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Serving Western North Carolina since 1990 |
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PCC @ your Service |
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Volume 3, Issue 3, July 22, 2005 |
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nobody bit, then the spammers would stop fishing. But, we can’t control what everybody else does, only what we do.
How did they get my email address? Spammers use various techniques for obtaining addresses. Any time you fill out a form either on the Internet or on paper that asks for your e-mail address, you may be giving your email address to spammers. If your email address is listed on your company’s web site, spammers can harvest it through automatic web robots. Many of the recent viruses are written for the primary purpose of harvesting email addresses. Your system does not have to be infected. If someone else, who has your email address in their address book, gets infected, your address can be harvested along with everyone else in that person’s address book.
So what can we do? Only give your address out to known reputable companies that have a privacy policy in place that prevents them from giving or selling your address to a third party. Use different addresses when registering products, etc., than the ones you use for normal email. Use email filtering tools to filter out a large percentage of the spam.
How can I filter out the spam? Filters can be applied at the email server level or at the user’s PC level. Check with your email provider to find out what tools are available at the server level. Email filtered at this level can usually be deleted before it downloads to your PC. This reduces network congestion and keeps your PC cleaner. All web sites/email hosted by PCC come with an anti-spam tool and email filter lists. Check with us on the best way to configure these for your business.
There are also many different spam filters that can be applied at the PC level. If you chose this route, be careful what you install on your computer. Make sure that the product is reputable and comes from a reputable source. DO NOT install products from pop-up ads. One of the best places for downloading all kinds of utilities is CNET’s Download .com (www.download.com) |
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Spam, Getting to the Meat of the Problem. |
