13. I'm receiving a lot of junk email...

"Spam" is the term for unwanted email messages sent in large quantities by people, often criminals, abusing the internet's email systems. The term comes from the Monty Python TV series (they wrote a song about Spam, a bland, processed meat, common in the post-war era).

In electronic communications, the term 'spam' has been enlarged, to include all forms of unwanted mass messages, such as mobile texts and instant messages and junk fax transmissions. People with long-established or well known email addresses usually get more Spam emails, because their addresses can be found on numerous legitimate as well as illegal mailing lists.

Internet administrators have devoted considerable resources to reduce and, in some cases, completely eliminate Spam emails. Much effort is directed at rogue servers (from which the spam is sent), that are shut down once detected. Spam servers are a moving target however, as the criminals behind most of the Internet's spam problem either build new servers or hijack poorly protected ones, as soon as their existing systems are discovered and dealt with.

It's not a victimless problem, either. Estimates of time and resources wasted vary enormously, but spam probably averages 78% of all email sent. One working group estimated the problem in 2010 as high as 92%! Spam messages are also usually intended to deceive, to trap recipients into revealing personal details, downloading viruses, or simply giving money away to fraudsters.

Desktop solutions don't stop the spam transmissions, but they can reduce the time wasted by recipients in dealing with the problem. Recent versions of Microsoft Outlook and other email management software, for example, have anti-spam features which enable the user to fine-tune what is recognised as spam. The software will then either reject such emails or divert them to a special folder for storage and deletion later.

More advanced, purpose-built, anti-spam software applications have also been developed. These go a long way towards eliminating the menace of Spam altogether (for recipients). They run on businesses' email servers and use sophisticated techniques to trap spam, so that it is never delivered to its intended destination. Such techniques vastly improve the efficiency of internet-based email operations.

Bristol IT Company is dedicated to fighting Spam and we can help you substantially reduce or totally eliminate Spam, with solutions we can install and fully support. Please contact our helpdesk for further details.

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