…they just move to new mediums. Waaaay back in 1994, a computervirus hoax known as Good Times was passed around the Internet. Whilenot the first computer virus hoax, it is probably one of the bestknown. Since then there have been many similar hoaxes all promisingcertain destruction of your computer if you open an email originatingfrom a certain address or simply by reading certain words that appearon your monitor. Naturally, when many people receive one of thesehoaxes they decide to forward the message to all their friends andfamily to save them from this fate, thus helping the chain letter tospread (if I tell two friends and they tell two friends…).
In recent years, I noticed that these messages were showing up in myinbox less and less frequently. Did people learn not to believe thesemessages? Well, apparently not. They seem to be making a comeback, butrather than being sent via email they’re now sent through the messagingsystems on various social networking sites, as well...
Almost everyone is aware of the nuisance caused by spam email. When we get to work in the morning we have to delete a bunch of useless messages from our Inbox before we can start the day. When we get home we have to do the same thing before getting around to reading messages from friends and family. Do you ever wonder how these spammers came by our email addresses in the first place?
There are several ways for spammers to gather email addresses to send their messages to. One of the oldest techniques involves sending a “bot” to crawl around on different Web sites, Usenet groups, and other similar Internet resources searching for email addresses. While this method works, it is time-consuming and prone to gathering addresses that are outdated and no longer in use. Another popular method involves generating email addresses using a technique called brute forcing. This method tries sending spam to addresses composed of every possible combination of letters and...
