hands of spammers.
- The letter may contain a link calling to go somewhere, promising mountains of gold. Moved - consider that your Email will now be marked as valid. The most annoying thing is that such a link can be disguised as an unsubscribe button, which in fact will lead to the opposite effect.
How to reduce the likelihood of your email getting into the spam database?
In general, as soon as your mailbox is "confirmed", spammers will not just get off of you. It is important to understand that no one is immune from spam. But it is possible to significantly reduce the likelihood of getting into such a spam database if you take specific precautions:
- You can, of course, not publish your Email anywhere at all and not tell it to anyone. But in most cases it is difficult to do, so I advise except for the main box have one or two secondary ones that you will use to register on forums and the like. Often they can come in handy and, which can be obtained without registration at all.
- Don't click on links in spam emails (even if there is an unsubscribe button, it's a trap) and, if possible, turn off automatic image downloads in your email client program. There is a chance that your Email will be counted as inactive and mass mailings will not come to it at a hundred per day.
- If you have not yet registered a mailbox or are planning to start a new one (for example, due to the complete clogging of the old spam), then proceed not from the convenience and ease of remembering it, but on the contrary, make it more authentic and more complicated. Friends, you will still send it to in electronic format, but spammer programs are unlikely to guess it.
What to do if spam no longer lets you breathe?
These were all preventive measures to combat spam (or rather reduce its amount). But there is a possibility effective fight even in an already fully developed situation. In this case, it becomes extremely important, .
The fact is that in such large services as or, there are powerful anti-spam filters.
They put all suspicious emails in a separate Spam folder, thereby freeing the Inbox folder from garbage. Yes, there is no perfect spam cutter, and as far as possible, the contents of the "Spam" folder before cleaning it would be better to look diagonally for legitimate correspondence. But it's still much easier than digging through all this garbage all the time.
If you have a mailbox on another service, where the spam cutter is useless (for example, as in), then you should not despair. Get yourself an Email on Gmail or Yandex, and then set up mail forwarding to it from your old mailbox. Moreover, these settings can be made as in the old box (i.e., set up forwarding - shown in the screenshot):
Also in the new mailbox, you can configure the collection of mail from the Emails you already have (the screenshot shows the settings for collecting mail in Gmail):
The same can be said about mail client software. Most of them also have a built-in spam cutter.
But in this case, do not forget that the mail service will have its own spam folder, which will also need to be periodically viewed (or searched there for messages that should arrive, but did not reach - for example, confirmation of registration somewhere is often cut by a spam filter), because mail will not be sent from it to your computer by default (although this can be corrected in the settings of the service or client program).
Good luck to you! See you soon on the blog pages site
You can watch more videos by going to");">
You may be interested
Account - what is it, how to create or delete it
Create an email - what is it, how and where to register and which email to choose (mailbox)
What is Email (E-mail) and why is it called email
How to restore a page in VKontakte (in case of loss of access, deletion or blocking)
Surely each of us, opening his mailbox, found there colorful leaflets containing information of an advertising nature. There you were offered to visit some resort, earn a million, be cured of the evil eye, etc.
And only a few, after reading these leaflets, found them useful for themselves. It is this distribution of information that is called unsolicited advertising, spam mailing, or simply spam.
The term "spam" refers mainly to emails. Quite often, almost all email that the recipients did not request is classified as spam. Recently, experts have studied all types of spam, as a result of which they concluded that when all unsolicited or promotional letters are massively classified as spam, there is a danger of losing business mail.
To better understand what spam is, consider
The main types of spam
Getting to some sites, you can’t help but pay attention on pop-up ads of a different nature. Such windows with advertising bring income to the author of the site. To increase income, sometimes several of these pop-up windows are installed on the site.
The next type of spam is the repeated distribution of messages in newsletters (the so-called " spam mailing"). Each such mailing is dedicated, as a rule, to a specific topic. The visitor subscribes to it in the hope of receiving the information of interest to him. According to the rules of such mailings, advertising messages are allowed, but with certain restrictions (for example, no more than once a week).
However, those involved in spamming are of little interest in these rules. They send their advertisements daily to several mailing lists at once. At the same time, spammers do not pay any attention to the topic. A similar situation with spam mailings can be found in chat rooms, forums and various bulletin boards.
