IP Addresses and Spam
There are over hundreds of thousands, if not more, of IP addresses used all over the world. The addresses are used to accurately identify the name and ownership association of a computer system, and can very often contain multiple IP addresses within one system or sets of systems.
Spam is also another one of those “things” that can be found on computers all over the world, and in large quantities as well. Spam is unwanted mail, and can be aggravating, annoying and to the recipient, a seemingly fruitless effort to fight. Getting rid of spam from computers can be a monumental task within itself, especially without the right tools and resources in place to help fight against it.
Identifying Spammers
IP addresses identify a person’s computer system, so therefore users may use an IP address to block unwanted mail. This works very much as in the same manner as blocking unwanted postal mail. A recipient can “block” their mail addresses from receiving unwanted mail from a designated company by requesting that the company places their address on their “Do Not Mail” list. The company is then not allowed to mail or contact the recipient by mail for any reason.
For IP addresses, there is a digital block placed on the computer system that identifies from which IP location the email is originating, and when there is mail launched from that IP address, the software will block it from getting to the recipient’s email inbox. Customers love this method, especially if they are accustomed to getting tons of spam email from different places. Very often, companies or hackers will try to “change” their IP addresses, but since IP addresses can be an accurate identifying mechanism, there is no way to mask what launches from that particular computer. This is helpful for customers or individual email addresses that want to block those IP addresses that come from well-known mail servers who constantly try to attach email addresses.
How Does It Work?
The software that’s written to identify spam mail works pretty simple and straightforward. The software is written to reject any spam mail that originates from mail servers by locating the remote server’s IP address, then using the ip4r format to convert the address to a domain name. Afterwards, there will usually be a name lookup to see if there is a database where the IP address may be listed.
IP addresses that are listed on blacklists don’t immediately suggest that the originating address is a spam sender; however, the blacklisted addresses simply signal the computer to not accept any mail from the originating address.
