Email spam, which is also known as (UBE's) or unsolicited bulk email or commercial email is the very method that hackers and black hat marketers who send unwanted and unneeded emails that are loaded with commercial messages and content in huge quantities and with a frequency that is highly repetitive. It really become one of the first problems when the internet went from becoming a military tool to a consumer tool in the early 1990's.

When is started, it was a niggling problem, viewed as a joke to some and as a way to make money to others, but as time goes by, it grew to a level where it has taken over almost 90% of the public and some private email networks in the digital super corridor today. Today, it has been said that every 10 emails that are sent out on a daily basis, almost 5 – 7 of them are considered to be spam email. Spam email or junk email is the premier cause of time wasting as we end users have to deal with combing through the deluge of emails that have conquered our inbox, sparring with an anti-spam email system that doesn't do its job well (sometimes routing your important emails to your junk folder).

These emails are actually sent from, most commonly, and most surprisingly, from the victims themselves. In a sense, it means that the point of origin is usually temporal, and the hacker creates a worm that contains the commercial messages and of course a backdoor. The worm is sent to an unsuspecting victim, usually within a low security network and then the worm does its magic. It infiltrates the system and gathers the information it needs, which is usually the email lists, instant messenger lists - any sort of information that can be used to reproduce the circular system. Once the worm gets the information it needs, it replicates itself as a small file or unassuming programme and sends itself through the email lists. The process is repeated again and again - and the entire network then becomes a zombie network where these commercial messages get reproduced and sent out by computers plugged into the network.

These networks can contain as little as a few hundred to even a million (or more computers) so you can see the enormity of the problem. This means that the probability of junk mail getting to your inbox multiplies every day. This means that the chances of you getting your time wasted is exponentially increased as the days go by. This means only one thing, you need to get a spam blocker to stop junk email wasting your time. Once you realise that it is an integral part of your daily digital communication practices, then and only then can you safely traverse the landscape of emails. A spam blocker is the bane of junk mail and it should be in every computer that is plugged into the internet. There are many good ones online, so all you have to do is search, click and download.