A spambot is an automated computer program A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task for a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute the instructions. The same program in its human-, or, more rarely, a script, designed to assist in the sending of spam Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile.
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E-mail spambots
E-mail spambots harvest e-mail Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages across the Internet or other computer networks. Email systems are based on a store-and-forward model in which email server computer systems accept, forward, deliver and store messages on behalf of users, who only need to connect to the email infrastructure, addresses from the Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and in order to build mailing lists for sending unsolicited e-mail, also known as spam E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail, is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail . Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. "UCE" refers specifically to unsolicited commercial e-. Such spambots are web crawlers A Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner or in an orderly fashion. Other terms for Web crawlers are ants, automatic indexers, bots, or Web spiders, Web robots, or—especially in the FOAF community—Web scutters that can gather e-mail addresses from Web sites, newsgroups, special-interest group (SIG) postings, and chat-room conversations. Because e-mail addresses have a distinctive format, spambots are easy to write.
A number of programs and approaches have been devised to foil spambots. One such technique is known as address munging Address munging is the practice of disguising, or munging, an e-mail address to prevent it being automatically collected and used as a target for people and organizations who send unsolicited bulk e-mail. Address munging is intended to disguise an e-mail address in a way that prevents computer software seeing the real address, or even any address, in which an e-mail address is deliberately modified so that a human reader (and/or human-controlled Web browser A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users to easily navigate their browsers to) can decode it but spambots cannot. This has led to the evolution of more sophisticated spambots that are able to recover e-mail addresses from character strings that appear to be munged, or instead can render the text into a web browser and then scrape Data scraping is a technique in which a computer program extracts data from human-readable output coming from another program it for e-mail addresses. Alternative Address munging is the practice of disguising, or munging, an e-mail address to prevent it being automatically collected and used as a target for people and organizations who send unsolicited bulk e-mail. Address munging is intended to disguise an e-mail address in a way that prevents computer software seeing the real address, or even any address transparent techniques include displaying all or part of the e-mail address on a webpage as an image, a text logo shrunken to normal size using inline CSS Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL, or as text with the order of characters jumbled and restoring the order using CSS Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL, where users are then able to see the address.
E-mail blockers
The term spambot is sometimes used in reference to a program designed to prevent spam E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail, is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail . Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. "UCE" refers specifically to unsolicited commercial e- from reaching the subscribers of an Internet service provider An Internet service provider , also sometimes referred to as an Internet access provider (IAP), is a company that offers its customers access to the Internet[citation needed]. The ISP connects to its customers using a data transmission technology appropriate for delivering Internet Protocol Paradigm, such as dial-up, DSL, cable modem, wireless or (ISP). Such programs are more often called e-mail blockers or filters Email filtering is the processing of e-mail to organize it according to specified criteria. Most often this refers to the automatic processing of incoming messages, but the term also applies to the intervention of human intelligence in addition to anti-spam techniques, and to outgoing emails as well as those being received. Occasionally, such a blocker may inadvertently prevent a legitimate e-mail message from reaching a subscriber. This can be prevented by allowing each subscriber to generate a whitelist A whitelist or approved list is a list or register of entities that, for one reason or another, are being provided a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to whitelist can mean to authorize access or grant membership. Conversely, a blacklist is a list or compilation that identifies entities that are denied,, or a list of specific e-mail addresses the blocker should let pass.
Forum spambots
Forum spambots surf the web, looking for guestbooks A guestbook is a paper or electronic means for a visitor to acknowledge their visitation to a site, physical or web-based, and leave their name, postal or electronic address , and a comment or note, if desired. Such paper-based ledgers or books are traditional in churches, at weddings, funerals, B&Bs, museums and other private facilities open, wikis Wikis may exist to serve a specific purpose, and in such cases, users use their editorial rights to remove material that is considered "off topic." Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In contrast, open purpose wikis accept content without firm rules as to how the content should be organized, blogs A blog is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a, forums An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site. It originated as the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system. From a technological standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content and any other web forms A webform on a web page allows a user to enter data that is sent to a server for processing. Webforms resemble paper forms because internet users fill out the forms using checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields. For example, webforms can be used to enter shipping or credit card data to order a product or can be used to retrieve data to submit spam links to the web forms it finds. These spambots often use OCR Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping system in an office, or to publish the text on a technology to bypass CAPTCHAs A CAPTCHA or Captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user present. Some spam messages are targeted towards readers and can involve techniques of target marketing A target market or target audience is a group of customers that the business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its merchandise. A well-defined target market is the first element to a marketing strategy. The target market and the marketing mix variables of product, place , promotion and price are the two elements of a or even phishing In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment, making it hard to tell real posts from the bot generated ones. Not all of the spam posts are meant for the readers; some spam messages are simply hyperlinks In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to a document that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically[citation needed]. The reference points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks. Such text is usually viewed with a computer. A software system for viewing and intended to boost search engine ranking Search engine optimization is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears.
This category of spambots has gained considerable notoriety since November 2006, with the introduction of XRumer, a forum and wiki Wikis may exist to serve a specific purpose, and in such cases, users use their editorial rights to remove material that is considered "off topic." Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In contrast, open purpose wikis accept content without firm rules as to how the content should be organized spambot which can often bypass many of the safeguards administrators use to reduce the amount of spam posted.[1]
One way to prevent spambots from posting on forums, wiki, guestbook, etc. is to enable e-mail activation by installing a mail server on the host (eg: Sendmail, Postfix, Exim.), since most spambot scripts use fake or randomly generated names on real e-mail providers, the e-mails will mostly never be successfully routed to them, although this has eventually been circumvented, since it is of trivial matter for spammers to automatically register an email address and use it for validation, mostly via webmail Webmail is an email service intended to be primarily accessed via a web browser, as opposed to through a desktop email client. Some webmail providers use dedicated websites to providing email services, including Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and AOL Mail; but there are many internet service providers which provide webmail services as part of their services. Using methods such as security questions[2] are also proven to be effective in curbing posts generated by spambots, as they are usually unable to answer it upon registering.
See also
- Address munging Address munging is the practice of disguising, or munging, an e-mail address to prevent it being automatically collected and used as a target for people and organizations who send unsolicited bulk e-mail. Address munging is intended to disguise an e-mail address in a way that prevents computer software seeing the real address, or even any address
- Botnet A Botnet is a collection of software agents, or robots, that run autonomously and automatically. The term is most commonly associated with malicious software, but it can also refer to a network of computers using distributed computing software.[citation needed] While botnets are often named after their malicious software name, there are typically
- CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA or Captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user
- E-mail address harvesting E-mail harvesting is the process of obtaining lists of e-mail addresses using various methods for use in bulk e-mail or other purposes usually grouped as spam
- List poisoning Once a mailing list has been poisoned with a number of invalid e-mail addresses, the resources required to send a message to this list has increased, even though the number of valid recipients has not. If one can poison a spammer's mailing list, one can force the spammer to exhaust more resources to send e-mail, in theory costing the spammer money
- Spamtrap Spamtraps are usually e-mail addresses that are created not for communication, but rather to lure spam. In order to prevent legitimate email from being invited, the e-mail address will typically only be published in a location hidden from view such that an automated e-mail address harvester can find the email address, but no sender would be
- Stopping e-mail abuse To prevent e-mail spam, both end users and administrators of e-mail systems use various anti-spam techniques. Some of these techniques have been embedded in products, services and software to ease the burden on users and administrators. No one technique is a complete solution to the spam problem, and each has trade-offs between incorrectly
- Spider trap A spider trap is a set of web pages that may intentionally or unintentionally be used to cause a web crawler or search bot to make an infinite number of requests or cause a poorly constructed crawler to crash. Web crawlers are also called web spiders, from which the name is derived. Spider traps may be created to "catch" spambots or
References
- ^ http://www.botmasternet.com/faq/ Retrieved on 2010-04-15
- ^ Anti-Bot Question
External links
- Stas Bekman's Article on Botnets and how they are used for spamming
- Botnet discussion mailing list
- Harvester Killer – Fight back at spambots
- Fight Spam - Join Byteplant's Spambot Honeypot Project
- Spambot Beware! - information on how to avoid, detect, and harass spambots
- Bot-trap - A Bad Web-Robot Blocker
- How to block spambots
Categories: Spamming | Network-related software
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Jeremy
2008-09-05 18:44:38
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