What is spam and how to deal with it?

There are several definitions of spam, on the basis of which it is possible to derive one common for all its types. Spam is an electronic mailing of all kinds of advertising to people who did not give their consent to receive it. Spam is also called network garbage.

Why "spam"?

The term "spam" comes from the name of canned meat "SPiced hAM"( in translation "sharp ham").These canned food were intended for use by American soldiers during World War II.After the war, there were huge reserves of these canned food - and they had to be sold urgently. To this end, the canning company Hormel Foods organized an advertising campaign unprecedented at the time. The word SPAM met people everywhere: on the facades of buildings, in prints, on vehicles and shop windows.

Types of spam

Depending on the direction and purpose of the distribution of unwanted advertising, the following types of spam are distinguished:

Mail spam .The most common and most unpleasant type of spam. This is a mass mailing of advertisements in the form of emails without the consent of the addressee. Mail spam can be harmful, because it often contains viruses.

Spam on the blogs .Placement of advertising on the blog, not agreed with its owner, in the form of a link to the site in the commentator's signature or links in the commentary itself( often there is one and the other).

Spam on the forums. Sending promotional messages to forum users without their consent.

Pop-up windows ( pop-up), distributed on entertainment sites and adult sites, are also considered a type of spam.

Search spam ( web spam).Websites on the Web created to change search results in search engines. As a result, these sites, appearing on certain requests in the issuance of search engines, mislead the users.

Why do I have to fight spam?

In addition to being unnecessary garbage, it can also contain malicious viruses that can turn on the computer of an unknowing user in the spammer's network. Some spam mails contain messages of fraudulent content that can also mislead an inexperienced user. Also mass spam mailings can generate traffic in large quantities, which leads to the braking of the Internet.

How to deal with spam?

Several simple tricks will help you reduce the amount of spam in your mailbox.

We often leave our address to receive any email, activation code, registration confirmation on some resource. For this it is recommended to have an additional( temporary) mailbox. And the main email address is used only for regular correspondence( subscribing to newsletters and news, letters from friends and colleagues that interest you).

Do not leave an email address anywhere, especially on forums or in online communities, i.e.on public network resources. If such a necessity does arise and you specify your address somewhere on any web page, try replacing the "doggie" symbol with something else: the letter "a", the words "gav", "dog", "Dog", etc. This will increase the chance that the spammer bot will ignore your address and not bring it to its base.

If you do not want to change the e-mail address, you can replace the text with an e-mail picture. Thus, however, you will create some inconvenience to users who decided to write you a letter - in fact the address will have to be entered manually. However, the positive point is that for a spam bot in this case, you will be virtually unattainable.

You should never reply to spam mails! Sending in response to spam messages like "Leave me alone!" Or "I'm not interested in your offer", you will only contribute to increasing spam attacks on your mailbox. So, one of the answers to the question of how to deal with spam is to ignore it.

One way to combat spam is to install spam filters, special programs that include many email clients. By various signs defining spam, these programs will put suspicious correspondence in the appropriate folder or immediately delete it. However, despite the high enough efficiency of work, no program at the moment can not 100% cope with spam.

If you own a blog, then you can fight spam in several ways:
- install an antispam plugin that blocks suspicious messages;
- check and approve comments manually;
- prohibit the filling of the field "Site" in the profile of the commentator.

So, now you know what spam is and how to deal with it.

Every Internet user sooner or later faces such a phenomenon as spam. Uninvited user, this rather unpleasant thing can take unawares, so it is important to know what spam is and what methods exist to deal with it.

What is spam?