So how do you identify what is spam and what isn't? To use its correct name, Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), spam is a commercial email which has been sent to you unsolicited (i.e. you didn't ask for it) and it is trying to sell you something.
The concept has been muddied in recent times with the American 'Can-Spam' Act doing more damage than good in the campaign to stamp down on Email misuse. Many people refer to spam as 'anything I didn't ask for'. On that basis, if I were to email you without first initiating the communication, am I spamming?
In reality, no I'm not. However, if I was to send that same email out to 10 different people, it could be argued that I am spamming.
Unfortunately, Spam has a number of different guises that make it equally more difficult to identify. These types of emails include:
- Blatant attempts to sell Viagra, breast enlargements, potions, mortgages or so-called 'herbal remedies'
- Attempts to entice you into subscribing and paying into dubious pyramid schemes and/or reselling techniques
- Dubious emails trying to get you to subscribe to supposed 'free pornographic sites' or other illegal adult oriented content.
While the three above are quite obviously the result of spamming techniques, there are a couple of others that may not at first be classed as spam, but almost certainly fall into that category:
The 'You are my friend, please forward this on to 10 of your friends' emails.
- The 'AOL and Microsoft are paying $1 to the relief fund for every email that's forwarded on' approach.
- The Jokes and funny riddle emails that are sent to you, but are also copied to 30 other people in the sender's address book.
Let's look at the above 3 and explain why they should be classified as spam:
Next time you get a chain letter email asking you to send it on, take a look at the whole message. Scroll through and take a look at the numbers of email addresses that are quoted in the email as the message has been orwarded all around the world. This method makes for perfect pickings for any unscrupulous person looking to 'harvest' all those email addresses and use them to peddle their own spam.
There is absolutely no way that Microsoft, AOL, or anyone else for that matter, can track and trace who forwards emails let alone where they will all end up. This is simply a 'harvesting' technique, another way to achieve item number 1 above.
While jokes and riddles may be funny and amusing, they contribute further to anyone looking to fulfill item number 1. Yes, one more method of 'harvesting'. If you do insist on forwarding these emails, ensure that you delete all previous email addresses from the body text before you do and further ensure that you forward only to people using the blind carbon copy option (BCC) of your email client.
Email harvesting is big business. It was recently discovered that a spammer who sends 15 Million emails per month selling his $50 herbal remedy (which he/she purchases for $5), gets upto 7% return. In this case, you're looking at a profit of $472,500 per month!
Likwise, a spammer may resell your email addresses onto other spammers for up to $100 for 100,000 addresses.
One of the largest spamming techniques over recent years is what's called the 'Nigeria 419' or 'advance feed fraud' scheme. This is where an email is received from supposed dignatories of South African, Dutch, UAE parliaments, etc., requesting assistance to transfer millions of US dollars out of their country. In return for your help (and upto £30,000 advance payment) you are promised 10ASP - 20ASP of the money.
'Nigeria 419' is called such because it is believed to have originated in Nigeria and violates code 419 of the Nigerian Criminal Code.
Wikipedia contains a lot of information on 'advance fee fraud'.
'Phishing', on the other hand, is more of a targetted way of extorting money and/or stealing your identity.
The most common 'phishing' techniques often appear in your mailbox posing as official email from banking organisations and/or finance companies, such as PayPal, Mastercard or Visa. These are cleverly styled and look as if they are genuine. Often these emails have official logos and images attached to them.
The point of these types of emails are to dupe the recipient into clicking the link in the email (which again is made to look like it's directing you to the official website), and then persuading the user to submit confidential information, such as your bank account details, usernames, passwords and pin codes. Once the 'phisher' has this information, he/she can log into the real site and transfer/withdraw your funds as well as potentially stealing your identity and obtaining loans and hire purchases in your name.
Finally 'Joe-Jobbing' is more of an irritation than a targetted attack - however, in some cases it can be carried out in a malicious way to detrimentally affect a business or personal reputation.
The term 'Joe-Jobbing' actually comes from a hosting company, joes.com, who in 1996 was subject to an attack whereby a spammer sent millions of emails forging the return address to make it look like the owner (Joe Doll) had sent the spamming email. This was done in response to 'joe.com' suspending their account for an original spamming offence.
Since then, the term 'joe-job' has referred to anyone emulating the original scam.
Most 'Joe-Job' exercises go un-noticed until the affected innocent target becomes flooded with bounces to emails which don't exist.
In its true sense, a 'Joe-Jobbing' exercise should only be called such when it is attempting to attach blame to an innocent party. For example, sending an email that suggests it has come from mail@barneysbait.com in an attempt to sell the recipient a dubious product could certainly do Barney and his business some harm and potentially get him disconnected by his ISP - however, common spamming techniques these days rarely use the real 'from address' and forge them to look like they are being sent from an innocent party.
