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Spammers have developed a variety of spamming techniques, which vary by media: e-mail spam, instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engines spam, weblogs spam, and mobile phone messaging spam. Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have effectively no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists. Because the barrier to entry is so low, the volume of unsolicited mail has produced other costs which are borne by the public (in terms of lost productivity and fraud) and by Internet service providers, which must add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in a number of jurisdictions.
Advice
Childnet International have produced a really useful factsheet on the topic of spam. Aimed at families, the factsheet outlines the issues, the dangers for children, strategies for avoiding spam and links to further sources of information and advice. Read More..
WebsafeCrackerz developed by MSN, offers young people aged 13-16 strategies for dealing with all sorts of online situations. It includes the Spam Corp microsite with lots of hints and tips for combating spam. Read More..
What is Phising
Traditionally it has been reasonably easy to identify spam – messages would come from unknown senders, with unexpected subject lines and content and would be of poor quality, meaning that they could be reasonably easily detected and deleted. Spammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their methods, and will employ various methods to distribute their mails and avoid detection. One such method is known as spoofing.
Spoofing works by substituting the details in the ‘From’ field of an email with an address either guessed or harvested from one of many available repositories of valid email addresses (including the address book of virus-infected computers). Usually the address the email is being sent to is also gathered from such a source. Making such a substitution and sending the email is a relatively simple procedure; the process is completed because there are few points at which the validity of the addresses can be checked along the route an email takes and the options for screening at these points are limited.
To prevent spoofing, it is necessary to check the validity of email addresses at key stages along the path an email takes to its recipient. However, because email can be sent direct from a source computer to a recipient’s mail gateway, and because there are numerous ‘open’ email relays on the internet, it is currently impossible to prevent email addresses from being spoofed.
It is the responsibility of all organisations however, including schools, to ensure that their networks are not abused to source or propagate spam and viruses
What sorts of messages are communicated?
According to research commissioned by Internet security company Symantec, more than 80 percent of Net users between the ages of 7 and 18 years old get "inappropriate" unsolicited commercial e-mail on a daily basis. More than half the 1,000 young people surveyed said the spam made them feel "uncomfortable" and "offended." More than three-quarters of young people surveyed said they had at least one e-mail account, and nearly half said they didn't ask permission before giving out their e-mail addresses. More than one in five of those surveyed said their parents had not spoken to them about spam.
What contexts are there that I ought to consider?
Arguably children are less likely to be targeted by fraudelent e-mails claiming to be from an online bank. However, may still be the targets of phishing in the guise of fraudulent eBay or youth culture e-mails. Regardless, the advice is still the same - do not give out personal details, log on details or passwords under any circumstances.
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Sources: Cyberspace Research Unit, NGfL | 