What is spam?
Spam is today defined as unsolicited commercial email – mail sent to get you to buy software, medications, personal enhancement products, computers, movies, etc. that you did not request.
Spammers use slick commercial software packages to send spam. This allows them to send spam to hundreds of thousands of people at the click of a button, without even knowing who those people are.
How did they get my email address?
Spam programs use various methods to find out your email address. You don't have to have posted your address on the Internet – or, in some cases, even have used it – for it to be targeted for spam. These programs do a lot of guessing – they'll mail to common first and last names and random combinations of 2-3 characters at every domain they can think of. They search through online directories and extract all the email addresses therein. They do web page searches and pull addresses off of these. When combined with viruses, they actually suck addresses out of the address book of the person whose machine they've infiltrated. In some cases, they are able to observe transmission information to obtain lists of mailing list subscribers and high mail users.
What can be done?
The picture sounds bleak, but using the many techniques to combat spam, you can enjoy a relatively undisturbed inbox. Find out what OIT is doing to fight spam and what you can do to filter out these messages.
