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Anti Spam Software
Spam exits for the same reason as advertising – it makes people buy products. For every million pieces of spam deleted, someone out there buys the product. That, combined with the miniscule costs associated with sending spam, results in the massive amounts sent per day.
How Spammer Get Email Addresses There are several ways for spammers to get e-mail addresses. The easiest way is when people willingly register for spam. Many websites offer free products with e-mail registration, and then spam those who register. Also, these websites will often sell their registration lists, increasing the problem. Even without registration, spammers use programs to generate e-mail addresses, spamming John@yahoo.com, John1@yahoo.com, John3@yahoo.com, and so forth. The most deceitful method is the removal link. Many spam e-mails offer links to, “remove you from their list,” only to use this information to create another list of e-mail addresses for spamming purposes. The War Against Spam To combat spam, Congress enacted the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. This required labels and opt-out methods for all unsolicited commercial emails. However, critics say that this merely sets guidelines for legal spam, and refer to it as the "You-Can-Spam Act." In addition, the New York Times reports that the amount of spam has actually risen since the law passed. The War Against Spam, At Home In order to limit spam, software has been developed to identify and remove it from e-mail inboxes. This anti-spam software either works at the server level, identifying spam before it can be downloaded, or at the user level, identifying spam once it is downloaded to Microsoft Outlook or another e-mail client. A common anti-spam program at the user level is Norton Internet Security, which sorts e-mail into an inbox and spam into a “Norton Antispam Folder.” Web-based email servers, such as Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Gmail, sort emails into Inbox and spam locations as well. Some ISP servers also mark potential spam with the designation, “(SPAM),” in the subject line. How Anti-Spam Software Works Anti-spam software works in two ways: Bayesian spam filtering and filtering lists. Bayesian filtering scans e-mails for a list of words, creates a score based on that list of words, and marks e-mail above a certain score as spam. For example, if words such as Viagra, medication, and sale exist on the list of a filter, a spam message advertising Viagra would most likely be identified as spam. Filtering lists is simply the process of making lists of known spam e-mail addresses as well as safe addresses. Norton Internet Security offers this feature, utilizing what it calls a “Protected List” of e-mail addresses on the machine of each user. Problems with Anti-Spam Software Unfortunately, no software is perfect. A common way to bypass Bayesian filters is to misspell key words. For example, Viagra becomes “V14gra,” home loans become “h ome l0ans,” and sale becomes “s les.” To bypass lists, spammers change e-mail addresses, change servers, utilize free webmail to spam, and basically make themselves untraceable. However, the biggest problem with anti-spam software is falsely marking emails as spam. For example, some anti-spam software marks e-mails with a large list of recipients as spam. Consequently, an invitation for 15 guests to a party will likely be filtered as spam. Recommendations To minimize the problems of spam, here are a few recommendations. 1. Never buy anything advertised by spam; it will only perpetuate the problem. 2. Sign up for a free e-mail address and use it to register for any site that you find suspect. This will keep some spam away from your main address. 3. Use anti-spam software to filter all remaining spam. Be sure to check your spam folder for mis-identified e-mails. 4. Never reply or click on any links from unknown sources.
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