Terms and Glossary:
Anonymous remailers
Systems that allow their users to send email while hiding that user's true email identity. These type email services may allow anonymous posting to newsgroups. Anonymous remailers do have a legitimate use by providing a way for victims of abuse to communicate without revealing their identity. In most cases they are used to advertise online items for sale or web based opportunities illegally. Always research the header of an email to determine the origin of mail you suspect is spam.
Autoresponder
A web based application that sends out a pre-written response whenever email is sent to a particular email address.
BBS
This is an acronym for “bulletin board system”. These are message databases where people can log in and leave messages message grouped by topic for users of that application to see. Private messages for a particular user or users can be posted to this system as well. This is a popular form of exchanging files (computer programs, photos, etc.)
A medium that allows messages to be sent from one Internet user to another. Email can be traced back to the sender by viewing the header of that message. The header shows the domain the message came from and also any other passed through on its way to the destination mailbox.
Flame
A flame is a message that is negatively harsh, and most times don’t appear to make sense to the recipient. In other words, a flame in most cases is when someone sends a mail to another person expressing anger by using insults and negative remarks.
Gateway
A point in the Internet network that serves as an entry point to another network. A good example would be the server that employees of a company have in place to access the Internet.
Hacker
Despite the socially accepted definition, a Hacker a person who enjoys learning how applications work and how to modify them. They are usually computer programmers. There is a minority of them though that attempts to gain access into secure websites for illegal purposes and also spend time attempting to defeat copyright protection for digital products. Those few, cast a negative prejudice on the true meaning of the word.
Internet
A network of multiple computers connected by telecommunication networks. These computers communicate by using a standard of protocols called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).
IP address
A user of a TCP/IP system must have a method to identify who they are to the Internet. To manage this, they are assigned a unique identifier called an IP address. The user’s ISP assigns this to them from a range of IP numbers they have available to them.
ISP
This stands for “internet service provider”. An organization that provides you access to the Internet.
Mailbomb
When someone attempts to send so much mail to a mailbox that the target mailbox becomes overloaded, that mailbox becomes inaccessible. This can sometimes cripple or shut down the server that manages that mailbox. This is an illegal activity, and done by people with malicious intentions.
MLM
An acronym for multi-level marketing.
Network
Groups of computers linked to each other to share information resources, but physically in separate locations.
Newsgroup, Usenet
Usenet is a discussion forum (newsgroup) that is available to Internet users whose ISP supports them. This is a very popular organization and site, that includes members from all parts of the globe.
Packet
A unit of data sent across a network. When any data is sent across the Internet, it is broken into sections of data, and each section (the packet) is sent until all the sections arrive at their destination where they are reassembled to the form meant for the recipient.
Signature or sig line
Text that is appended to the bottom of an email. Most email clients
have this option that allows you to pre-write a signature line. When
you send an email, you can choose to allow your email client to append
this line to the bottom of the email you send out.