The Conservative Cat

The economics of spam is brutal. Because it's so cheap to send EMAIL, even a tiny response can yield a huge profit. But in fact, smart spammers can profit from no response at all. For example, Mailworkz sells bulk email software and address lists. If you are naive enough to buy their product, there's a good chance your presence provider will shut down your web site in a matter of hours, but it's a sure thing Mailworkz won't give you your money back.

The Bigfoot newsletter also discusses the phenomenon of zombie machines. Zombie machines have been infected with Distributed Denial of Service software that takes control of the machine and uses it to send spam. To prevent your machine from becoming a zombie, anti-virus software is not enough: you need some sort of firewall. Microsoft Windows has a built-in firewall that is quite effective; however, if you use Norton Anti-Virus, Windows Firewall must be turned off. To overcome the lack, you either need to turn on Norton Internet Worm Protection or upgrade to the full Internet Security Suite and use the Norton Personal Firewall. Beware: Norton Personal Firewall is extremely powerful, so powerful that the built-in Windows XP Internet Information Server can't function. If you are not developing web software on your PC, this is not a problem, but for Bruce it was a serious pain in the neck.

Finally, some zombie software comes in as spyware. If you do not have anti-Spyware software, go immediately to here and download the free beta version of the Microsoft Anti-Spyware tool. Since it was not developed by Microsoft, it integrates seemlessly with Windows.

Finally, when you've had just about all the fun you can stand from dealing with spam, viruses, and other nonsense, go here and press the BASH button. It doesn't change anything, but it takes some of the edge off the pain.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat