WEBVTT - What's the deal with spam? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:09.040 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:17.880 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everybody, 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.320 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.160 and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.360 With me, as always, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. I 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:32.560 had Mexican for lunch. Okay, I think we should send 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.960 emails about that to everybody in the world. Yeah, well, 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:38.880 before we before we get into the whole sending emails 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.720 to everybody, let's talk about why we're about to talk 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:45.040 about sending emails to everybody. Because you see this. This 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:56.560 discussion was prompted by yes listener me. This was from Jason. 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.400 Jason says, Hi, Tech Stuff, I love your podcast. I 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:04.600 was wondering what is the most spam free online email site? Jason. 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.119 We decided we were gonna kind of expand that into 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.560 a discussion about spam in general. I hope you don't mind, 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.080 but we will address your question. Um, if you absolutely 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.360 have to know right now and you can't wait to 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.440 the end, it's Gmail. So let's move on and talk 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:24.160 about spam. Okay, so spam, of course, is unwanted junk 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:28.280 email that you know, everyone knows. They they get every 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.360 now and then. Sometimes if if you're using an email 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.360 client that does not have a very good spam filter, 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.720 you may get quite a lot of it. Uh, if 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:37.400 you do have a very good spam filter, you may 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.000 not even notice that you get it. You want to 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.080 talk about the origin of the name, Um, well we could. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:49.120 Let's see. Uh, we've got spam, spam and baked beans, sausage, eggs, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.680 spam and baked beans, baked beans, eggs, sausage, spam, spam, 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.960 spam and spam. Um, yeah, it's Monty Python. Yeah, there's 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.320 a for those who do not know, there is a 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.000 Monty Pie Thawn Skit and Monny Python of course. The 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.680 famous British comedy troupe Um where a couple are in 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.120 a diner and everything in the diner comes with some 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.880 form of spam and it eventually falls into a chaotic, 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.280 rumbling mess of just people singing the words spam over 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.280 and over and over again. It makes no sense. It's 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.920 just a big jumble, And that's sort of the genesis 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.560 for the term as it applies to junk email. YEP, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.400 because you get, you know, a bunch of annoying messages 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.640 that come over and over and over and fill up 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.240 your inbox and you might you might have one gym 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.239 and then tons of spam. So that's essentially where the 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.880 name came from. And uh, I think Hormel is actually 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.160 okay with it now. They weren't for a while there. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.079 They seem to be resigned to it. And hey, it 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.480 is free marketing, right, it's it's one of those things 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:50.680 where you know, once the name stuck, that was it. 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.080 There was no going back. Um. But anyway, so spam, 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.880 how much of email out there is spam? Yeah? Effect 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.399 In fact, the vast majority of email is spam. That's 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.400 not hyperbole, it's not kidding. It's absolutely true that the 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.679 majority of email going across the Internet is junk. In fact, 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.600 according to Suffuss, I assume that's how you pronounced the name. 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.840 The research firm um they found that two point three 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.079 percent of all email during the first cent during the 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.560 first quarter of two thousand eight was spam. Uh. Over 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:30.960 at Yale University, they they looked at the email that 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.680 was going across their mail servers um in August two 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:40.160 thousand eight, nine point five of all email was spam, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:44.680 So less than six percent of the email going across 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:49.520 Yale's servers in August two was an actual legitimate email. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.520 That's just it blows my mind. I mean, you think 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.800 these are messages that number in the billions really of 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.840 of just junk email coming from lord knows where, a 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.880 lot of it from Florida actually um uh from individuals 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.480 who have created various uh email accounts to send out 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.040 tons and tons of unwanted messages. And you might ask yourself, well, 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.600 why why is there so much spam? Well, it's because 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.720 do you know, even if you only get a one 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.479 or two percent return rate on people clicking the spam links, 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.680 that's still a huge number. Unfortunately, it's a very very 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:34.640 cost effective way to market UM because people can buy 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:39.000 discs with thousands and thousands and thousands of email addresses 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:43.000 on them and it's you know, giant lists mailing list 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.120 and you may have even signed up to be on 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.279 one of those CDs. It is possible that by opting 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.000 in to select mail from other of of related partners. 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.360 You know, when you sign up for a legitimate email 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.200 mailing list UM, that your name could have been sold 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.720 to be on one of those CDs and you can look. 