What is spam: Spam is the junk mail and pop up ads that invade our emails.  These sites are cleverly crafted to hide the true identity of the orginial orgin of where it came from.  They advertise about anythign ranging from credit cards, houses, to porn.  They are flooding the internet by making many copies of the same message so it can make it to users who would normally not receive these messages.  They are stealing internet mailing lists and sending copies out to emails invading our inbox.

Why is it bad:
1. Spammers aren't paying for the junk mail they send, the recipients who recieve these messages do.  Think of how much time is spent reading or clearing out the junk mail in our Inboxes.  That's time spent connected to your server that you, aol, yahoo, or hotmail are paying for.
2. It's flooding the Internet and our emails becasue they ask for a reply message to become removed from the mailing list.  Over time, users can receive more spam mail because they respond to the message, which then their email address is passed onto other spam sites  It will eventually lead to no room in our Inboxes for real mail because junk mail is blocking or holding space in our pc.
3. Spammers steal other internet resources.  Spammers will send their mail thorugh blocks taht were set up to avoid junk mail with other systems recources.  By doing this, the net will associate the innocent system as a spammer since spam mail is connected to their system.
4. Spammers are crooks and it is illegal.  Sending unauthorized email is illegal yet we still receive about 10 per day.  Half of the advertisement is fake, false, or useless.  It just wastes our time.

What can you do:
First of all, never respond to emails you don't recognize  Try to filter out the unwanted addresses and put blocks on them.  To find those pesky spammers, individuals need to pay attention to hearders.  Spammers try to hide in technical jargin that doesn't make sense.  There are many ways to find out if the headers are real.  Visit the site http://www.internetprivacyfordummies.com
Once you click on this site, click on tracking spammers, click on tracking spammers - part 1 deciphering email headers. Find what server you use and follow the directions on how to find the headers.
Second, join teh CAUCE and let your voice and opinion be heard.  This organization lobbies for laws and regulations that should be placed on spammers who want to invade our emails.  Every voice and help to try to make the government better teh laws to protect us from teh extra junk email.
Third, contact the government and let them know of the type of emails we're receiving.

When to contact the government:
If products don't work or don't exist, this should be reported ot hte US. Federal trade commission at uce@ftc.gov
If spam advertises stocks, we should report this to the US Securities and Exchange commission at enforcement@sec.gov
Lastly, this is the big one too, porn is seen in a lot of spam advertisement, but if you suspect criminal activity it should be repeorted to the F.B.I.  If spam contains minors in the porn then notify teh National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Government has to take action in these cases because they are break federal laws and not just Internet laws.  Hopefully  by working together we can crack down on spammers and put an end to their illegal operations.