Design Services: Website Design Insight

Bayesian spam filtering is the process of using Bayesian statistical methods to classify documents into categories. Bayesian filtering gained attention when it was described in the paper A Plan for Spam by Paul Graham, and has become a popular mechanism to distinguish illegitimate spam email from legitimate “ham” email.

blogging

The practice of posting entries in your weblog. A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”.

Common Gateway Interface

An important World Wide Web technology that enables a client web browser to request data from a program executed on the Web server. CGI specifies a standard for passing request data between a web server and the program used to service that request.

database

A collection of information that has been systematically organized for easy access and analysis. Examples include: Web site search and online stores/shopping carts.

domain

A sub-set of internet addresses. Top-level domains are divided into .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .gov and .edu. Apart from these there are also country-specific domain extensions like .ca, .com.au, .co.za, .fr etc. In SEO it is generally accepted that having a keyword-rich domain is beneficial.

File Transfer Protocol

A commonly used protocol for exchanging files over any network that supports the TCP/IP protocol (such as the Internet or an intranet).

ham

Good, non-spam email, that you actually want to receive.

Linux

A computer operating system that is one of the most prominent examples of free software and of open-source development: unlike proprietary operating systems such as Windows and Mac OS, all of its underlying source code is available to the public and anyone can freely use, modify, improve, and redistribute it.

pharming

Pharming is the exploitation of a vulnerability in the DNS server software that allows a hacker to acquire the Domain Name for a site, and to redirect traffic to that website to another web site. DNS servers are the machines responsible for resolving internet names into their real addresses - the “signposts” of the internet. This type of attack involves Trojan horse, worms or other technologies that attack the browser address bar, thus redirecting the user to a fraudulent Web site when the user types in a legitimate address.

phishing

In computing, phishing is a form of social engineering, characterised by attempts to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication, such as an email or an instant message. The term phishing arises from the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to “fish” for users’ financial information and passwords.

poisoning

Poisoning a DNS server involves changing the specific record for a domain, which results in sending the user to a Web site different from the one intended unbeknownst to the user.

RSS Feed

RSS is a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by news websites and weblogs. They are used to provide items containing short descriptions of web content together with a link to the full version of the content. This information is delivered as an XML file called RSS feed, webfeed, RSS stream, or RSS channel.

server

In computing, a server is a software application that carries out some task (i.e. provides a service) on behalf of yet another piece of software called a client.

spam

1. (n.) A spam message is an unsolicited, usually commercial e-mail message. It is also referred to as UCE, or unsolicited commercial e-mail. From the sender’s point-of-view, it’s a form of bulk mail, often to a list culled from subscribers to a Usenet discussion group or obtained by companies that specialize in creating e-mail distribution lists. To the receiver, it usually seems like junk e-mail.
2. (v.) The practice of sending massive amounts of e-mail promotions or advertisements (and scams) to people that have not asked for it. Spam mail is controversial and there are many levels of definitions for it.

spammers

The perpetrators of email spam, who send nearly identical messages to thousands (or millions) of recipients. Spammers often harvest addresses of prospective recipients from Usenet postings or from web pages, obtain them from databases, or simply guess them by using common names and domains. By definition, spam occurs without the permission of the recipients.

SURBL

Spam URL Realtime Blocklists
SURBLs differ from most other RBLs (Realtime Block Lists) in that they’re used to detect spam based on message body URIs (usually web sites). Unlike most other RBLs, SURBLs are not used to block spam senders. Instead they allow you to block messages that have spam hosts which are mentioned in message bodies. From SURBL.org

toolbar

Toolbars are seen in common applications such as Microsoft Word, and as add-ons for web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

 

W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential.