The Spam Problem Explained - by Martell Firing

Spam is junk commercial email. We suffer from spam because, for the sender, it produces large profits if sent in sufficient quantity. And because it is profitable -- yes, people do buy things in response to spam -- it is very hard to stop. Spammers are resourceful people with no moral scruples or sense of responsibility, but they're not dumb.

In spite of anti-spam laws proposed and on the books, spam doesn't stop. It just moves. Today most of the spam is being generated and consumed within the USA. But tomorrow, in a flash, it could just as well come from China or North Korea or Somalia. The internet is an international phenomenon and no international law is universally enforced. So you can expect spam to be around for quite a long time.

Anti-Spam Methods

If you are annoyed by spam in your email, as most of us are, there are many ways to reduce it. Each method has its benefits and disadvantages. Here's a quick summary of the methods in use today.

Filters - Filter software attempts to block spam by having a program read and interpret (censor) the email. Most of the modern filters use a method of learning from the user what he considers spam and what is not. This can produce good but not perfect results, so filters occasionally miss a spam or block a legitimate email. The advantage of the filter is that it seems quite automatic. Disadvantages of filter method are that it can take a significant amount of time to analyze the mail and it isn't 100% accurate.

Blacklists - The idea behind a blacklist is to catalog the spammers' addresses and block all mail from those addresses. This is, obviously, an enormous task, since spammers frequently change addresses or even send their spam from addresses they don't own. So blacklists are hazardous and always one step behind the spammers. But they're OK if you trust the compiler of the list and he keeps it current.

Trusted Senders- Some vendors have tried to build systems based on trusted senders, the idea being that someone certifies the sender as a legitimate email source. It is a monumental task. This hasn't proven very popular or workable because most people don't want to leave this judgement in the hands of a stranger or a large institution that maintains lists of "approved" email addresses.

Whitelists - The whitelist is a list of addresses from which you are willing to receive mail. Some vendors call it a "friends" list. Your address book is a good source to start building a whitelist and a good whitelist based program will automatically add to your whitelist any address you send mail to. The weakness of the whitelist is that it doesn't know the addresses of legitimate strangers, such as merchants, who send you mail.

Previews- As an aid to the whitelist or sometimes in lieu of it, some anti-spam programs provide a Preview mode that lets you see and manage mail while it is still on the mail server. This prevents spam-born viruses, spyware, worms, trojans and other malware from ever arriving into your inbox. The disadvantage of this is that it takes manual effort to manage.

Challenge/Response- Since most spam is sent by robots and/or from invalid addresses an anti-spam program that sends a "challenge" message to an unknown email sender can block spam. Upon receipt of the challenge the legitimate human sender will respond via some action that can't be done by a robot, such as typing in a few numbers or letters. When this response is received, the sender's address and email message are validated. All challenges not responded to or bounced are presumed to be spam. The only disadvantage of this is that some email you want is sent by robots -- such as the sales confirmation from a web merchant.

Spam-Free-Channel - This method automatically certifies each email that is sent out, then validates that email when it is received. Because the certification method can't be used for mass-mail (i.e., spam), it actually prevents spam from being sent in the first place. All email sent and received through the Spam-Free-Channel is guaranteed not to be mass mail spam. The advantages are simplicity, speed, and 100% unambiguous spam elimination. It passes good mail, even from strangers and completely blocks spam at the source. The disadvantage is that not everyone uses it yet, so for now the software must include support from other anti-spam methods.

What's Available Today

There are programs available today that use one or sometimes several of the methods described above. Most of these programs are easy to install although some work with only a selection of email clients. So check this before buying.

Only one program provides a Spam-Free-Channel. This program, UseBestMail, combines the Whitelist, Preview, and Challenge Response methods with the Spam-Free-Channel to enable 100% spam prevention immediately. And when a group of people use it, they are provided with the equivalent of a gated, spam-free community.
You'll find links to many of these programs on this web site.

www.usebestmail.com

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