Spam celebrated its 30th birthday last month and it's doubtful that anyone that ever owned an email address is singing its praises. In May 1978, 393 employees of Arpanet received the first ever spam email in history from another company called Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) advertising their new computer systems.
Arpanet, a predecessor of the internet, was used by the U.S. Air Force for security research and intended for official government business only. So these unsolicited bulk commercial ads were seen as a blatant violation of the use of Arpanet and it was determined that appropriate action would be taken to prevent its occurrence ever again. That was then... and obviously more wishful thinking than fact.
Thirty years later, sending billions of unwanted emails every day, spammers are trying to sell everything from Viagra to alopecia and weight loss treatments or anything else that might obtain money or personal data from users through deception. For more details www.greateducationonline.com The word Spam once only referred to a strange form of meat in a can, but the term was later applied to junk email, referencing a comedy skit from Monty Python's Flying Circus, where all meals in a restaurant come with spam, spam and more spam. Junk email has since become the principal meaning of the word spam. Plentiful but not quite so tasty.
The number of spam emails has grown steadily over the past five years and according to recent data, over 92 percent of all e-mails sent in the first three months of 2008 could be classified as spam. Google, for example, has found that users of its email service, Gmail, receive four times more spam today than they did 2004 and the over all trend is only expected to continue upward.
The methods used by companies to send spam have changed a lot in the last three decades. Thirty years ago the senders of spam email had to type in each address by hand, while today powerful software programs known as botnets perform this task at amazing speed, sending out billions of unsolicited emails a day. But spam took a new step in its evolution in 2005 with the use of images such as GIFs and JPEGs which can easily escape anti-spam programs developed to sort through the text content of an e-mail message.
Spammers have continued to find ingenious ways to circumvent the spam filters, including the use of Word documents and other complex file types such as PowerPoint, PDF and zip files. Compressing the spam into ZIP files renders the e-mail unreadable by security gateways and other spam prevention software because a zip file can only be read once it is decompressed, or unzipped.
On of the more recent trends being used by spammers to get the message through is with the use of the MP3 format. The audio files are actually disguised as music by top musicians, which is usually just enough bait to get most people to open them. Stock spammers in particular have been using this method to convince the email recipient to invest in some obscure stock. Again as with most attachments anti-spam filters do not handle attachments very well because they can't analyze the attachment content.
So why do spammers put so much time and effort into designing such complex files, complete with images and even audio, if the spam can simple be passed through as a text file? While money is always the initial motivation there is apparently the challenge of beating the anti-spam establishment. For more details www.greatindustrialguide.com Spammers admit that spam filters make their job more difficult but at the same time they take pride in the fact that they have never come across a spam filter that they couldn't get around.
Anti-spam technology has made some great advances in the last few years, but stamping out spam has proved far more difficult than originally imagined. Spam filters can give users a sense of false confidence. They can do their job very well but at the same time that can catch some important documents and for a business this can mean considerable financial loss.
As long as a faction of spam recipients not only open these emails but actually purchase product or service or fall for the various scams involved, spam will continue to flourish. But an educated internet consumer can go a long way in helping to quell that growth
Have you ever thought that thinking was over rated? Does that statement sound like blasphemy to you? The mind may be a terrible thing to waste, but it causes great waste when we let it run on it's own, especially when we feel the stress of the unknown that shows up after we have decided to undertake a new endeavor.
Research indicates that 83% if us get excited about a fresh start and are quickly overrun with fear and doubt. When we are feeling anxious and uncertain, our mind can go wild if we let it. We can make a plan, change our mind, imagine one hundred outcomes, overcompensate, second guess ourselves and miss the boat entirely. We start with our eye on a new prize and end up with our knickers in a twist.
Our minds seem to be wired to present us with all the reasons ?why not? when we decide to go for anything new and unfamiliar. ?I'm too old. I'm too young. I'm too dumb. I'm too poor. I tried that before. My cousin tried that before. They say it's a waste of time. They say it's a trick.? Certainly these are good reasons to go back to the status quo. Besides all that, you feel a cold coming on, you should rest.
Have you ever heard yourself or someone else demolish their prospects for a brighter future with thinking like this? Even if you don't do it yourself, mention a new venture and you will easily find others who happily rain on your parade. It's not that they are all mean spirited, or that we ourselves are raging pessimists. It just that this is what the mind does when presented with a new possibility that reeks of uncertainty.
New doesn't always create chaos. When you find a new pair of jeans just like your worn out favorites, it's time for celebration. If you've built successful businesses, a new venture is faced with the excitement of a positive expectation. If you have managed your money deftly, you recognize and act on additional opportunities to grow your stash.
But, what if you have tried before and failed? What if your dad attempted to build a business while your mom was extolling the virtues of a regular paycheck and the golden handcuffs of imagined corporate security while complaining about your dear old dad's financial irresponsibility? What if the neighbors lost their house because, instead of keeping their money safe in a bank, they invested in an orange grove that turned out to be past-its-prime swampland? How do you jump into the realm of fiscal freedom when you have evidence that you could very well fall on your face if you take any risks?
What do we do with the doubts, fears and what-ifs? We certainly can ignore them, push them to the side and pretend they do not exist. Positive thinking and faking it until we make it allows us to get started. The only problem is that those doubts, fears and memories of failure are now buried, hidden underground. They now form a landmine field that we have to cross to get to our goal. We created the landmines. We buried them. We tied the blindfold around our eyes.
We bravely set out to reach our goal. (Notice that bravery and courage require fear and doubt. A walk in the park requires no courage when we have reasonable certainty about our ability and the positive outcome of our efforts.) One false step and everything will explode in our face. The more importance we've attached to our success or failure the bigger the explosion we're likely to experience. ?I've just gotta make this work. It's my only hope. This is my one chance.?
Man! That's a lot of pressure! The bigger the pressure is, the bigger the explosion. And remember, the pressure; fear, doubt and courage in the face of low expectations is created all in our own minds! What a neat trick!
The greater the stress the dumber we become. Our creative juice runs out of our heads and into our bodies in case we have to win a footrace with the saber tooth tiger.
In spite of my grandfather having lost his bundle in the stock crash of 1929 and my father having made a lousy business deal that cost him his airplanes and luxury lifestyle, I've recently embarked on two new ventures. I've implemented strategies that you can use too.
The Foreign Currency Exchange, called Forex, is a high yield opportunity. There is an abundance of hype on the Internet and plenty of information scattered about if you know where to look. The same is true about Internet marketing, hype and valuable information scattered to the four corners of the web. What's a girl to do? Dive in and get consumed with confusion that leads to those dreaded fears and doubts?
No, no, no! The answer is simple. Get a mentor! Get a mentor! Get a mentor! When you are plagued with doubt, get a mentor. When starting a new enterprise, get a mentor! If you have not already succeeded in an endeavor then find someone who has succeeded and can lay out the plan and step-by-step how to do's for you. They know the way. You can replicate it. You can replace doubt with activity. When you know what the next successful step is you can easily focus your attention on action instead of uncertainty. Aligned action creates certainty and overcomes the mind games of new beginnings.
Both Tanveer & Kristin S. Kopp are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Tanveer has sinced written about articles on various topics from Health, Software and Internet Marketing. . Tanveer's top article generates over 880 views. to your Favourites.
Kristin S. Kopp has sinced written about articles on various topics from Software, Forex Guide. Kristin S. Kopp, President of Partners In Progress since 1988, helps people to manifest intentional and passionate lives, purposeful work and financial freedom. Visit. Kristin S. Kopp's top article generates over 880 views. to your Favourites.