How does Spam work?

Tommy B

Tommy B

Tommy B

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I've had my BT account for 7-8 years now and I've NEVER received one SPAM email. Quite a record you must think. Today I check, and the "junk filter" inbox suddenly has about 50 spam emails.

How exactly does this happen. I considered finding out HOW they got my address, but I haven't registered my email address to anything for the past week.
 
They don't need to have your email address as such. There is a server spamming out millions of emails a minute, sometimes randomly to see what it gets. Eg, on AOL the service is so big it's amost guaranteed that a random name, some numbers and a random surname @aol.com will reach a legit email address. Once it gets you it knows you're there and it spams the living daylights out of you.
 
Ive been getting spam mail that is sent to adress thats not even mine :p

Where it says To: *****@hotmail.com it its usually an address that looks abit like mine but only for the first 3 letters :p
 
my hotmail gets a ridiculous amount of spam these days, only since i registered that address on myspace though, before that I never got any.
 
Tommy B said:
And can they not track these servers and disable them?
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They could but most of the servers are located in areas that aren't covered by normal internet laws, ie South American countries and Eastern Bloc like Russia. And that can't cover for people infected with viruses that turn their computer into a zombie spam server.
 
All I seem to get these days is advetrs for Horse pron and **** for erectial dysfunction :confused: Stuff along the lines of " Did you know that a whales penis weighes a ton??? You too could have a penis the same size!!!"
Very annoying, but you can beat it, a freind mentioned tis site http://spam.abuse.net/
 
NeedleGunner said:
"Did you know that a whales penis weighes a ton??? You too could have a penis the same size!!!" Very annoying, but you can beat it.
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You wouldn't need to beat it, if it were that big. You'd have the ladeez queing up
 
meggy-vengeance said:
Like this..
Email isnt too bad for me, infact i dont think ive had any spam with Gmail yet.
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How long have you been with Gmail?

I switched over about a year or so ago and didn't get any spam for ages (even in the filter) - now sometimes you log on and there's something like: Spam (8)

I don't even give out that address on any websites, which is quite puzzling.

Although you can never underestimate the need for bigger genitalia.

Apparently.
 
It’s a good question. Where do spammers get your address from? Obviously, it can be from websites you have signed up to selling their databases. Also if its posted on the net anywhere, such as a forum, then crawlers that go round the net searching will find them. I’m not sure I buy the random spamming of addresses on a domain theory. It could work for them to find active addresses if they were sending from an address they can receive on.

However, I’ve got an address at work that has recently been picked up by spammers, and our mail server is set to not bounce any emails. If it receives an email from an address that does not exist, it just deletes it. I have not used the address on any websites. The only other way I can think of is people who I have emailed, have then been infected with a virus or worm of some kind, which has then harvested my address from either their address book, or simply by picking up all the addresses from all the messages in the email client.

Personally, I think the scumbag spammers need to be stopped. It should be done through legal proceedings where-ever possible, and other means where not. Unlike most other crimes, there is a single selfish little individual, causing annoyance to millions of other people just to make a few dollars.
 
I wish BT would just make a filter that destroys all emails with the text "viagra" or any variant, and for the love of God, can't BT identify which specific servers the spam is coming from and just BLOCK all communication?

I hope when the Internet 2 comes into play there are much better security measures. If one agency could control the entire internet there wouldn't be spam, paedo sites, terrorist sites etc etc
 
Tommy B said:
If one agency could control the entire internet there wouldn't be spam, paedo sites, terrorist sites etc etc
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Just like a few billionaires own most of what we watch and read. Yeah, brilliant!!
 
Tommy B said:
I wish BT would just make a filter that destroys all emails with the text "viagra" or any variant, and for the love of God, can't BT identify which specific servers the spam is coming from and just BLOCK all communication?

I hope when the Internet 2 comes into play there are much better security measures. If one agency could control the entire internet there wouldn't be spam, paedo sites, terrorist sites etc etc
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I love it when non-techies talk about the Intarweb :D

You said these e-mails were in your junk filter - BT's doing its job. Where's the issue?
 
Beansprout said:
I love it when non-techies talk about the Intarweb :D

You said these e-mails were in your junk filter - BT's doing its job. Where's the issue?
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You're right, I am indeed a "non-techie" at this issue so do you mind answering my question?

If they know a specific server that is doing nothing but dashing out spam, why can't they block it off completely and black list it?

A lot of useful stuff goes into Junk, like OCUK's newsletter, and I quite often retreive things. This is difficult when you have 100,000 viagra emails.
 
Tommy B said:
If one agency could control the entire internet there wouldn't be spam, paedo sites, terrorist sites etc etc
Click to expand...
I'd rather the 40 spams a day I get right now than the internet be monopolised.

I've been on holiday for two weeks and as a rough guess I think I must have had about, literally, 800 spam e-mails while away. Fortunately I can tell at a glance what's what so just hold down shift and select ranges then hit delete. Still irritating but I don't really think there's a lot that can be done. I don't have an automated spam filter btw, just my own eyes (can't be bothered to research them).
 
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