E-MAIL SPAM: The Scourge of the Web -- An Exposition

What is it?
Where does it come from?
How can you protect yourself?

The war against e-mail spam has been around for nearly as long as the Internet itself. It has become not uncommon for individuals to receive thousands of spam messages each day, making e-mail nearly unusable. Where does this spam come from? What is being done to fight it? And, above all, how can you protect yourself?

Written by a true Internet veteran who has personally seen the spam problem develop since the late 1990’s, this short exposition gives the history of e-mail spam, the tools currently in use to manage it and the deficiencies or advantages of such tools, what works and what doesn’t.

Included are the answers to the following:

What is e-mail spam?
How much e-mail spam is there?
Why so much?
What types of e-mail spam are there?
What dangers from spam exist?
What is the history of spam?
What is being done on the legal front?
How do spammers get your e-mail address?
What are some strategies used to combat spam?
What are the limitations of these strategies?
In the end, what works?