Antispam. Aren't we all! Don't you just dislike it? You've got enough to do without having to sort through a bunch of useless, or worse yet, offending scrap e-mails in your Inbox.
So what can be done about it? What antispam treatments and software application really work?
Spam filtering software application is the first drop in your antispam campaign, but in some ways it's the easiest to overturn.
What this antispam tool does is tell your email system to look for designated clue words-- sex, naked, porn, for example-- and to get rid of the messages which contain these idea words. Of course, there are easy ways to navigate these antispam tactics. Did you ever see a message that comes through with the word sex oglasi zaposao spelled s * e * x? Well, that asterisk technique has actually circumvented your spam filter-- or the spam filter of your Internet and email provider.
The other problem with this filter is that you might miss out on genuine messages. A pal, for instance, who might mail you that she was "sick of porn websites popping up" may have her message erased because it included the word porn.
Two updated versions of these antispam filtering products are Bayesian and heuristic filters, which try to recognize offensive messages through recognition of expressions as objectionable. SpamAssassin by Apache is most likely the best known example of heuristic filtering. What these filters are doing that the more fundamental ones aren't is taking a look at the message itself rather than the subject header. Both Bayesian and heuristic filters have an Achilles heel because they depend for their filtering on frequency. Were a spammer to send a brief message it would get past.
To even more complicate things by punishing the "heros," significant Web service companies started simply thinking about batch emailing as potential spam. What this did, nevertheless, was to interrupt opt-in items such as e-zines and newsletters. So that didn't work well. The spammers themselves found a way around it anyway. As they sent their batch messages they placed a program that produced a variant in each heading. Perhaps a word that didn't even make good sense, but still individualized each message enough to have the batching not look like batching.
Some non-profit Internet watchdog firms began keeping lists of the IP addresses of spammers. When these addresses turned up in mail they were blocked. The method around this for spammers was basic-- they altered IP addresses. The outcome was even worse, because those addresses then got handed out to entirely innocent folks who now had problems sending email. Then the spammers got truly aggressive and started producing and distributing viruses enabling them to pirate IP addresses that weren't on the "spam" lists.
Where the answer seems to lie for lots of organizations and their websites is to bypass basic email communication altogether and resort to online feedback types for electronic interaction. Which naturally does not solve the antispam issue for personal people who have no Website of their own.