Fighting back against spam

• Tags:
• Blocking,
• Junk Email,
• Unsolicited Email,
• Spammers

Becky Roberts

Published: 13 Nov 2003 11:10 GMT

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Just last week I received eight credit card offers, twelve sexually explicit ads, six ads for online pharmaceuticals, and numerous other solicitations all not so subtly designed to part me from my money. I’m being spammed on a daily basis.

Since the first spam, sent in 1978 by Einar Stefferud, this particularly irritating form of advertising has grown to where, according to a May 2003 article in Information Week, unprotected email users waste an average of 200 minutes processing spam for every 1,000 messages they receive -- adding up to an unbelievable 3.5 hours of lost productivity per person per month. And if the loss in productivity is not a sufficiently compelling reason to apply resources to the war on spam, just consider the ramifications of the offended employee shocked by the contents of a message bringing a hostile work environment suit against the company.

So if you’ve made the decision to filter incoming email, your next step is to determine exactly how. A basic search on the Internet will reveal a confusing plethora of alternative options, products, methods, and services. How do you decide which is the best choice for your environment? Regardless of whether you decide to utilise a service, purchase an add-on for your email server, buy a client-based product or filter at the periphery of your network, a basic understanding of spam-control methodologies will facilitate your decision-making process. Here’s an evaluative summary of a few of the methodologies most frequently employed.

Content filtering
(Example products/services: ESafe, GFI MailEssentials and SpamKiller)

This method scans the subject line and/or message contents for specified individual words and phrases. Most products that offer this form of filtering supply a canned list of words that can then be customised to meet your specific needs. While this method is appealing in its simplicity, it’s too crude to be seriously considered as a total solution. If the list of words and phrases is sufficiently comprehensive to block most spam, it will also block many legitimate messages, especially if used in a multilanguage environment. Word lists require a great deal of maintenance. Many spammers succeed in thwarting content filtering by disguising certain key words and by embedding all text within file types the scanner cannot read. Content filtering is a useful method when used as one aspect of a total solution.

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