What is Spam?

Most people realize that spam is the receipt of unwanted email, but what many don't know is that spam can come in various other forms as well. It can come through newsgroups, search engines, blogs and guestbooks, cell phones, and even instant messenger services. All types of spam serve a purpose, and all can be extremely disruptive, annoying, and malicious.

The reason spammers use the tactics they use is because it works for them financially. The only costs they incur are the ones associated with maintaining their mailing lists and maintaining an internet connection. Spammers run rampant for the most part, as noted by how many spam emails a person can expect to receive on any given day. I know that personally, a day doesn't go by where I haven't received at least 20 unwanted messages in some form or another. Nobody enjoys spam (except maybe the spammers themselves), and many countries have passed laws and regulations trying to curb it.

When it comes to the spamming of discussion forums, a spammer will join (or post as a guest, if the forum supports it) and bump really old threads or otherwise post in an off-topic manner in order to either disrupt the flow of conversation taking place there, or to advertise something. Many will utilize the forums signature feature to put a link to whatever they're selling, which is then attached to every post they make.

Obviously, spam and SPAM are two different things. The lowercase spam refers to the junk email and junk messages that have been plaguing the internet pretty much since the beginning. SPAM in uppercase refers to the Hormel food product, which by the way, is the state food of Hawaii. Hormel has made it clear that they do not have an issue with their trademarked SPAM being used to describe the epidemic of unsolicited messages, but they have stated that they would prefer that people refer to it using lowercase letters, so as to not infringe on their trademark. There have, however, been situations where Hormel has asked companies to not use the word spam, as in the case of SpamArrest and spambuster.

Spam Videos

Abuse Spam Headlines

So Much Spam From One Place? (Washington Post)

Washingtonpost.com today published a follow-up story to the pieces we ran last week on the unplugging of a California Web hosting company and the subsequent worldwide drop in spam levels. Today's piece tries to answer the question we heard from so many readers: "How Can So Much Spam Come From One Place?" Some of the less newsy but just as interesting stuff was cut from the piece for space and ...

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Web shutdown slows deluge of spam (San Francisco Chronicle)

E-mailers, enjoy the early holiday gift: Spam volume has been cut by more than half because Internet providers pulled the plug on a Web-hosting firm that was allegedly helping some of the world's most dastardly junk e-mail gangs. The break won't last long....

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Major spam helper sent packing for now (Lawrence Journal-World)

Major spam helper sent packing for now

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US email spam giant is shut down (Channel 4)

A web firm blamed for more than half the world's email spam has been closed down in the US. Internet companies pulled the plug on McColo, based in California's Silicon Valley, after investigators amassed a mountain of evidence that it was a junk mail hotbed.

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Web hosting firm shutdown could mean less spam for you (Corpus Christi Caller-Times)

Firm was working with spammers, who are already news ways to get to your email

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