More Stop Spam Measures by Twitter

Twitter wants to solve the SPAM problem and phishing attacks that have been rocking the twitter-verse in the recent months.

Accordingly, it has an announcement on its official blog – Twitter, has introduced a new feature to encounter malicious junk messages or links. To end these attacks, the new service that will try to “detect, intercept and prevent the spread of spam or phishing links. This is a new protection service from Twitter which works by scanning all links on the users’ account.

There’s a short explanation on the twitter blog about this new tool.. However, they haven’t mentioned details of the new spam inceptor service..

Missing some followers from twitter today?? We know why

Twitter today announced that it would fix the followers count issue and is also kicking some spammers’ off twitter…

“As a consequence of this, follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system”, says twitter on its twitter status blog..
Twitter is finally taking some action against all those spammers’ account that were just following you all these days, trying to sell you some Viagra or any other product.. Good job twitter!!

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Beware, Michael Jackson email virus is on the prowl!!

Some people misused Michael jacksons death for spreading Virus and Malwares!! Computer security firm Sophos issued a warning about an internet virus transmitted from a mass email claiming to contain secret songs and photos of Michael Jackson.

The email comes with the subject “Remembering Michael Jackson” and is sent from “sarah@michaeljackson.com”, Sophos said. It tells recipients that an attached file titled “Michael songs and pictures.zip” contains secret songs and photos of the pop music icon, who died of a heart attack in the US on June 25. Sophos warned computer users not to open the attachment. “By opening the attachment, computer users are exposed to infection. Once infected, a computer will begin automatically spreading the worm onto other internet users,” reported Sophos.

Stay safe and protect your computer by downloading the Google Pack.

New technique used by Scammers \ Fraudsters to trap the bait!! – BEWARE, SMS scam is here.

DO NOT reply to those messages which reads like “You won 850000$, to claim the prize send an email to xxxxx@gmail.com.” – This basically is the international lottery scam witnessing a new spin: Mobile phones are now being used as baits by fraudsters to net victims. Earlier, they used to send e-mails telling people to deposit money to claim big lottery prizes. Now, these emails have been replaced by SMSes.

spammers on the phone

It works like this: You get a message on your mobile phone with a congratulatory message for winning the lottery and an instruction to furnish details of your bank account. you do so, and cyber criminals empty your account by the time you realize the trap. This shift of modus operandi is because internet users have become more cautious. At times, the SMSes come in the name of big companies.

I recently got a message that I had won 85,000,000$ in a lottery and to claim the prize all I had to do is send an email to xxxxx@gmail.com with my name, age, phone number. Many such messages are finding their way to the mobile in recent times. Interestingly, none of these messages have a source number. Instead, they display a code number to which no reply can be sent through the phone. Some of them are ID-OTD, ID-WEBSMS and TA-OTDC.  To send the messages, they use websites which allow free SMS services and when somebody provides their number for any promotional activity, it does not remain private after all.

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Tips to fight spam – no more spam please

Wow…. I got so much spam in my inbox

Today I noticed that I’d been getting so much spam in my inbox…. I wonder why? But thanks to Gmail’s spam filters they directly goto my spam box :)Gmail uses advanced spam prevention techniques to fight spam… To check out the a quick video on how it works, click here

Here are some tips to prevent spam, if you don’t use Gmail:

1. Never, ever reply to a spam message. This includes buying a product that is for sale or clicking the often-misunderstood “unsubscribe” link, which actually informs your spammer that you exist. If you can tell from the subject line that a message is spam, don’t open it — delete it. Spam subject lines usually promise you a better sex life, a more youthful appearance, prescription drugs without a doctor’s approval, love, thicker hair, or a better mortgage rate. They also use attention-demanding punctuation, such as exclamation marks or all caps.

2. Don’t click any links in a spam email. Spammers often have multiple, unique pages on their sites. Often, when you click a URL in a spam message, this tells the spammer that you — and only you — received the message he or she sent.

3. Disguise your email address. Don’t put your email address in plain text on your Web site. An effective way to trick the spiders that traverse the Web to harvest email addresses is to disguise your email address by stripping out periods and “@” symbols. For example, “YOURNAME AT YAHOO DOT COM.” You can also make the “@” an image, which will prevent crawlers from identifying it. You make also wish to disguise it in your signature file, in case your recipients forwards your email.

4. Don’t forward an email from someone you don’t know to a list of people. You remember those “forward this email to 20 of your friends” messages? They are perfect for spammers to harvest email addresses, even if the sender of the original email did not have this intent. These types of sign-and-forward emails often appear in the form of a petition — and they don’t work.

5. Don’t use your home or business email address. when you register on a Web site or in a group. If you must sign up for services, want to receive more info, register for newspapers or domains; use a free email address from a site like Yahoo or Hotmail to create an address especially for that purpose. This also goes for posting to the Web, in a listserv, newsgroup, on a contact page for a Web site, or on a resume that is posted on the Web.

6. Before you join a list, make sure the list owner or Web master will not sell your address. Check to see if you can opt out of receiving unsolicited email from the site where you’re registering. If you are unsure about this, read the site’s privacy statement.

7. Preview your messages before you open them. Outlook (and many other email clients) let you use a preview mode to peek at the contents of a message before you actually open it. To do this in Outlook, go the View menu and select Preview Pane. Instead of double clicking a message, click it once to select it and you’ll see the message displayed in the Preview Pane.

8. Use a complicated email username. Spammers’ software will look for the easy and obvious addresses first, such as those with identifiable names “john1977@hotmail.com,” as opposed to “sjk839@msn.com.”

9. Use a spam filter. One to try is SpamBayes for Windows, which you can find in TechSoup’s Free Downloads section. Another is Mailshell, which is available on TechSoup Stock. (Visit the Mailshell page for details).

10. If your organization has an IT department, forward any spam that gets through to it. This way, they can perhaps better tweak the filters.

11. Make sure your privacy settings are set so you don’t receive marketing from other sites in your AOL and Yahoo profiles. Many listservs use Yahoo lists as the list provider; you must unselect these pre-selected choices in your personal privacy settings.

12. Never use your email address as your screen name in chat rooms. It will give spiders or human email harvesters an absolute yes to a questionable email address.

Well now that you have a better understanding….. I hope this helps you fight spam better :)