How to Deal With Spam

by Gary Hall

There are many things in our daily lives that are annoying such as dropped cell phone calls or loosing the cable remote (or any remote for that matter) but to some none as annoying as the flood of unwanted emails we receive in our inbox each day. This unwanted visitor is quickly ranking ahead of junk mail and telesales calls at dinner as the number one aggravation of a consumer society. This annoyance even has a cute name: "spam" which is properly defined as unsolicited email

sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 34 percent of the respondents say it is sometimes hard to get the messages they want from their work e-mail accounts due to spam. This number rises dramatically to 55 percent for respondents personal e-mail accounts. If spam is so annoy-ing why does it continue and seem to grow in volume?

The answer is spam is a relatively low cost operation for those who send it. The key components which include the message, mailing list and an e-mail account cost very little to acquire. Spam messages can be written by anyone and mailing lists can be had for next to nothing. A quick search on Google results in services providing unlimited access to over a million e-mail addresses for $10 a month. Software programs that provide the ability to bulk e-mail are also readily available and inexpensive. With spammers having this low cost arsenal at their disposal the battle for your inbox seems to be tilted in their favor.

The arms race in the spam war has resulted in defensive technologies that can help stem the tide. Many anti-spam tools are available that can help significantly reduce the amount of spam that actually makes its way into your mailbox. These software tools can include a "gatekeeper" for your e-mail which utilizes lists of what e-mail can make it into your mailbox, much like the doorman at a popular dance club deciding who can enter and who will have to wait out on the street. The gatekeeper utilizes lists of known trusted addresses to validate the e-mail. A "whitelist" is used to allow e-mail to enter your inbox from a trusted address and a "blacklist" is used to block any e-mail from addresses on the list. Both types of list are much more effective when combined with other anti-spam tecniques as it is difficult to continually maintain lists of all acceptable and unacceptable e-mail addresses.

Another technique that is helpful is filtering incoming e-mail for certain key words and automatically routing them to a junk mail folder for inspection and deletion. Content based filters look for specific words and patterns in e-mails. Rules can be established looking for phrases such as "Low Interest Mort-gages" or "Work from Home" to name a few. Filtering can be an effective anti-spam tool and combined with gatekeeper tools such as whitelists and black-lists your spam aggravation can be dramatically reduced.

Federal and state governments are also coming to the rescue with legislation proposed to help stem the tide of spam. The federal government enacted the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 which takes an "opt-out" approach allowing companies to send unsolicited emails until the recipient requests to be removed from their distribution list. The legislation also provides entities such as the Federal Trade Commission, State Attorneys General and Internet Service Providers the ability to bring litigation against alleged spammers which can result in monetary penalties and possible jail time in the federal penitentiary.

Unfortunately spam is going to be a part of our daily lives for some time to come but that doesn't mean you can't do some things to win back control of your e-mail. With the proper tools and some diligence you may be able to once again find peace with your inbox.

Gary Hall is CEO of Arsalon Technologies. He can be reached at: 913.339.6260 ext. 59 or by e-mail at gary@arsalon.net