Email - Spam filter
Spamassassin was used at the University of Applied Sciences to filter SPAM mails. Since the beginning of June 2007, a new system has been used as a spam filter, virus filter and for spam detection for the entire university.
This system marks mails recognised as SPAM with *****SPAM***** in the subject line. You can take advantage of this to have SPAM mail sorted out by your email client.
What is spam?
Spam is the unsolicited, unsolicited sending of emails. Commercial spammers keep databases with sometimes several million addresses. These databases are created using email suckers. These are small programmes that search the Internet (newsgroups, email directories, homepages) for email addresses and use them to feed the database.
The spam mails are also sent automatically and incur almost no costs for the sender. The senders use a false or invalid sender address so as not to be overwhelmed by returns and complaints. The mails are often sent via an unprotected mail server, so that the traces are well covered.
Due to the very large number of recipients, the spam email pays off if some recipients fall for the offers. With 1 million recipients, it is enough for the spammer if 10 people end up buying a product for 50 euros. The cost of sending the emails is negligible.
Source: www.lerneniminternet.de/htm/tip_spam.html