Sorry, spam's not going to go away-but with the right tools, you can manage it effectively

Spam: The very word sparks irritation, conjuring up the specter of unwanted, sometimes downright nasty, e-mail clogging up your inbox, day after day, message after message. It’s almost like you can’t get rid of it; you delete it, and there’s another one (or 10, or 20) just like it the next morning.

Spam isn’t just a nuisance, it’s a huge problem. By any definition, the numbers are staggering. At least 40% (some Internet Service Providers say it’s closer to 70%) of all e-mail today is categorized as spam, and that’s up from 15% in early 2002. One recent lawsuit charges that less than a dozen companies were responsible for sending out 1 billion pieces of spam, drawing more than 8 million complaints. At the current rate, there’ll be nearly 15 billion spam messages sent out daily by 2006. Many of these e-mails are inane or even laughable (phony stock tips, body-enhancement products), but many are also pornographic, and some frankly sickening.
So what is identity theft? Basically, nefarious people steal your personal information: social security number, credit card number, etc. Then, they can call your credit card company, change the mailing address, and go to town with the card. They clean out your bank account, open new ones, take out loans, buy cars, obtain wireless service, even buy cars.

For the consumer, the downside is obvious. It’s easier to say “just hit the delete button” than it is to actually do it 100 times over, every day. Even with expanding drive space, it clogs everything from innocent intermediaries’ servers to the users’ inboxes. Individuals can only feel helpless and frustrated; children are exposed to grossly inappropriate content; businesses lose billions dealing with unwanted messages. And then, of course, some spam contains viruses that crash not just a single PC but an entire network.

And now the really bad news: There’s one big winner in the spam invasion, and that’s the spammer. Given the economics of the business, if only one out of 100,000 recipients actually buys the product being touted, the entire spamming effort might be profitable. And that’s why spam’s not going away.

Still, there is organized opposition to spam, and it’s getting stronger. The Federal Trade Commission has gone to court against some spammers, and the government has launched legislative initiatives seeking to ban the practice outright, so far without much success. There are valid concerns about whether such laws would restrict legitimate marketing efforts, and lobbyists representing this constituency have made their point effectively. Moreover, many spam companies might simply take their operations overseas, out of reach of American law enforcement. A significant percentage of current spam mail—it’s impossible to say exactly how much—already originates from other countries.

The ISPs have also been fighting back hard on two fronts. Some have taken the larger spam companies to court, charging abuse of privileges and fraud, and a few such cases have been successful. Most ISPs have also implemented filtering software to keep out unwanted e-mail. This is an ongoing battle: as the filters weed out large chunks of mail, the marketers figure out new ways to get around them.

And then there are numerous grass-roots organizations launching their own anti-spam movements. In one case noted for its irony, one major e-mail marketer went to court to have his name taken off a site run by anti-spam activists, claiming he’d been harassed.

In the long run it’s up to you, the consumer, to try and block access to your inbox.

First, understand how these spammers get your address in the first place. For a start, companies plough through electronic phone books and attach the names to a variety of domains, particularly well-known ISPs. Low-tech as it sounds, it’s still more cost-effective than using post office. More common, however, is the practice of “harvesting” e-mail addresses, typically by using electronic search tools (variously known as ’bots, spiders and webcrawlers) to root out phrases such as name@ISP.com. Given that the Internet as a communications tool was originally intended to be completely open, these names and addresses are everywhere, from alumni or other organizational listings and greeting card sites to newsgroups and chat rooms. Many users still willingly type e-mail addresses into websites for the chance of winning a (potentially phony) prize. Finally, there are any number of CD-ROMs with tens of millions of e-mail addresses available for sale to aspiring spammers. Check your e-mail—you might have gotten an ad for one.

McAfee recommends some simple steps users can take to fight back against spam.

• Don't click on Reply or Remove: That just lets spammers know they've reached a valid recipient.
  
• Create a "spare" e-mail address, ideally one without your name: Use this one for newsgroups and contests, or when a third party asks for it.
  
• Beware of posting your e-mail address online: Believe it or not, you probably post it all the time—for newsletter subscriptions, chat rooms, etc. Before you do it, find out whether it’ll be posted in an online directory. Use a "spare" address if you have to.
  
• Don’t buy spam-advertised products: Aside from encouraging the spammers, this also makes more of your personal information available to spammers. And it absolutely guarantees you'll get more spam.

Finally, just as the spammers use technology to get inside your PC, you can use technology to keep them out. The McAfee SecurityCenter combines a free set of must-have security services with simplified access to McAfee’s managed security products. The McAfee SecurityCenter features:

• My Security Index: This summarizes your PC’s security vulnerability as a set of graphic and numeric scales indicating how protected or unprotected your PC is.
  
• Security services: These include access to a Worldwide Virus Map, a Virus Information Library, and a Hacker Vulnerability Scanner.
  
• Free security alerts: This notifies users about emergency virus outbreaks and other important security related messages.
  
• Managing McAfee Services: This manages and configures current McAfee VirusScan, Personal Firewall and Privacy Service subscriptions.

Best of all, there’s the McAfee Anti-Spam. This is the single most effective anti-spam tool for both consumers and small businesses. Anti-Spam doesn’t just block spam, it also updates filters automatically, filters multiple e-mail types, lets you create custom filters easily, quarantines spam outside your inbox, helps you build an automatic friends list, and makes it easy to send complaints about the sender.

Spam may be inevitable, but it’s also manageable. For your daily online experience to be both productive and enjoyable, you can use the right tools and the right measures to control what comes into your inbox, and what gets checked at the door.