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Do you hate spam? Spam has been one of the biggest headache for online business owners. Attacks such as unsolicited email, automatic bot messages and blatant advertising methods are just irritating. However, there’s still light to shred the shadow. After reading this article, you will have better ideas to fight against spam activities in your site.

Captcha is one of the best ways against auto bot registration. One of the most common spam behavior is auto account registration on forums. These bots intend to post advertising messages without manual control. Tools like Xrumer are dedicated for this purpose. Thus, you can set up captcha against bot registration. Alternatively, setting up anti-spam questions that appear randomly will also be useful.

Some spams may come from the same IP. If this is the case, you can try to block IP access on your server. IP block is a built-in function on many web server platform. You can even define an IP range for wider coverage. Note that you may also block other users on the same IP. Another measure is to block the email address and its DNS source. This can save you time to delete spam email.

There are a lot of anti-spam software available on the market. E-mail clients also have built-in defense mechanism against junk emails. But best of all you should avoid spreading your email address over the internet, because your email can be picked up by email harvester software. Using a submission form will be a more secured measure.

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read before posting 1)posting first view/comment/ect will get you blocked cause its spam 2) please wait for the hd option to apper before complaining about the quality 3) negative comments will result in a block

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Many people in the modern world use email everyday, as a means of communication for both work and play. However, email does have its downside. Emails are the most common way to transmit computer viruses and with the spread of email use comes the spread of viruses.

Viruses

The most common way to get a computer virus is via an email attachment. Usually viruses are found in executable files, but they can also be present in images and other file types. Some viruses even email themselves to people in your own address book, so take great care opening any attachments, even from people you know.

Before you open any attachment you should scan it for viruses. There are many anti-virus programs available that will allow you to scan email attachments before they are opened. Viruses can not only destroy your computer but can attack network resources such as servers and routers. Stop them before they even have a chance to install on your computer and cause any harm.

Phishing

Phishing is a relatively new but spreading phenomenon when it comes to email security. The basic premise of a phishing email is to get you to send them personal information such as passwords which may let the phishers get hold of bank account or credit card information. Phishing emails often use the logos of well-known financial institutions and other companies to get you to trust their email.

How do you know when an email is actually from a legitimate company or is phishing for your personal info? Check the link provided; is it actually the company name used in the email? If you get an email from a supposed large corporation and the corresponding link has nothing to do with that name you can bet itís a phishing email. Also, it is rare that any company, specifically banks, will ask you to verify personal information via email.

Email Backups

Since emails can be lost just as quickly as any other data in the event of a disaster, you should always do email backups. This can be done by exporting emails into folder on your hard drive, then including that folder in your scheduled daily or weekly backups.

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Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google, speaks about Webmaster Central, his first encounter with spam, and challenges for search engines in the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdNG7ptsCMQ&hl=en

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read before posting 1)posting first view/comment/ect will get you blocked cause its spam 2) please wait for the hd option to apper before complaining about the quality 3) negative comments will result in a block

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The Message Must Get Through

—————————–

The year is 300A.D., and you’re part of a war machine

unlike anything the world has ever seen. You are a field

General for the Roman Empire and charged with assimilating

yet another non-Roman culture. Your current mission; get

tactical information you’ve collected in the field to an

outpost one hundred miles away. The land between you and the

outpost is treacherous and filled with enemy. The

information you’ve collected is critical to the success of

the current campaign and must reach the remote outpost

intact. This will call for ingenious deception.

You send for a messenger, who is in reality a Roman slave.

The messenger’s head is shaved clean, and the message for

the outpost is tattooed on his head. Several weeks later,

the messengers hair has grown in and completely concealed

the secret information. The messenger departs and one week

later reaches the outpost. A quick head shave and the

outpost has the information needed to ensure yet another

victory for Rome.

This is one of the earliest forms of Steganography on

record. The art of hiding messages within another medium

and avoiding detection.

The Ancient Technology Of Deception

A Modern Day Threat

———————————–

Take a look at the following two images at

http://www.defendingthenet.com/stgpic.htm. The first picture

is quite normal. The second picture looks exactly like the

first. However, the second picture is not a normal picture

at all. It contains a portion of the article you are

currently reading in the form of a Microsoft Word document.

It has been embedded in the image using a Steganography

program and is nearly undetectable. Not only can you not

see a visual difference in the picture, the file size of the

original and the Stego Medium (image with the hidden text)

is exactly the same.

There are several programs on the Internet that may be able

to detect a small anomaly in the picture, like “stegdetect”,

but the method used to embed the secret document is

protected by a key, or password, as well.

The technology behind effective Steganography is quite

complex and involves serious mathematical computations.

Computers and technology make this a trivial task and make

this art of deception a serious threat to the security of

information. Company’s that regard their information

proprietary, and rely on the security and integrity of their

intellectual property, could be at significant risk.

A Real World Example Of Steganography

————————————-

Many organizations protect their internal network resources

and information by using sophisticated security measures,

such as firewalls. Many firewalls can block e-mail

attachments such as executables, spreadsheets, and

documents, and do so by looking for file extensions. Some

security measures, or content filters, can actually

determine if the particular file or attachment is actually

the type to be blocked, a spreadsheet for instance, by

analyzing the contents of the file. This helps prevent the

transmission of file attachments that have had their

extensions altered or removed.

