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Spam is a scourge nearly as old as the Internet. In fact, the first spam was sent many years before the term was even used. On May 1, 1978 a tech savvy marketing agent sent every contact he had an advertisement for something they didn't ask for. What was it? Ironically, computer equipment.

It would not be until 1985 that the term spam got attached to the act of flooding computer users with junk they didn't ask for. A player on an early networked game sent the message: "spam spam spam" (in reference to the the Monty Python song) over and over until he was booted from the game.

Now when we think of spam we are usually referring to the email ads for larger body parts or a paycheck from someone in small country we didn't previously know about. Spammers also infest blogs and Internet forums, clogging the comments with useless ads for their junk wares. The next time you have to squint and copy some heavily twisted letters into a box to prove you are human (the CAPTCHA test), thank a spammer and their automated posting tools.

Were did you get this email address?

Ever wonder how a spammer got your email address in the first place? It's likely they used a bot to snatch it of the web. Spammers use software programs to visit thousands of websites searching for email addresses and harvesting them into massive lists. It's also possible that they purchased it. Many spammers do a brisk business in the buying and selling of your information.

But I didn't send that junk!

Have you ever gotten an angry email from someone claiming that you spammed them? Or stranger yet, gotten a message that appears to be from yourself? Spammers very rarely use valid email addresses. Usually their purpose is to get you to click a link in the message. Faking the From line is a trivial task. It's just like writing a letter and putting a false return address on the envelope. Just as with real mail, there are signs of tampering if you look hard enough, but to a casual eye, it can be deceiving.

It's also possible that your computer has been hijacked. Spammers and virus writers often work together to create programs that once they infect your system will send junk in your name. This serves two purposes: it hides the spammer and it helps the garbage get past automated filters since it really does look like it comes from a trusted source.

Why they Spam

The cost to the spammer is nearly zero. If they have hijacked a server, or are using thousands of virus infected computers to blast their offers out, the cost is

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