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.520 Um Marshall brain our sites founder wrote an article about 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.480 spam that's on how Stuff Works dot com and um, 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.240 you know he talks about the fact that there are 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.480 you can just you can go on to uh to 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.240 Google right now and find these discs and buy them 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.240 up there cheap and get tons and tons of email 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.120 addresses to market people too. And you might have actually 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.520 signed up for it yourself, right. I mean, you're just 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.320 really annoying. If you think about this, you you know, 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.760 your your expenses really are pretty minimal. I mean they're 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.680 essentially your power bill, um an internet account, Internet account, 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:38.000 And if you are a truly nefarious spammer, you may 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.640 be creating a botanet army, you know, getting people to 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:46.160 click on a link which installs a zombie trojan onto 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.159 their computer, which gives you access to their computer. You 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.920 can use their computer to send out spam. You don't 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.039 even have to worry about broadband charges then, because you're 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.520 you send a command to that person's computer. There's there's 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.479 the computer that actually sends out all the emails, so 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.640 you don't have to worry about running up broadband charges 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.680 because you're just sending a simple command to all the 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:08.920 computers in your button neet, as opposed to sending up 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.400 millions and millions and millions of emails and um. Like 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.039 we said, you know, if if only one or two 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.880 percent of the people who get these emails click on something, 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.000 that's gonna be a big enough return to justify the 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.200 expense of setting up the spam operation in the first place, 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:29.479 which is why it's so freaking evil. Yeah. Yeah. The 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.160 unfortunate thing is it's also very hard to get rid of, 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.440 um because you know they're there are things called white 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.880 lists and blacklists. You may actually have exposed yourself to 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.520 them if you've gone to the trouble of trying to 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.359 set up an anti spam filter. Um, and there are 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.560 tons of different ways to do that, but a white 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:51.039 lister blacklist. Um. If somebody send you email, like say 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.520 you've opted in for a particular company because they send 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.320 you coupons or something, you say, I absolutely want the 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.039 coupons from this company because I like them and I 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.520 want to buy their stuff. Well they might say, hey, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.200 make sure to add this email address to your address book. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.280 Well that's called white listing. Basically, you're saying I absolutely 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.279 think this is not spam, this is something I want 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.960 to come into my inbox. Blacklisting, on the other hand, 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.640 is putting a list on there and said I absolutely 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.240 do not want this to come to my inbox. And 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.360 the thing is if you get if you have something 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:24.240 from say, you know, Yahoo's email account, and one person, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.200 you have a friend who has a Yahoo Mail account, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.040 they're sending you stuff. But a spammer uses a Yahoo 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.680 Mail account, you can't very well go, well, don't ever 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.240 send me stuff from Yahoo dot com because well, that 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.360 would mean you'd be blocking your friend exactly. So that's 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:39.960 when it starts to get a little trickier because then 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.720 you can't just say, oh, well, I don't want, you know, 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.920 q R seven M one dot com to ever send 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.160 me email addresses, because spammers sometimes do that. They'll send 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.600 they'll sign up for a domain name that nobody really wants, 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:54.880 just as a front, and that makes them easy to 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:56.720 block because you can say, I don't want anything from 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.800 these guys. So if they even if they created another 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.840 count using that domain name, you still wouldn't get that email. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.640 But as Plett points out, if they go with a 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.840 free email service service like hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail something 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.240 like that. Um, it's a lot harder to block it 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.160 without blocking you know, people that you legitimately want to 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.160 hear from. And not only that, but spammers are really 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.360 clever about how to create these fake accounts to uh. 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.200 We we've talked a little bit in the past. I 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.880 wrote an article about capture and captures. Uh, it's a 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.400 it's a test. It's supposed to be a test that 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.640 humans find easy to complete, but machines find it very 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:39.760 difficult to complete. Spammers are really good at finding ways 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:45.360 around capture tests, which most free email services require you 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.920 complete one of these in order to create an account. 