Have any of you out there noticed that the SPAM (Junk E-Mail) has increased by over 300% during the last two weeks? Every day I have been getting no fewer than twenty-five per day. There is no use my sending these offenders and their announcements into my browser company. All they do or can do is sent me a form announcement that they will or are taking care of the problem. I don't see any improvement. Those S.U.C.K.E.R.S (Sending Undercover Kudos E- Request Signals) are clogging up my E-Mail files -- I can't get rid of them fast enough!

Also, there is no use to try to track them down. As my browser rep apologetically informed me, most spammers use incorrect return addresses. However, one way to track down the true origin of the spammer is to trace which computers were used to send the e-mails. But it's a painstaking and laborious process, the rep said, especially for companies that deal with hundreds or even thousands of spams a day.

"E-mails have a real cost. They take up space," he also informed me. "Big ISPs pay for bandwidth by the byte. A person caught spamming is violating the contract with his or her Internet service provider. At present, there are laws in 18 states that regulate spamming in some fashion."

The method of operation for spammers is:
First, they get a cheap Internet account and pay for it, sometimes with a fake or stolen credit card number. Next they find a mail server on the Internet that is not set up to block spamming. But some larger providers do, block spammers, like Hotmail.

How do they find an available server?
Spammers actually can buy lists of these servers, also known as "open relays." There are people who generate these lists for profit by testing servers to see whether they're secure.

And because these activities can cross borders and oceans easily, I was informed, spammers are "harder to sue and harder to trace. It's hard to tell whose laws get broken. Spammers then buy a spam program and use the unsecured server to send thousands and even millions of e-mails, often to people on lists they purchased online. After the mail is sent, their ISP account is abandoned A popular time to spam is Friday night, when there's minimal or no staff watching over e-mail servers.

How do companies fight against spam? By attempting to block the messages, my rep said. But it's an ongoing struggle to keep the corporate fort safe from increasingly creative and largely anonymous invaders who could get in through the cracks, even small ones. It's a technological battle. One way individuals can protect themselves is by guarding their e-mail diligently. Don't sign up for online promotions or gimmicks. That's how people end up on mailing lists.

To report spams, go to MAPS' web site at http://www.mail-abuse.org. To file a complaint about an investment con, go to IFCC at http://www.ifccfbi.gov or call your local authorities.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
Fighting spammers is all our responsibility. Don't even click onto their massages; rather click them into your Trash Bin. "Jerry" thanks you for your great responses and he continues to welcome your E-Mails. Contact him on site; http://www.4pointspress.com or direct your email to the Editor.