SPAM Mail: How it Began and How it can End.

In a study conducted by McAfee, email spam was reported as the biggest technology time waster. About 50 percent of Americans say they spend 40 minutes each day sifting through spam mail. This amounts to 10 days each year or 780 days in the average lifespan. Thats a whole lot of spam!

So what exactly is spam email, how did it start, and how can we stop it from wasting our time?

In order for an email to be considered spam it must first meet three criteria.

• Anonymity
• Mass Mailing
• Unsolicited

The email address and the identity of the email address of the sender is unknown, an email is sent to a very large amount of people, and the recipients of the email have not requested the message that has been sent.

Spam emails often have a few other qualities associated with them as well. Most are deceitful with the intentions gain access to its victims bank account. They are sent from international IP addresses to make them untraceable. There is also no way to opt-out or unsubscribe from the email.

Spam mail originated in 1978 on ARPANET. The first message was sent on behalf of Digital Equipment Co. as an advertisement for a presentation. In 1994 the first large scale spam message was sent through USENET, was sent to all newsgroups, and was titled "Global Alert for All: Jesus is Coming Soon". It wasn't until later in the year that spam messages were used to solicit business. Two lawyers from Phoenix Arizona hired a programmer to post their message, "Green Card Lottery-Final One?" to as many newsgroup as possible.

While spammers once had access to a large audience through newsgroups, email addresses have become a bit harder to obtain. Spammers have now turned to hacking data bases and leaking information to access mass amounts of email addresses. LinkedIn, Yahoo, and eHarmony are some of the latest databases that have been compromised.

Spammers gain access to passwords, email addresses, and even personal information during these data breaches. They will download the email addresses into their contact lists and will even go as far as selling them to other spammers.

Since these email addresses are linked to accounts spammers know most of them are active. However it is very important not to click on any links, images, or attachments if you receive an email you think might be spam. Once you click on any file in the message the spammer will know your email address is active and you are likely to receive even more spam messages.

While there is no guaranteed way to ensure your email will never get in the hands of a spammer, Synametrics has created a tool to help you combat spam emails and get you back those 780 days you could be spending sifting through them.

Xeams is a mail server that includes a powerful spam and junkmail filtration that eliminates up to 99% of spam mail right out of the box.

Xeams incorporates filtering rules set by the user that allow for customizable filtering. It is web based allowing administrators to run their server from any computer. There are built-in POP3 and IMAP servers to fetch emails from a repository to a clients machine. Xeams also has full SMTP and SMTP proxy servers that accept emails and queue them for delivery.

Xeams works in three modes, stand alone, spam firewall, and hybrid to ensure you get the best protection from spam mail. To learn more information about Xeams, click here or call our very helpful support team 1-877-SYNAMETRICS.

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Created on:	Sep 13, 2016
Last updated on:	Apr 15, 2024

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