They can be annoying, exasperating, misleading and they have a way of piling up and choking your inbox — like weeds. We’re talking about spam. The fake, junk mail that floods everybody’s inbox daily and infuriates them.
Even after reducing the number of mails being sent, India retains its second lead in spam. Such mischievous mails are generated from malware-infected systems and their only purpose seems to be to confuse and confound users.
There are many who are convinced that the spurt in spam is linked to the upsurge in the economy.
Could this really be a reason for online deception? Paras Jain, an entrepreneur, seems to agree. “With a fast-growing economy it has become easy to con anyone. Even after blocking such mails they keep finding their way into my inbox. The most common spam that I receive and these arrive on a regular basis are about how my credit card has been short-listed among millions of users and that I have won an exotic vacation.”
Sudhakaran, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime Cell, tries to play down the general indignation. He says, “Not all spam has damaging content, they are just random information passed on to a large mass of recipients. It’s just the general attitude and the behaviour of society that is encouraging spam.”