But how many organizations block the sending of image files

like, .jpg or .bmp images.

Imagine having someone on the inside of a company who

secures a proprietary document. This person then embeds the

document into a picture and sends it to an e-mail address on

the Internet. The company’s defense systems block many

types of file attachments, but image files are not

considered a risk, so they are allowed through. The sender

and receiver previously agreed on the method and type of

deception. Using a Steganography package freely available

on the Internet the task was easily and securely executed.

The company was completely unaware of the fact that

important information was leaked.

Conclusion

———-

There are so many components to this form of deception, I

could write ten pages on the subject alone. The purpose for

this article is to make people aware of this form of

deception and the threat it poses to digital security.

Steganography also has an impact on non-digital information

as well. And, pictures are not the only medium that can be

used. Sound files are another favorite host for embedding

secret information.

If you would like to see Steganography in action you can

download “The Third Eye” from the following link

http://www.defendingthenet.com/downloads/steg.zip. It is a

freely distributable Steganography program and was used to

create the two image examples referenced above. This

download contains the two images above and you will be able

to open the image with the hidden text and extract it. The

zip file contains a README.TXT file that will give you full

instructions on how to extract the hidden text in the

image.

But first, you will need the password! Can you guess it?

I’ll give you a clue: What form of deception did the Roman

General use to send his message?**

*The story “The message must get through” although based on

documented information about a Roman General performing such

an act of deception, is fictional and was written as

illustration of such an event strictly for use in this

article.

**You should be able to easily guess the password however I

must point out that the password should be entered all

“lower-case”.

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There’s one thing that allows MySpace spam to thrive – nothing is being done to stop spammers.

Regular email has filters to send spam into a junk mailbox. MySpace has nothing of the sort, creating the perfect conditions for spammers to thrive. If you’re a spammer, MySpace is a great environment for you to do your work.

I would expect an internet company to delete the profiles of the people that use their service in an abusive way. But I doubt MySpace could do anything to stop it. With over 100 million accounts, who would be able to track this bad behaviour? I would think that would be virtually impossible.

I know for a fact that MySpace hardly ever replies to messages from its users. I know this because I, myself, had some technical issues with my account which I emailed their help center to help me resolve. I sent 5 messages. I never got a reply. So, if users email MySpace to complain about spammers, I doubt MySpace does anything about it either. And, I’m sure people annoyed with junk email do just that.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy MySpace. The spam I could live with. I guess it’s a measure of success when spammers target your site. They wouldn’t do so if it wasn’t worth it to them.

Nevertheless, I find some of the junk mail that I receive in my MySpace inbox quite comical. Take my most recent MySpace spam email:

“Hello Sir,
Can you go to my website and register but you need to have an e-gold account so that you can start making money.”

I think this is hilarious, only because some people still think that these types of messages work. This poor guy must have spent hours emailing this message individually to dozens of people, and he will get nothing from it. Nothing! Now that’s funny.

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When email marketing first started, plain text was used, deliverability was good (this was before spam), recipients were hungry for information, which in turn meant that response rates were good…however, as time went on and spam became prolific, measures were taken by ISP’s to reduce spam. Throughout all of this, email marketing increased its usefulness, has become more sophisticated, catering not only to users needs for personalized emails, but also to marketers more exacting requirements for improved and accurate reporting.

Now, after years of relying upon open rates to determine the success of an email campaign (HTML that is, not text), many reports are now stating that open rates have declined. Is this then the first sign of the demise of email marketing? I do not believe it is.

So, why the low open rates? Well, there are a couple of possible reasons for this:

1: Image Blocking

2: Being delivered to the Junk Mail Folder

3: Loss of interest

1: Image Blocking:

Most email marketing software track opens using a clear 1 x 1 pixel gif that counts the email as being opened when the image loads from the server. However, as a preventative measure to try and stop spam, image blocking was introduced by most email software programs and free web mail providers such as Hotmail and Yahoo. By blocking images it prevent spammers from knowing whether the recipient has opened the email, which therefore means the address is a valid address and active. It also stops pornographic images from loading.

This has had a major affect on how effective the open rates of email marketing now are. In October 2005, Ezemail conducted a survey which asked the question: How often do you download images? The results below show the percentage of people that download images (if their images are blocked by their email client/ISP). As you can see, you can’t trust that they will download the images and so this in turn means that you can’t place as much value of an open rate as you used to. A click through rate is a much more accurate and reliable statistic.

The emails are being sent to the junk mail folder, where images are not shown nor recorded as the text version generally is only displayed. According to a report by, only 55% of users regularly check their junk mail for legitimate emails. False positives are still a big issue, with many legitimate emails ending up in the Junk mail folder. According to the same report, nearly 1/3rd of users claim that requested emails from trusted sources appear in the junk mail folder.