Another type of spam filling guest books with advertisements. Some resources may contain guest books so that visitors can leave their messages (wishes, comments, suggestions, etc.) in them. However, spammers still manage to leave their mark here. They are not interested in the content of sites at all, they simply find links to guest books and place their advertisements there.
A common type of spam is spam comments on articles on websites and blogs. Such comments, as a rule, do not correspond to the topic of the article on the site, but always contain links to extraneous resources. Such links can be contained both in the text of the comment and in the name of the author of the comment.
A distinctive feature of such comments is that they are general in nature and therefore suitable for any site. For example, "this interesting article” or “the article is useful, but the algorithm is too complicated”, while a link to your spam page is necessarily attached.
Some webmasters, in order to attract visitors to their site, try to deceive search engines. They fill the pages of their resource with invisible text that contains the most popular words(free, download, etc.). Invisible text has the same color as the main background of the site, so the site visitor cannot see it. The user types in search engine the phrase “download free music”, gets to a site of dubious content and, of course, does not find anything desired.
However, the most common type of spam is the distribution of promotional information by e-mail. If your e-mail address is included in the "spam database", then "write - it's gone", because it is often not so easy to unsubscribe from such a mailing list, and sometimes it is simply impossible.
How to deal with spam?
How to unsubscribe from spam mailings? This is possible if there is a link at the end of the letter " cancel subscription", or "unsubscribe". By clicking on this link, you can remove your e-mail from the spam database. Unfortunately, such a link may not be available, so let's move on to the second option, how you can "break up" with spam mailings.
Comments on the site containing spam should be deleted manually by the site author or using a special plug-in.
It is better not to visit sites of dubious content with a bunch of pop-up windows at all in order to avoid the possibility of picking up viruses on your computer that any antivirus can miss ("and there is a hole in the old woman").
How to fight spam in Mail.ru mail?
Before we start fighting spam, I want to emphasize that some important and necessary emails end up in Spam by mistake. Therefore, sometimes it is useful to look into the Spam folder, especially if you are waiting for some kind of letter, but it is still not there.
You can explain to your mail server at mail.ru that such letters should be sent to spam.
Let's figure it out
What does it mean to mark as spam?
First you need to select the letter by checking the box next to it (number 1 in Fig. 1, click on the image to enlarge it):
Rice. 1 Mark an email as spam in Mail_ru
Now click on the "Spam" command (number 2 in Fig. 1). This command will only work on emails that have a checkmark next to them (i.e., selected emails). As a result, the letter will be moved to the Spam folder, and the mail.ru mail server will remember the sender as a spammer. This is how the manual “mark as spam” procedure works.
If you wish, you can delete the letter from the Spam folder by clicking on the "Clear" command (number 3 in Fig. 1), although after 30 days the letters from the Spam folder will be automatically deleted.
I want to note that the procedure for sending a letter to Spam may have to be repeated several times. For the mail server from the first (and even from the second) time may not realize that you want to teach it to send letters from this sender directly to Spam. No wonder they say that "repetition is the mother of learning", this rule also applies to mail servers.
How to fight spam in Yandex.ru mail?
Exactly the same procedure as described above for Mail.ru to mark an email as spam is suitable for a Yandex.ru mailbox.
Rice. 2 Mark the message as spam in Yandex.ru mail
To mark an email as Spam,
- first check the box next to the letter (number 1 in Fig. 2),
- click on the "This is spam" button (number 2 in Fig. 2),
- click on the brush to clear the Spam folder (number 3 in Fig. 2). But this is not necessary, because after 30 days such letters are automatically deleted from the Spam folder.
Should I mark a mailing list as Spam if it used to be useful?
There are newsletters that you subscribed to yourself. For a while, such a newsletter was useful and interesting to you. Time has passed, the information from the mailing list has bored you, bothered you, is not interesting, etc. Should this mailing list be marked as spam?
By marking the newsletter as Spam, you give a signal to the mail server (on Yandex, Mail.ru, etc.) to send letters from this author to Spam. Therefore, the mail server for ALL Internet users (and not just for you) will send letters from such an author to Spam.
This is NOT always fair to other Internet users who may need this information. In such cases, it will be fair and just to simply unsubscribe from such mailing without marking it as Spam.
What can be concluded from the above?
Spam is information that we did not request, did not subscribe to it, it is imposed on us.
