Can someone explain how "SPAM" works, referring to email?

Question

Why do I get the same nonsensical email from so many different senders. All the names are first name, middle initial and last name and always contain something about how to 'satisfy' your woman via drugs or some sort of male inhancement. (by the way...I AM a woman so I certainly don't need my 'organ' inhanced.) I would love to know how "spam" works.

Answer 1

Take a look at this site:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/spam.htm

Answer 2

One method is that, if your email address is visible ANYWHERE online, that's ANYWHERE ANYWHERE even in the oddest most obscure place, you are vulnerable to "spambots".

These are automated programs that run around the web sniffing out things that look like email addresses (they have an at sign and dots, que no?)

Then they build up "mailing lists" and start sending out grief. (You been approved for a mortgage lately, or want that new Rolex?)

I Googled the first part of one of my email addrs one day, just for the heck of it. I followed the results through 30 pages. On the last page, I found, an Office-like mailing list, of email addresses in alphabetical order (including mine) with an all-too-familiar topic.

Moral-of-the-story? Keep anonymous online, if you can? Don't put anything in an email you wouldn't be willing to see on a public billboard? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you? Oh well...

Answer 3

Somehow someone got your email and put it on a computer that is constantly sending out these useless emails. They are usually based in poor countries that don't have laws against this and they are just trying to get at your money. Never buy anything that comes from an email so the best thing to do is just try and block them if you can and ignore it.

Answer 4

Every time you sign up for some free offer on the web or take a survey and get free bonus points you are really giving them your email address, name, address, etc. The site you gave that to puts it all into a list and sorts it by region, interests, gender, and what kind of junk you are interested in. They then sell that to people who want to bombard millions of people with crappy offers. They can sell those lists to multiple vendors so you get the same annoyingly-addressed attempts to get your money.

Answer 5

The internet is a giant spider-web, all sites are linked somehow.
If you give your e-mail to one site, even if they tell you they don't share them, they will eventually leak to other sites, and this process repeats itself until your e-mail gets in the hands of a spam site. These spam sites are also linked to eachother, sharing adresses. Thats how spam kinda works. It can take from 2 months to 2 minutes. There's nothing to do against it except a good spam blocker, I'm afraid.