Articles

Is it Spam?

Introduction

The Internet has produced it's gems. The web and email have sped up information collection, transmission and communication. Various fields have benefited, including education, business, family/friends, etc. However, both the web and email have a darker side.

For the web, this is illegal or inappropriate content, including the usual nasties. That isn't the focus of this article though; which serves to begin addressing practical means of dealing with spam.

Yes, spam. Unwanted ("unsolicited", in legal terms) marketing/advertising emails which may or may not contain adult or other inappropriate content. Alas, due to the rather open nature of the Internet, and the fact that there is no authority which directly controls the web, spam has been allowed to thrive.

Recent arguments have sprung up over various amendments to laws, particularly in the US, where an act known as the CAN-SPAM ("Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing", their name, not ours) has been on the lips of every politician with some interest in IT. This act does not actually "can" spam in the expected or desired sense; rather, it [supposedly] makes it easier for the recipients of junk email to opt-out of the mailing lists upon which they were placed. Of course, we all know that responding to unwanted email flags you as [a] a sucker and [b] a valid target. The spammer will not waste his resources if he doesn't expect safe return.

Now, identifying spam can be a nightmare, so the first section of this multi-part article will begin looking at spam and identifying it as such; picking the wheat from the chaff in your inbox is a nightmare, sometimes. Let's have a brief look at one of my Hotmail inboxes:

This image shows a nice mixture of kinds of spam, in fact. I'll discuss each one briefly in turn; identify it as spam, and suggest the overall method of dealing with it.

The Potential 419

Hmm. This XIAO JUN. Who is he? How did he get my email address? The very name says to me that he could well be a Nigerian 419 scammer, out to steal my bank details. "Representatives Needed". I suppose he's going to say I've been carefully selected out of the entire population to represent my country for something. Well, this is rubbish.

Spam: Yes
Action: Flag it as Junk

Legitimate Promotions

Ah, GameSpot. So nice of you to email me. Yes, I messed up here, and didn't opt out of receiving marketing information via email. Or...GameSpot think I'm interested in attending E3. Well, maybe I would be, but not today. This isn't really spam, as it was solicited (I signed up for the GameSpot service) - watch out though, for companies' opt-out wording. If they think you'll be interested, they may well con you into accepting email.

Spam: No
Action: Delete it

Win Big!

Ooh! I could do with $10,000! Yes, so could we all. But doesn't something strike you odd about this email? That's right - it sounds too good to be true. And we all know what they say, don't we, children...if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is! Clearly junk.

Spam: Yes
Action: Flag it as Junk

Plain Marketing

Ah, finally, I can wipe those blemishes off my credit report. But how would this company know I had them? I don't. What use is this to me? None. Clearly, someone's just trying to email me and get me to respond. It's like a door-to-door-salesman. Not interested, mate.

Spam: Yes
Action: Flag it as Junk

Are You A Customer?

The answer here is no. I've never heard of these people, yet they're trying to enter into communications with me by pretending I've ordered from them in the past. A more recent example of this I've seen is so-called order confirmations for the Sony PSP, etc. Before clicking on these emails, have a quick think - did you order from the company; does the timescale meet?

Spam: Yes
Action: Block sender

Genuine Email

Finally, an email I *want* to receive. I subscribe to the TechNet Flash newsletter in order to keep ahead of the IT situation, and as expected, Microsoft email it to me on a regular basis. To go back to my analogy above; here's the only bit of wheat in my inbox at this particular time.

Spam: No
Action: Read it

Author: Rob Church