The Painful Cost of SPAM
By Gilberto CintronThis article can be reprinted in your ezine, newsletter or website providing you keep my bylines in place. About the author: Gilberto Cintron, is the publisher of
The Money Making Affiliates Ezine mailto:subscribe@themoneymakingaffiliates.com and webmaster of http://www.themoneymakingaffiliates.com for a sample of his ezine, send a blank email to: mailto:ezine-samples@themoneymakingaffiliates.com
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The Painful Cost of SPAM
By Gilberto Cintron
I finally got my website to look the way I want it to. I have copies of all my beautiful work, work on my hard drive-- images, html, java scripts etc.
I also have all my important information on my computer, information like the url's to all the affiliate programs I belong to along with id and password information. My database everything, right here on my computer for me to make my internet business a complete success. Ahh, the joys of modern technology. Don't you just love it?
Suddenly, my computer system begins to act a little strange. Nothing out of the ordinary but I do notice it's a little slower than before. Afraid I may have a virus I run my anti-virus software. Thanks be, no virus. I say to myself it must be that there is to much data stored on my system. I begin to backup that data that I do not use everyday but that must be handy nevertheless.
Going against the computer gods best teachings, I set up various free email accounts and begin "marketing" -you know, posting on FFA's, free classifieds and the like. I collect all the email addresses from the "confirmation email" I get, and with some free bulkmailing software I had downloaded from one of those "free software" websites begin SPAMMING. Chucks, I get spam every day. So a tit for a tat. It's all good!
I manage to harvest thousands of email addresses. And a vicious cycle begins. I mail out thousands of unsolicited email, hoping that one of those addresses is legitimate and may be a potential customer. In return, I recive thousands upon thousands of "business pitchs". "It's here, The Big Bad Dogs!!!", "New opportunity, you better jump on this one", "The Miricle System that will earn you one trillion dollars while you sleep". "Act now the offer is only one for the first 20 subscribers!" "New amazing system drives traffic to your site like crazy, and it's FREE!" I must say, most of this email is just plain ludicrous. But others seem legit and peek my curiosity so I read them. This goes on for weeks, months even. Dammn, not one sale yet!
Gee, my computer system is sure acting funny. I better run another virus check. Nope, no virus here. Wow my system resources are very low, better add some memory. Man what could be wrong? My system is acting so strange. It just lags. Okay, I'll reformat my disk. So I back up every thing onto my zip drives, so that I can work on my other computer.
The process continues. I get and I send thousands of emails using my handy bulkmail software downloded gratis from the http://XYZ-free-software.com website. Now my second computer seems to be acting out too. What the heck can it be. I install more memory there too. No change. So again, I reformat my hard drive. And each time I lose a little of my data.
I reinstall it on my first system and the problem begins anew.
Finally, when I attempt to reinstall my data, all the files are corrupt. Thousands upon thousands of man hours in creating my website, collecting important research, building a data base, my affiliate program information etc all gone, just like that.
I get some updated anti virus detecting software, McAfee to be exact, and begin to scan my files again in hopes of salvaging at least some of the data. Guess what? I did have a virus. The darn thing was hidden way in my files just eating away at my resources, and my data. Needless to say, I lost over 75% of my work. Luckily, however, I was able to pinpoint the source of the infection. The good thing about that particular anti viral software is that it gives you all the information, like type of virus, and it's probable source -- I was infected with "W32/hybris.gen@mm" AKA Snow White & The 7 Dwarfs. It seems that this little bugger loves to eat .exe files and other system resources. And it disguises itself as a win.dll file making it very difficult to detect.
By the way, I got the virus from an email. The sender probably didnt even know they were infected, and I inturn probably infected others.
So, the moral of this story! Obey the Internet Gods, DO NOT SEND SPAM, and be careful, very careful of the SPAM you read. Remember, you have to get spam so that you can send spam and you'll never know what little bugger comes along for the ride.
Instead of bulkmailing, it's better to make a small investment in good software that will allow you to create your database in a clean, optin manner. Trying to outsmart the internet gods by just "harvesting email is a very dangerous proposition. Not only can you get infected but you can also be kicked off your web host and your name and email send to the SPAM police. Collecting email addresses from FFA doesnt work either, besides, most of the time there fake email addresses anyway. So if you want the precription, get yourself a copy of OPTIN LIGHTNING. It's really inexpensive but it's a great way to build your subscriber base without Spamming or the possiblity of contracting an STD -- "Spam Transmitted Disease". To learn more about this wonderful, life saving mail management script, go to http://themoneymakingaffiliates.com/optin.html
Hope this info helps, it sure helped me.
Gilberto Cintron, publisher
The Money Making Affiliates Ezine
http://themoneymakingaffiliates.com/ezine_subscribe.html
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