Stop Spam!

No not the tinned meat that wrinkles our noses; the unending stream of emails that come barging into our Inbox! Blatantly trumpeting porn, remedies for sexual problems, stock for sale, and more, spam has become a serious problem. Today spam often carries viruses causing millions of infections. Some authorities claim that 90% of all email is spam! This raises the cost of the Internet, costs consumers millions in repairs and slows down Internet response time for everyone. Spam has truly reached a crisis point with consumers and Internet Provider's facing major changes. Spammers have become diabolically clever at evading detection. One method is to infect thousands of vulnerable PCs then instruct 100s of PCs a day to send just a few emails. If each infected PC only sends 200 emails authorities will not become suspicious, besides who do the authorities shut down? Another method is to infect thousands of PCs and have them begin sending emails as fast as possible.

One new trick that spammers are using is to send you spam that looks like it came from you! It seems like you are sending yourself spam! Internet Service Providers (ISP's) and their spam fighting software appear to be stumped by this one. As in all attacks, until ISP's teach their software to detect new methods, spam will get through.

Quick Tip-Bit: If you are getting buckets of spam the first thing to do is contact your (ISP). Responsible ISP's have spam blocking software that can screen out most spam before you see it. Many ISP's do not turn on this feature until you request it. Log onto your account and change your account settings. You may have to try several settings (low, medium, or high) before you are satisfied. If your settings are too high, good emails may be blocked.

If your ISP doesn't provide spam blocking you can buy spam blocking software. When an email arrives it is scanned by the spam blocker software. If it is a good email you see it in your Inbox, spam is placed in a Junk email box. The spam blocking service constantly updates its definitions of spam. Cloudmark is a unique spam blocking software. They rely on their users to identify spam. Check it out at www.cloudmark.com.

Finally, you Must keep your Windows up to date and install the best firewall and antivirus software! And don't open any emails unless you know who sent them! If you have questions please call Dean Hancy at PC Bits. 763-360-2163 or see our web page at www.pcbitsweb.com

If you have any questions please call Dean Hancy.

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