U N I T 2 Comp ute rs & Tech nol o gy 1

Fighting Spam

Pre-Reading Questions

Think about the following questions.

1. Do you have an email account? What do you use it for?
2. Have you ever received unwanted or unsolicited emails? How do you
handle them?
3. What are some ways you can think of to prevent getting unsolicited
emails?

Vocabulary Preview
Match each word or phrase with the correct definition.

1. identical a. a receiver

2. offensive b. unpleasant

3. scam c. annoyance

4. recipient d. the same

5. irritation e. to swindle

6. cheat out f. a fraudulent or deceptive act

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Fighting Spam Track 5

A
nyone who has ever had an email account has received spam. Spam is
unsolicited email that is sent as part of a larger group of messages,
all having substantively identical content. Spam has existed for a long
time, but in recent years, the increasing amount of spam has become a much bigger
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problem than before. Although there are ways to decrease spam, currently the
only way to eliminate spam is by not having an email address.
There are several types of spam: junk mail, non-commercial, offensive and
pornographic, and scams, just to name a few. The most common type is junk
email—mass email from legitimate businesses advertising their products.
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Although the emails may be legitimate, they are still unsolicited. Non-commercial
spam consists of messages without commercial motive, such as chain letters,
urban legends, and jokes. The emails require the recipient to forward the message
to friends in order to receive good fortune. Offensive and pornographic spam
direct the recipient to an adult website, while spam scams are fraudulent
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messages designed to swindle people out of personal information for the
purposes of identity theft or criminal activities.
The most obvious negative effect of spam is irritation. It is very annoying to
get unsolicited email. However, if the only effect of spam were irritation, it would
not be such a problem. There are other effects of spamming. Since anyone’s email
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can be used by spammers, it is very possible that a child may receive either
pornographic images or links to such sites on the Internet. Seniors
may be cheated out of their life savings by schemes
spread by spam. In addition, spam may also
increase the cost of Internet service. Many ISPs
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(Internet Service Providers) have to increase their
bandwidth and server capacity to handle all

2
unsolicited --- not requested
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eliminate --- to get rid of
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legitimate --- real
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fraudulent --- fake
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swindle --- to deceive
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bandwidth --- available space
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capacity --- ability to hold information
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disposable --- able to be thrown away
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authenticate --- to verify
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circumvent --- to get around; to fool

the spam. This costs more money and may result in higher fees for customers.
There are various ways for people to fight spam. One way is to complain
directly to the ISP used by the spammer. Most ISPs will cancel the spammer’s
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account if they receive complaints. However, this option is becoming less and
less practical because spammers quickly change ISPs and email addresses. By
the time an ISP gets complaints about spam, the spammer has already moved on
to another one. Another way is to file a complaint with the appropriate
government agency enforcing spam laws. In the United States, the FTC (Federal
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Trade Commission) investigates all fraudulent spam email. The most obvious
way to fight spam is to make sure that personal email addresses do not become
publicly available. Email addresses should never be placed on public websites
and should only be given out to trusted people and organizations.
Spammers usually get email addresses from newsgroup postings or web-based
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discussion boards, so if a person wants to use either of these services, it is a good
idea to open up a free disposable email account. If the account is bombarded
by spam, it can be closed and another one opened. Another way is to “munge”
one’s email address. “Munging” is altering the email address so that it can be
read by people but cannot be collected automatically by spammers. For example,
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[email protected] can be written as catjamathomedotnet or c@tj@m at home_
net. Although a person reading the email address can guess the right address, a
computer program will not be able to authenticate the email address. Since
spammers often use software that “guesses” common email addresses, coming
up with a unique email address is another way of circumventing spammers.
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Finally, software that filters spam can also be used. Some ISPs use filtering
methods as well. However, with filtering, there is always the possibility that valid
email may be removed by mistake. Whatever method is used, the fact remains
that until there are stronger laws against spamming and more effective ways to
punish spammers, spam will continue to annoy, irritate, and
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disturb.

Reading Time _______ minutes _______ seconds 651 words

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