Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam ...

Spammers only send what makes them money. There still are people who believe they can get 20% for helping the widow of an assassinated Nigerian prince spirit her late husband’s fortune out of the country. And people who believe they won Real Money in an overseas lottery. Those are called advance fee scams – you need to send them some money to prime the pump. Those nice Russian girls who want to meet you need plane fare, but for some reason not a single one of them has ever been able to find the airport after receiving travel funds. Magic pills that lose weight or improve your performance? Counterfeit with unknown ingredients and impurities. Magic pills that enlarge a body part? Impossible, but suckers buy them anyway. That’s free money for them. You send them money in the naïve belief that you’ll get something for it, and they keep it in some far-away country with flexible legal systems or lack thereof. As long as suckers keep sending them free money, they’ll keep sending spam that asks for it.

Or click here or open this attachment for an amazing opportunity. Or to get a mis-delivered package from the Postal Service, FedEx, UPS, DHL, or other courier or to open a bogus greeting card. Or purportedly from a real newspaper reporting the the pop tart du jour's latest indiscretions or another chemically enhanced ball player. They're all bogus, they're all illegal, and they'll all get you one way or another if you let them. Most of them try to install some sort of nefarious software on your computer that watches what you type, looking for usernames/account numbers and passwords, turns your computer into a spam generator, or does something else not to your benefit. If you're lucky your anti-virus will block it, but that stuff too often slips right past the best anti-virus products.

Also dangerous are "phishing" E-mails asking you to validate your bank / credit card / Facebook account's username and password or make a payment. Click there and you can give some Internet crook the keys to your bank / credit card / Facebook account or maybe just slip some evil software right past your anti-virus and put it to work against you.

In short, don't open any attachments you aren't expecting and don't click any links in any E-mail. If you really want to visit a web site, open your browser and type its address yourself.

One source of free money actually pays, but it’s illegal. Criminals recruit innocent individuals called mules to open bank accounts for them, deposit their ill-gotten gains in their innocent partners’ accounts, and then the partners give most of it back to the criminals, keeping a percentage for themselves for their trouble. That’s called money laundering. The FBI is good at detecting it and the prosecution is good at getting prison sentences.

Clicking an unsubscribe link in a legitimate message is safe and will get you unsubscribed. Clicking any link in spam, including an unsubscribe link, can validate your address, earning you more spam. Configure your mail reader not to download images without your permission, and don’t give permission unless you know the sender. Downloading images in spam can also earn you more spam.

Don't bother marking anything as spam and don't click any links, not even an unsubscribe link. Just delete it and move on.