The Dangers of Spam - Research Paper Example

Dangers of Spam Introduction Modes of communication and acquisition of information have leaped to another level due to the invention of the internet. It has made the world come closer on a common platform to fasten the pace of communication and collaboration activities. However, every invention is coupled with a negative aspect or adverse affects. The presence of malicious intent users on the World Wide Web poses threats to others in terms of the violation of their privacy and insecurity of data. Spamming is an age-old activity on the web that has been defined by Bowers, Harnett and Edwards as any unwanted email that is sent in massive volumes to different recipients. They even explained an abbreviation for the respective concept that is Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE). 2. Overview of Spam 2.1 Origin of Spam Fletcher stated that the first act of spam is considered to have taken place in 1978 when Gary Turk sent email messages to 400 people via the ARPANET; the purpose of the email was to promote his latest computing invention. Later, the term ‘spam’ originated from a Monty Python sketch that included few individuals singing the brand name of a canned meat ‘spam’ in a cafeteria in the 1980s. This is the instance after which the word became common and started being used other than the name of the brand. One of the most notorious initial spamming activities was initiated by two lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel. They sent emails to around 6000 recipients to advertise their services for Green Card processing. Their actions were highly resented and were replied with hate emails from the recipients. The concept of spamming caught on after the initial acts of resistance and became common from the late 1990s. According to Fletcher, the concept has intervened so deeply into the internet that it comprises of almost 78% emails from a total of 210 billion emails everyday around the world. Spammers have always managed to find their way around the spam filters and other detection software as they have learned the strategies and mechanics that are adopted by such software. Figure 1: Frequency of spam emails in different countries (Humphries) 2.2 Historical Approaches to End Spam Due to the absence of sophisticated spam filters in 1990s, simple techniques were used to fight spam. Zdziarski explained some of them in the following manner: Primitive Language Analysis: The messages were scanned for certain phrases like “Call Now”, “Free Trial” etc to find spam emails. This technique identified the spam messages on the basis of its content. Blacklisting: Paul Vixie devised a mechanism in which the spammers were maintained in a list and the users were given the opportunity to ignore messages from them. This technique identified the spam messages on the basis of the origin and sender. 3. Types of Spam There are numerous types of spam prevailing on the web in the current times, some of the most common ones are: 3.1 Email Spam Bowers, Harnett and Edwards stated that email spam is used to advertise different products and services to a large segment of consumers by sending bulk emails. Numerous types of products and services are included in this category, such as financial services, products, health services, travel promotions etc. Many email spam are also sent with the aim of acquiring personal information of the users to pursue different kinds of fraudulent activities; such attempts are known as ‘phishing’. 3.2 Text Messages Spam Spamming activities also prevail on the wireless communication technology of cell phones. This medium often proves to cost the recipient some amount if his package charges for the incoming of the text messages. Cell phone users suffer similar type of spam as the internet users, such as promotion of products and services and attempted scams. However, in the category of text messages, the recipient also receives lot of spam from the telecom service providers themselves in the form of promoting their latest campaigns. This might not pass as spam for the service providers but recipients consider it as unwanted receiving. 3.3 Social Network Spam The recent intervention and dependence of the internet user on the social networking sites has taken its toll on the spammers as well since users receive numerous spam messages on the respective platform. Facebook is one of the most frequently used social networks in the world; the article “Facebook users think social networking spam is a problem” included the information that that 3 out of 4 Facebook users consider social networking spam as a nuisance and a problem. Fake profiles are made on the respective platform and frequent updates regarding promotions, fraudulent scams, compromised and malware infected websites are sent to other members on the platform. The following highlights the frequency of spam on different social networking sites: Figure 2: Degree of spam on different networks (Lance) 4. Security Threats of Spam 4.1 Personal Risk Alongside the irritation of getting unwanted emails, spam has a rather more serious effect and concern for internet users. Spam is often aimed to retrieve personal details about the individuals that lead to identity frauds, illegal usage of credit cards etc. Some spam emails are also infected with worms, Trojans and viruses that make the system a zombie to be controlled by bot controllers or hackers. 4.2 National Risk Organizations have started investing their resources in devising solutions for ceasing spam emails since they threaten their infrastructure and service provision to the customers. Lance provided the information that spam emails constitute a big portion of the email at the organizations due to which they need to maintain bigger data servers and administration staff to ensure that the systems do not crash. Government organization also have their presence on the web and face the same threats of system crashes, intrusion activities and spread of viruses due to the increasing number of spam in the prevailing times. 5. Ways to End Spam 5.1 Legal Method Due to the increasing adverse effects of spam, United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulated a law against spam in 2003- CAN-SPAM Act. The article “Spam Laws: The United States CAN-SPAM Act” explained that this abbreviation CAN-SPAM stands for "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing. The main purpose of this law is to stop the flow of unwanted emails and messages that are directed towards causing harm to others. Penalties are present for the people who do not abide by this law in terms of fines and even imprisonment (in some cases). 5.2 Self Education The role of an individual bears great relevance in making the spammers unsuccessful in their endeavors. Another way to stop such malicious activities is to educate the internet users about the possible threats and their course of actions upon facing such instances. Roper advises that internet users should be communicated the relevance of installing anti-spam security software on their systems. Roper also stated that it is advised to never reply to spam since it confirms the active status of the email account; this encourages the spammers to send more spam emails. 6. Conclusion Spam is increasing at an alarming level in the prevailing times and continues to increase security risks at a personal and national level. Spam may be sent with the aims of promotion of certain products or services or to retrieve personal information of the users to facilitates avenues for performing fraudulent actions. Spammers adopt different platforms for spreading spam messages, such as emails, social networking sites and text messages. CAN-SPAM Act introduced penalties on spamming activities to control the increasing level of malicious activities on the web. Alongside the regulation of rules, people should take preventive measures on a personal level to discourage spamming activities. Works Cited Bowers, Doug. Harnett, Dermot. Edwards, Cory. The State of Spam, Symantec, 2009, Web. 2 Nov. 2011. “Facebook users think social networking spam is a problem”, Help Net Security.com, 24 Nov. 2010. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. Fletcher, Dan. “A Brief History of Spam”, Time, 2 Nov. 2009, Print. Humphries, Matthew. USA tops the spam charts relaying 1 in 6 spam e-mails, Geek.com, 21 Jul. 2009. Web. 3 Nov. 2011. Lance, Whitney. Social-networking spam hit business hard in '09, CNet, 2 Feb. 2010. Web. 3 Nov. 2011. Roper, Tim. Rethinking the “Never Reply to Spam” Rule, CMIT Solutions, September 30, 2011, Web. 3 Nov. 2011. “Spam Laws: The United States CAN-SPAM Act”, Spam Laws.com, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2011. Zdziarski, Jonathan. Ending spam: Bayesian content filtering and the art of statistical language classification, No Starch Press, 2005, ISBN 1593270526 2005, Print. Read More