If you have been on the Internet for any length of time you have probably been the victim of Spam. Spam is unsolicited email.
Some spammers are simply trying to pitch their product, while some spammers are trying to do other devious deeds to your computer by injecting harmful scripts, Trojans, viruses, spyware, and other nasty things into your computer.
You would be a fool to open an attachment in an unsolicited email.
These people are taking it to a level which I have never seen before. They are sending fake PayPal emails out, fake Bank emails out, fake official looking emails out from governmental entities, etc.
I for one receive no less than 1000 spam emails per day. I have multiple programs set up to catch and filter out spam, viruses, spyware, etc., but some of it still comes through.
There are various State and Federal laws setup that can give you a legal remedy against the Spammers and other malcontents. These laws provide for fines and prison time for those persons who are caught and prosecuted civilly and by law enforcement officials.
The problem with the way the internet is set up right now is that it is very hard to track exactly where the Spam is coming from and it is very easy to spoof headers so that spammers cannot be tracked.
I have a couple of recommendations with respect to Spam, do not respond to it, and delete it immediately. If you have a spam filter on your email program, manually add the spam email to the Junk email filter.
Do not under any circumstances buy anything from Spammers. First off, by buying from spammers you will be vindicating their methods; secondly, you never know who you are buying from. You could be giving out your personal data and credit card information to some guy named Ivan in some third world country who wants nothing more than to take your money, or sell your personal information to other spammers.
I also recommend obtaining firewall, virus protection, and spyware protection from reliable companies. Make sure the software that you choose such as McAfee or Norton is able to automatically update itself. I also recommend that you set the software up to do a full scan at least every week.
Another trick that the Spammers use is that “unsubscribe link” at the bottom of a Spam email. The link is actually required by law, but in my own experience, if you use it to unsubscribe from unknown or unreliable sources, the spammers will realize that they have a valid email address, and turn around and sell the email address to other spammers.
Much has been written about this topic. I suggest doing research on the internet through Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live Search, and protect yourself.
In the end there may be no way to fully get rid of Spam but I am hopeful that inventors in the future will find ways to make it more difficult for spammers to ruin our Internet experiences.
By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq. ,© 2007
Welcome, my name is 