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.400 So that way it tries to prevent spammers from creating 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:57.040 thousands and thousands of faults essentially fake accounts. So, um, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.040 there are different ways of doing this. You can either 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.920 design soft where that can recognize the caption. Capture are 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.200 those things where you know, you usually you see a 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.600 box with some letters in it, and they're the letters 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:10.920 are distorted, their wavy, there's maybe some some noise on 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.440 top of them, like it looks like static, right, might 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:17.800 even require you to do something like a simple math 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.440 problem or you know, yeah, there's there that's that's one 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.840 of the ways of trying to outsmart the machines, because 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.479 what spammers are doing is they're either creating UM applications 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.959 that can recognize the same sort of visual cues that 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.120 we recognize when we look at captures, or they simply 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.880 hire people to physically type in the answer. And what 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.920 they do is they hire people overseas um in very 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.880 impoverished nations and pay them an incredibly small amount by 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.240 the hour to just go in and just solve captures 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.880 all day long. That's all those they're they're doing. Um, 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.040 I mean it, and it works. It's again it's it's 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.280 cost effective. But as again, if you just get that 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.040 small percentage of responses, it makes it all worth it. 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:09.600 So that's a problem that these free email services are 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.360 going to continue to struggle with for probably the foreseeable future. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.240 Until they can find a way to to really cut 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.880 back on spammers creating thousands and thousands of accounts, it's 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.000 just gonna keep happening. So that kind of brings us 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.560 to what do you do you know, which which email 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.320 service should you use to try and cut back on spam, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:30.880 and what kind of things can you do as a 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.520 user to prevent yourself from getting on these spam lists. 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.600 Um well, I guess we should take the second one 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.520 first because it's it's generic across all email, right, yeah, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:46.040 so simple rules. I want to point out that the 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.920 bad news If you have an email address, there's a 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:51.880 very good chance you're going to get spam, right yeah. 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.000 And the question is how much and how often? Um? 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.320 Because the thing is, once you've created an email address, 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:00.679 it depends on who you can eat it with. I mean, 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.240 depending on your internet service provider, they might actually sell 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:08.599 your email address. Um, so it is very possible. But 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.800 say you signed up for you know, an email address 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.840 with Google or Yaho, are somebody you know reputable if 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.120 you don't ever send that email address to anybody. And 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:18.839 I could say this from personal experience because I have 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:20.960 a couple that I was going to use and just 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:22.920 never haven't went. You know what, I'm gonna go check 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.360 the spam box. They're empty, They're free of spam. If 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.080 you don't ever share it with anybody, and you sign 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.080 up with a reputable provider, you don't have to worry 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:32.160 about it. As soon as you start telling people that 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.959 you have an email address and what it is. Yes, 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.520 so you're opening yourself up because you never know what 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:38.840 they're going to do with it. If you want an 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.880 email address but you don't actually want email, wait, why 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.080 would you do that? So if you're not Pullet, if 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.280 you're not Pullet, and you actually want to have contact 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:52.160 to the outside world, UM stop it. But let's say 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.160 that you want an email address for you know the 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:58.760 same reason, which is to exchange letters with people to 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:03.760 whom you are connected. Otherwise, Um, well, then certain rules 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.120 that you should follow. Don't put your email address in 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.600 a in a publicly viewable place on the Internet. So 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.760 if you have a message board, a message board, a 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.640 blog account, Facebook, I mean, these are just very simple, 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.880 uh rules, you know, if you put your address up there. 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.520 There are plenty of programs out there that all they 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.080 do is crawl the Internet searching for the format of 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.600 an email address. So they're looking for a name, they're 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.000 looking for the AT symbol, they're looking for the domain, 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.520 and then it adds it to the list. They're called spiders. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.200 And if you've every sort of thing that works for 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.800 search engines, as a matter of facted it does basically 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.400 the exact same thing is it's going onto a web 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.440 page looking for information. Um that's why if you've gone 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.000 to a web page and you've been confused because it says, 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.320 you know, you know Chris and then it has parentheses 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.480 at the words spelled out and then you know whatever 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:00.640 dot com you're going way man, And why did they 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:02.320 spell that out? And I didn't just put the AD symbol. 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.840 That's why, because the spider is looking for the AD symbol. 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.240 Exactly is it is trying to pick up any uh 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.679 any email address it confined, and it will do it 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.160 on other forums to um use net. You know, they're 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.680 all kinds of crawlers out there looking for these email addresses. 