Antispam. Aren't we all! Don't you just dislike it? You have actually got enough to do without having to sort through a lot of worthless, or worse yet, offending junk e-mails in your Inbox.
So what can be done about it? What antispam procedures and software truly work?
Spam filtering software application is the very first drop in your antispam campaign, however in some ways it's the simplest to overturn.
What this antispam tool does is inform your e-mail system to look for designated idea words-- sex, naked, porn, for example-- and to remove the messages which contain these clue words. Obviously, there are simple ways to get around these antispam techniques. Did you ever see a message that comes through with the word sex spelled s * e * x? Well, that asterisk approach has actually prevented your spam filter-- or the spam filter of your Internet and email company.
The other issue with this filter is that you might miss legitimate messages. A friend, for example, who might mail you that she was "sick of porn sites popping up" may have her message deleted because it contained the word pornography.
2 updated versions of these antispam filtering items are Bayesian and heuristic filters, which attempt to determine offensive messages through acknowledgment of expressions as objectionable. SpamAssassin by Apache is probably the very best known example of heuristic filtering. What these filters are doing that the more standard ones aren't is looking at the message itself rather than the subject here header. Both Bayesian and heuristic filters have an Achilles heel in that they depend for their filtering on frequency. Were a spammer to send a short message it would surpass.
To even more make complex things by punishing the "heros," major Internet service companies began merely considering batch emailing as possible spam. What this did, nevertheless, was to disrupt opt-in products such as e-zines and newsletters. So that didn't work well. The spammers themselves found a method around it anyhow. As they sent their batch messages they inserted a program that produced a version in each heading. Possibly a word that didn't even make sense, but still customized each message enough to have the batching not look like batching.
Some non-profit Internet guard dog companies began keeping lists of the IP addresses of spammers. When these addresses cropped up in mail they were blocked. The method around this for spammers was basic-- they changed IP addresses. The result was even worse, because those addresses then got given out to completely innocent folks who now had issues sending out e-mail. Then the spammers got actually aggressive and started producing and dispersing viruses enabling them to hijack IP addresses that weren't on the "spam" lists.
Where the response appears to lie for numerous businesses and their sites is to bypass basic e-mail interaction entirely and resort to online feedback kinds for electronic communication. Which of course does not resolve the antispam concern for private individuals who have no Website of their own.