At 1:07 PM -0400 3/18/03, Ian Wilson wrote:
brings me to my question, It seems rather easy for me to use
filters in Outlook Express to filter a great deal of this trash,
which makes me wonder if it isn't just as easy to do at the Mail
Server. Could my ISP filter as much of this junk as I now do, and
if so isn't putting pressure on our ISP's a good place to start.
When you make a mistake with your filter, you find the good message
in the spam folder and move it out. When your ISP makes a mistake,
you never get the message. When you get a message with Viagra in the
subject, you filter it to the spam folder. When someone at Pfizer
does, it's an important message.
So, ISPs can filter. But it's not that easy. In fact, most major
ISPs *are* filtering. But they can't block everything without
blocking too much real email.
indicates the SPAMMERS didn't actually send the message using Yahoo.
This makes me wonder is it possible, at the mail server level to
check and see if a return address is forged?
Currently, no. That is one the primary discussion areas on this
list. It's complicated by the fact that "forging" the return address
is something that people do all the time. You send personal mail
from work and set the return to your hotmail address. You send work
mail from home and set the return to your work address. Both
reasonable things to want to do.
they are offering. It seemed to indicate that it would use the
resources of everyone who subscribes to gather a database of
SPAMMERS. When one arrives at my mail box I bounce it in the normal
way, and that bounced message is
No comments on specific solutions. The general problems with systems
like that are
1. False positives. One group of people thinks that the mail they
get from Classmates.com is spam, another thinks it's not. If too
many people report it as spam, the second group loses.
2. Coming up with algorithms that detect bulk spam. The spammers
send out thousands or even tens of thousands of different variations
of the same message. Many of those variations aren't visible to your
eye (hidden codes in the message)--but software that tries to detect
similarities needs to detect the "eye space"--what you see, not what
is actually there.
--
Kee Hinckley
http://www.puremessaging.com/ Junk-Free Email Filtering
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/ Writings on Technology and Society
I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.
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