Nevertheless, do not forget that "the forest is cut - the chips fly." Therefore, it is sometimes necessary to look into the Spam folder, because important letters may accidentally appear there.
We are fighting the rest of spam to the best of our ability. It is often better to unsubscribe from a mailing list that has become outdated than to mark it as spam.
Publication date: 01/05/2011A spammer is a person who sends advertisements via e-mail, publishing advertisements on websites, social networks, etc. In general, a "spammer" is not a good person; the employer pays him to send advertisements to everyone in a row. Such advertising is annoying (and sometimes indecent!). At first, after deleting a couple of emails with advertising, it will seem to you that there is nothing wrong with spam. However, when they start sending you ads in huge quantities, you will immediately understand that spam is very bad.
But this whole spam epidemic (on average, there are 80 spam emails per average user) started with... minced meat! SPAM are canned meats with minced meat, which were fed to American soldiers in the second world war. Since it was difficult to get meat, the soldiers ate these canned food. The British really didn't like the fact that they were selling spam everywhere (traders on every corner shouted that they had the best spam). As a result, minced meat became so annoying to the British that the famous comedian group Monty Python made a skit on the topic of spam. The essence of the sketch was that a young couple comes to the restaurant and sees the word “spam” on the menu, literally in every name of the dish. A young couple asks: “Do you have anything without spam?” To which the waiter replies, "We have a dish with a bit of spam." In the end, a farce begins: the Vikings sitting nearby begin to sing about spam, and at the end of all this bacchanalia, the hero's wife screams that she does not like spam. Since then, spam has been commonly understood as annoying advertising.
Spam is most often sent via email. However, large mailers (google, mail, rambler, yandex, etc.) filter out most emails with advertising. If you still receive a spam letter, then you just need to click the appropriate button, and the garbage sent from this address will no longer come to you.
Advertising through spam is carried out by both legal and illegal companies. Very often pornography, counterfeit products, spamming services themselves, sometimes even drugs and other illegal drugs are advertised.
In recent years, spam has gained significant scope in social networks and in various forums. However, even here you have the option to mark the message as spam.
Quite often, spam is aimed at extorting money or sending letters with viruses. Letters in which you are offered to win a very valuable prize (while first paying all expenses, registration, paperwork, etc.) are called “Nigerian” letters (previously such letters were sent from ... guess where?)))
And sometimes some program is attached to the letter. The letter says that this is a super application for speeding up your computer, but in reality it is a virus that will take over your computer and turn it into a zombie. Subsequently, spam emails will be sent from your computer without your knowledge.
Most often, spammers get your email address through dubious sites. Some sites require you to enter your e-mail when registering. Law-abiding sites use your "soap" to send you useful news, or send you a link to confirm your registration. But "bad" sites will give your address to bad people who will send you unnecessary advertising. Therefore, beware of such registrations. It can be difficult to understand why a site needs your e-mail, so I advise you to get yourself another e-mail box to register on various sites and forums.
By the way, it is very important not to respond to spam! For example, the message will say that spam will stop being sent to you if you click on a certain link and unsubscribe. If you do this, then the spammer will understand that you have received an email and your soap is not abandoned, and will continue to send you emails with advertising with a vengeance.
Sometimes spam is directly related to cellular communications. You receive a letter; the letter says that by sending such and such a word to such and such a number you will receive a prize or your amount on your mobile account will double (whatever they come up with; sometimes mountains of gold are promised almost superpower). Needless to say, you will not receive anything, but 200 rubles will be withdrawn from your phone account. Sometimes such spam comes in the form of SMS to mobile phone but the gist is the same...
The statistics are ruthless! If you think that people will never fall for such ridiculous divorces, then you are deeply mistaken. Humanity is getting smarter every day, but there will always be suckers (sorry for being too harsh).
In connection with the above, remember that even a letter from your old friend may contain a virus. And a strange SMS in which your mother (brother/sister/grandparents) asks you to put money on this phone number is also spam. Spam is getting worse every day. In addition, the cost of spam is much less than the benefits derived from sending them. Spam is cost-effective, so it won't go away! The legislation of the Russian Federation regarding spam is not developed. It is unlikely that someone can be convicted of spamming (there will be insufficient evidence). There were a couple of show trials to intimidate spammers, but they weren't very effective. The only thing a person can do is simply ignore the product or service advertised in this way.
Latest articles in the "Computers & Internet" section:
Which computer mouse to choose