Image spam is unwanted advertising email that uses images to bypass anti-spam filters. Methods for fighting image spam include verifying the sender and image permissions. CAPTCHA can verify if a sender is human. Other types of spam, such as blank and backscatter spam, can be dangerous.
Image spam is unwanted advertising email that contains images rather than text. Spam is a slang term for unsolicited commercial email messages. Image spam is used as a means of bypassing the filters used by anti-spam programs. These programs that protect against unwanted text emails have caused an increasing use of image spam instead of text spam emails. Methods for fighting image spam include verifying the sender and image permissions. On Internet bulletin boards, image spam is when a bulletin board poster posts a series of off-topic, repetitive, or unusually large images that disrupt the function of the bulletin board or derail the discussion in the bulletin board thread.
Usually, image spam is a means of sending a spam message to a user whose email program or host filters text-based spam. Because spam filter programs usually filter unwanted email advertising by identifying predictable words and word patterns used in spam emails, spam advertisers often send image emails that bypass text-only spam filters. Advanced spam filter programs are designed to detect graphics-based spam as well as filter text advertising emails
This type of spam often makes it to the email user because users frequently log into an offline email program that automatically downloads email messages. When a user’s e-mail program automatically downloads the message, it is displayed to the user. Some email hosts or software programs automatically block images embedded in email messages pending user approval of the images sent by each sender. This way, users can avoid image spam, which can sometimes contain unwanted images or text.
One means of combating spam is to attempt to verify that a human is sending a message. An example of this type of verification is CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart. To verify that a sender is human, CAPTCHA shows the sender an image composed of obscured letters and numbers and asks the user to respond by entering the letters and numbers shown in the image. While some advanced spam-generating programs can evade basic CAPTCHA verification, advanced CAPTCHAs use animation and other technologies to confuse computer programs designed to pass verification.
While image spam isn’t inherently a dangerous type of spam, it can be a nuisance. Other types of spam that can be dangerous include empty spam and backscatter spam. Blank spam is a seemingly blank email that may contain code that runs malicious software programs. Backscatter spam infects a user’s mailbox and is sent to contacts listed in the user’s mailing list. Usually, when a person is attacked by a backscatter email spam virus, it becomes an epidemic problem in that person’s social group, with user after user unintentionally distributing spam emails as the problem spreads.
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