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.800 So if you don't post it where it's visible, you know, 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.880 that will help. Same thing if you're if you're you know, 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.880 if you're filling out a lot of online forums for 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.160 various services, that's another good way of having your email 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.480 address passed around. Look at the terms of service for 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.480 any service that you're going to sign up for. Yeah, exactly, 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.240 it is annoying. But if you if you're really concerned 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.800 about spam, Like, if you're not concerned about spam, go ahead, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.640 but if you're concerned about spam, you you probably want 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.200 to take a look at that see if they, you know, 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.120 what their policy is on sharing your email address with 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.960 other parties, because sometimes they make partnerships with other companies 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.080 and they get money for the email addresses they provide 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.400 to these other companies. Um. And just as an note, 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.000 you know, you may sign up with a company that says, oh, 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.240 we will never ever sell your name to people, and 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.320 it will be in their terms of service, and then 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:09.439 there will be a clause at the end of the 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.760 terms of services say we reserve the right to change 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.320 our terms of service. So just keep it in mind. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.920 Even the most reputable companies you know, there, they may 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.000 decide that they don't want to abide by that policy 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.600 anymore and change and hopefully they won't, but you know, 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:24.920 you can't control that. Yeah. So if you like doing 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.320 things like let's say, online sweepstakes, okay, there there are 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.680 sites out there that just aggregate online sweepstakes and you 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.160 can go and just you know, either sign up for 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.760 a service so that they automatically fill out your information 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:38.920 on pretty much any sweep stakes you want, or you 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.360 can physically go in and fill out that information yourself. 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.280 Sweep stakes. That's one of those things where people like 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.160 companies do tend to to share the information around and 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.880 and put you on lists. So, um, if you like 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.000 doing that sort of thing, what I recommend you do 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.120 is create an email address specifically for that purpose that's 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.920 not your personal email address, so you don't really care 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.760 if you get tons of spam um. And then you 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.360 use that one for anything, anything where you're gonna have 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.280 to fill out a form or you're gonna you know, 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.000 send information into a sweep steaks or whatever, um, And 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:11.800 then you don't have to worry about that coming up 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.480 your your personal information when you're looking, you know, for 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.440 your email from you know, your buddy Bob. Um. You 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.560 don't have to worry about filtering through eight D viagra 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.480 emails first, you know. Uh. I could say from personal 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.400 experience that that does work. However, it's still annoying because 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.400 then you go into your sweep Snakes box and go, crud, 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:33.520 there's a lot of spam in here. Yeah. Oh yeah, 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.160 that's why I signed up. So at the beginning, I 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.920 mentioned Gmail being one of the best free email services 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.160 when it comes to blocking spam, and uh, and I 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.360 really do think that's true. Um. I've seen claims saying 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:50.240 that as much as spam is blocked before it gets 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.840 to you, and that many people have stopped checking their 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.880 spam folder because that's usually if Gmail identify something as spam, 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.800 it will put it in your spam folder. Um, because 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:02.880 people were going to their spam folder just to make 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:07.160 sure that nothing legitimate had accidentally fallen in there. And 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.800 if you read the reports, everyone says, I've never found 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.520 a real email stuck in the spam folder? Have you 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.200 in Gmail? We'll see this is the things that I 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.360 haven't either. But again I didn't suspect. I suspected that 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.840 that was not across the board. Um, well, g Google 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.000 is having to do the same thing that everyone else is, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.160 and they're relying on algorithms that tell them what is 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.000 and what isn't spam. But you know, the spammers are 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.840 so clever. Of course, I'd rather err on the side 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.680 of caution. No. Wait, now, have you seen spam mail 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:41.800 in your inbox or have you seen something that should 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.720 have been your inbox in the spam folder or both both? Okay, 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.800 it doesn't happen very often either way. Yeah, and that's 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.800 actually part of what helps them fight spam and one 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.360 of the things that Gmail does and several other free 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:59.360 email services does do does do a similar thing. Ah Man, 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.400 next good food, I tell you. So they do a 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.240 similar thing, which is where they allow users to identify 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.800 messages as spam. And once you do that, uh Gmail. 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.240 In the case of Gmail, they flag it and then 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.800 essentially they prevent that message from going into anyone's inbox. 