Computer Repair Tips for everyday users

Before you attempt to do anything mentioned here or elsewhere, please remember to always back up your data.

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Monday, May 14, 2007

Super Spammers

They are like cockroaches these people. They have become much more sophisticated in their tactics. As spam filters get smarter they have to find new tricks to get around them. One of the ways they can get by the filters is with a string of words that make no sense. This overwhelms the spam filters making it harder for them to determine if a message is spam.
“Nonsense messages”Also called “Selfless Spam” or “Word Salad”. This is an email that is usually babble, which leads to nothing. The purpose is to confuse spam filters, which makes them less effective and a way to slip in like a cockroach. It doesn’t benefit them directly, but all spammers, by messing with the filtering of spam itself.

“Web Bugs or Beacons”Then we have those that aren’t selfless at all. HTML formatted spam may contain "web beacons" or "web bugs" embedded in them. These tiny transparent images are about (1 pixel). They can also be the same color as the background. These tiny images are linked to content on the spammer's server, so when you view the email, your computer sends a request back to that server letting the spammer know that he has a "live" email address along with your IP address, & the exact time you viewed the content.

Two ways to protect yourself:
Configure your email client not to download images whose URLs are embedded in HTML messages or using a text-based mail client. Newer email programs are set to block these images by default. That's why you find that you get messages with the images missing.

Turn off the preview pane in each folder view that you set up. You can do this by going to View in Outlook, then reading pane, click off.

As usual, only open emails from people you know of and if it looks funny then delete it.
There are many spam programs you can use, most internet security antivirus packages come with a spam filter built in but you may have to configure it. Also, there are a some, 3rd party anti-spam programs out there as well.

Computer Repair Lakeland, FL
863-521-1079