The Problem:

Spam is more than an annoyance; it can overwhelm your electronic correspondence. I read somewhere recently that Bill Gates receives some four million emails per day! I wonder how much of that is spam. Daunting thought, isn’t it?

Even though your email box isn’t as full as Bill’s, it probably does have a daily ration of spam. Some spam is trying to sell something, legal and illegal. Some spam is obscene. Some spam is a vehicle for spreading a nasty virus. Thus, even one piece of spam is one too many. The spammers seem to be multiplying. What can you do to combat the ever-increasing flow of spam?

The Solution:

We are currently testing a FREE anti-spam solution called Spamihilator. This software is getting high ratings from a wide variety of users. It not only examines every incoming email for spam, it is also trainable. That is, you can “teach” Spamihilator what to look for and eliminate from your incoming email. Check the reviews at http://fileforum.betanews.com (Select Beta News and search for Spamihilator.)

Spamihilator doesn’t eliminate spam, it segregates it. You have the option of reviewing it, restoring it or permanently deleting it. If you wish, you can download the beta release of Spamihilator at http://www.spamihilator.com (Choose plug-ins, then select the filters or add ons you prefer from the list provided.)

Even when you have the latest spam protection, it is still helpful to understand a bit about spam. For example, have you noticed blank emails? The ones with nothing in the subject box and/or no sender's address? These can occur for a number of different reasons.

Many spammers set up massive operations that are fully automated. Email addresses are bought and sold like commodities. They are also derived via software that crunches different email permutations. Once the spammer has an address, the next step is to see if it works. The goal, of course, is to harvest valid addresses. Any email address that accepts a blank email is then culled from the original, raw batch of addresses and added to a database to receive more spam.

Another reason for the blank emails is that sometimes these large-scale operations goof and send out mail without the spam, like mailing a letter without the actual letter! Hey, the bad guys make mistakes too! Their processes are often so automated that one small coding error can unleash a deluge of gibberish spam.

Another likely cause for blank emails is a poorly written virus. Successful viruses make the news. The duds, perhaps thousands a month, are usually only apparent in aberrations such as empty emails.

It's also not uncommon for your ISP (internet service provider), antivirus software or corporate email server to strip malicious file attachments from incoming mail before delivering it to your email box. Then you will get an email with no sender, subject or attachment.

In short, emails with missing subjects or senders are likely bad news. Don’t open them. Especially don’t open attachments with a *.exe file name since this denotes an executable program that may contain spyware, or a virus.

The flip side of this conclusion is that you need to help the recipients of your email correspondence identify your email as legitimate. One way is to compose an appropriate title for the subject field.

James Kerr is President/CEO of SuperGeeks, a Hawaii-based computer service and repair company (www.supergeeks.net). Please feel free to send your questions, comments and suggestions to Mr. Kerr. He can be reached at kerr@supergeeks.net and 942-0773.