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.000 They look for the identical messages that are going to 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.080 other Gmail users and block it. So the nice thing 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.480 about that is as soon as someone flags it, it 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.640 affects the system pretty much. I mean it's we're kind 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:34.320 of oversimplifying here, but it means that it reacts very 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.480 very quickly because as soon as someone and it doesn't 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.160 matter who it is, but anyone who's using Gmail does that, 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.320 the whole group gets to benefit. Yeah, and there there 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.080 are other solutions to UM. On the corporate side. You 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:50.680 can see UM spam prevention UH actual hardware that you 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.000 can plug into your network that will do some of 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.520 the filtering. And of course there's enterprise software and consumer 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:01.280 software that you can use. UM. You know, I have 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.440 an I s P that actually relies on a technology 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.840 that Semantech picked up a few years ago UM called 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.479 bright Mail, and bright Mail works very well. But UM, 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.880 you know, the thing is, the spammers are clever enough, 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.199 and the software is only so good so that you know, 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.320 you check in the suspect mail folder and there's always 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.760 something that's that slips through. I think a lot of 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.960 these solutions are really good. It's just, um, the spammers 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.640 are just clever enough where they can work their way 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.479 around it. They usually do with a trick of social 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:39.040 engineering or yeah, you know, I can definitely say that. Um, 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.720 between my Gmail account and my Hotmail account, I get 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.439 far fewer spam messages in my inbox and Gmail than 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:48.879 I do in Hotmail. And both of them have spam 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.920 folders and both of them have filters, but Gmail seems 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:58.120 to be the more effective one for me, right right? Well? Um, Oh, 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.320 one one thing I thought was really cool about the 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.840 Gmail solution that I didn't know before, Um, is there 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.800 actually if you're familiar with the controversial Google book search, um, 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.920 which is Google's attempt to digitize a lot of paper everything. 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:17.000 There's their mission is to organize the world's information that 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.840 includes everything that's already been printed. Yes, um, and there 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.560 are some copyright issues that government looking into, but we'll 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.160 gloss over that. But one thing that that I didn't 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.719 even realize and I wouldn't have even thought possible, actually, 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.840 is they're using the optical character recognition that they used 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.160 for Google book Search and putting it UH in there 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.600 to help identify image spam. Yeah. Actually, image spam was 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.400 on the rise for a very long time because UH 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:46.879 spam filters had a lot harder time identifying messages that 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.960 used images as opposed to text and saying oh, well, 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.639 that's obviously spam. So you would get a message and 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.600 you'd open it up and there'd be a blue pill 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.879 or you know whatever, and uh, and again it was 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.160 just a spam message trying to get you to click 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.520 on some sort of ad deal or possibly even malware, 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:10.160 because that a lot of viruses do travel through email, um, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.600 and a lot of these were coming through and getting 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.919 into people's inboxes and and Gmail. The Gmail solution is 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.719 to compare it back against this database that they've created, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.399 and if it matches, then um they block it. No, 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.720 those images can also be tracked, and if you open 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.159 an email and your email loads that image and they say, oh, 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.440 well look at that, Bob opened his email, that's a 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.600 confirmed email. Actually, that's another really good point pilette. If 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.160 you've ever received a message where one of you didn't 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.080 want to get any email from that address anymore, and 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:44.399 you see down there at below it says, you know, 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:46.760 if you no longer want, wished to receive these emails, 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.320 click here to take yourself off this list, especially spam. 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.760 Don't do that, especially with spam, because what that does 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.600 is it tells the spammer that that is a legitimate 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.040 email address, and rather than necessarily taking you off that list, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.920 which the spammer may even do. The spammer might take 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.240 you off that list, but the spammer will immediately add 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.800 you to every other list you can imagine. Yeah, and 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:15.480 that whole can spam legislation thing not so effective. Yeah, 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.000 So yeah, do not fall for the Oh, let me 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:19.520 just click this link and then I'll never have to 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:21.440 worry about this email ever again, because you'll have to 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.080 worry about lots and lots of other emails. Um. Something 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:30.159 else that I thought about just now, Um dictionary attacks. Um. 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.520 You know, sometimes spammers don't even go online to find 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:37.560 your email address. If you're Bob at domain dot com, 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.640 you and Alan at domain dot com and Susan at 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.160 domain dot com and anything else it's an actual word, 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.560 might end up with spam because especially if it's someplace 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.520 like an I s P because there they figure that 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:55.160