3: Loss of interest:

Of course, the decline in open rates cannot be exclusively attributed to blocked images & junk mail – there is also another potential contributing factor – loss of interest by the reader. Readers are becoming more and more selective with what they are reading, as more and more companies are realizing the value of newsletters and e-marketing, there is more for a reader to choose from -and the bar has been lifted. So it is imperative to deliver to the inbox timely and relevant information.

If a preview pane is not being used (see chart below), then the reader users 2 factors to determine whether they will open the email: From Name (i.e whether they trust you) and Subject Line (is it information they look forward to or has got an interesting subject line?). And yes, if images are enabled, and the email is previewed in the preview pane, then it counts as an open.

Additionally, they may have already enlisted the use of the ‘block sender’ tool. This is done instead of unsubscribing. It appears that the email clients and ISP’s have realized what many companies haven’t , that it is all about the users needs. I believe that if the recipient wants to unsubscribe, let them and make it easy for them to do so. All too often, it seems that for a recipient to unsubscribe, they have jump hurdles, all for the privilege of not being sent any further communcations. This has resulted in the user taking the easy option out and hitting ‘block sender’.

Best Practice

Web Link: Be sure to have a link directing them to a web version of the email. i.e ‘If you are having trouble reading this email, click here’. This link in turn replaces the open rate and is used both by recipients receiving text emails as well as those with blocked images.

Consider Design: Take design into consideration and don’t have the preview pane window being taken up completely with an image. You need to utilize this space with headlines or content teasers in order to induce the reader to open the email and contuinue reading. This is what the recipient uses to decide whether or not they will open the email.

Incentivise to Whitelist: First, you need to incentivise them to add you, the sender to their address book, thereby overriding the block their email program has on images. The only way you can do this is by providing timely, good value information/products which they look forward to receiving. Being added to their contact lists (’whitelisted’) has a 2 fold affect, as not only are the images shown, but you are also more likely to avoid the junk mail box.

Incentivise to Open: However, if they have not added you to their contact list, then you need to incentivise them to open and read your email. Again, you can do this by having ‘must read’ information within the preview pane

Add Alt Tags: Be sure to add Alt tags to your images and when possible make them sounds appealing, this way the reader may download the images as they’re keen to see the image that you have just described. Be aware though that many ISP’s and email clients do not show the alt tags if images are disabled.(see below chart)

Test design without images: Nothing will turn readers off more quickly than a badly formatted email. If the images are blocked and your design is completely reliant upon images you may want to think about re-designing your email.

Minimal Images: Have enough images to make an impact & to support your branding, but don’t have too many, and certainly don’t rely upon images.

Test Links: For every image link, try and have a corresponding text link.

Use Click through’s: Click through’s are a much more reliable way of measuring the success of a campaign. Design your campaign around gaining click through’s

Provide what the reader wants: Provide timely and relevant information.

Unsubscribe Method: Utilize an easy to unsubscribe function rather than a manual or complicated process, in order to avoid being ‘blocked’, as this will affect the accuracy of your statistics.

Email Clients/ISP’s which Block Images

Outlook

2000/XP

Outlook

2003

Outlook

ExpressYahooGmailHotmailAOL

Versions

6.0-9.0

Copyright Kath Pay 2006

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In this age of information, cookies are an essential element in making transactions faster and so much more convenient. We are not talking about the food item, of course. In the computer vernacular, cookies are actually files that store important information which are sent from your system to remote terminals in order to process certain requests.

These cookies have become the targets of some devious individuals who could be after some important information pertaining to you or your business. Spyware cookies stealers are programs developed by these unscrupulous people to make stealing information easier for them.

Whenever you perform an online transaction – say, you log on to a website to pay your electric bills – you enter your user name and other personal information. The website saves these bits of information so you don’t have to enter them again each time you log on in the future. What spyware cookies stealers do is look for this information in your hard disk and steal it from you. Usually, you won’t even know this has happened.

Once the spyware cookies stealer has acquired your information, this will be available to other people who can do whatever they want with it. In order to visualize the potential damage that spyware cookies stealers can cause, think of all the data that you enter into websites…user names, passwords, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and other personal information.

Now imagine those information being in the hands of some malicious person. In these times when you can do practically everything online, an individual in possession of all your passwords and financial data can destroy your life, literally.

An online thief can empty your bank account with just a few clicks and you can be bankrupt in an instant without even knowing what hit you. People can use your identity in performing criminal acts and you can end up suffering the consequences of their actions.

The scary part is that this does not happen only in movies. It can actually happen to you, thanks to the many spyware cookies stealers that abound in the Internet.

The good news is that spyware cookies stealers [http://www.removespywarehelp.com/Articles/Spyware_Software.php] can be removed from your system, and if they are detected early, you can minimize the damage they can bring. A good anti-spyware program can detect these spyware cookies stealers that may be hiding within your files.

When you have spotted and removed the spyware cookies stealer in your system, the next thing to do is to delete your cookies. You will then need to perform a thorough scan of your system to make sure that no threat is left behind.

To prevent future infiltration of spyware cookies stealers in your hard disk, upgrade your anti-spyware software regularly. You may need to pay a fee for these upgrades but when you think about the protection it can give you against spyware cookies stealers, a few dollars worth of protection is definitely worth it.

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