Experiment Shows Spam Threat

By Digital Trends Staff July 1, 2008

Ever wondered what those spam filters can do for you and your computer? To see just how effective they could be, and what life might be like without them, security company McAfee invited 50 people from various countries to spend a month living the online life without them.

The results proved very interesting, showing the US to be the most-spammed country, with participants there receiving over 23,000 spam mails during the month, followed by Brazil with just under 16,000. The UK clocked almost 12,000, while the lest-spammed country was Germany, where participants only got 2,300 spam messages.

Some 8% of the mails proved to be phishing messages, and a number of those taking part noticed their computers slowing, meaning malware had been installed when visiting websites.

Dave De Walt, chief executive of McAfee, told the BBC:

"Our participants came from all walks of life, from all over the world and, given their interest to take part in the experiment, they were well aware of the problem. Despite this, they were all shocked by the sheer amount of spam they attracted. We can see from the experiment that spam is undeniably linked to cybercrime. However, it is such an immense problem and it’s never going to go away. It’s no longer a question of solving it but one of managing it,"

Editors' Recommendations

Digital Trends Staff

Digital Trends has a simple mission: to help readers easily understand how tech affects the way they live. We are your…

Computing

‘Take this as a threat’ — Copilot is getting unhinged again

A screenshot of Copilot's unhinged responses on a screen.

The AI bots are going nuts again. Microsoft Copilot -- a rebranded version of Bing Chat -- is getting stuck in some old ways by providing strange, uncanny, and sometimes downright unsettling responses. And it all has to do with emojis.

A post on the ChatGPT subreddit is currently making the rounds with a specific prompt about emojis. The post itself, as well as the hundreds of comments below, show different variations of Copilot providing unhinged responses to the prompt. I assumed they were fake -- it wouldn't be the first time we've seen similar photos -- so imagine my surprise when the prompt produced similarly unsettling responses for me.

Computing

How to unsubscribe from unwanted emails and newsletters

Close up of a person's hands as they type on a laptop's keyboard.

Many times, we sign up to receive email newsletters from companies that interest us. Emails like this are considered subscription messages. You receive them on a regular basis, like clockwork.

But then there are those other emails we get that we didn’t sign up for. They may come from sites that capture your email address or companies that obtain email address lists from others. Unfortunately, you can end up on a subscription list where you start receiving these unwanted messages constantly.

Computing

How to block an email address in Gmail to stop spam

A person expressing angry emotion at a computer.

Google makes it easy to unsubscribe from mailing lists, but spam or phishing emails can still slip through. If you need to block an email address on Gmail, do the following:

Open an email from the sender you would like to block.
Click on the Dots icon in the upper right-hand corner.
Select Block.