5 killer ways to eradicate junk mail
If it seems like you're getting more spam than ever, take comfort - the junk email tide may be about to turn. Until recently, antispam forces thought there was no way to catch enough unwanted mail to make a difference. As quickly as programmers added filters, spammers came up with new ways to spell v!agra, $ex, and f*ck. But now a raft of smarter filtering techniques - from rules-based analysis to artificial intelligence - promises to better shield your inbox. Here's how the most effective software works.
1. Blacklist It
A real-time blacklist identifies the IP address of the spam sender's computer, then advises its subscribers' ISPs to block mail from that address. This method is very effective, but it inevitably leads to a cat-and-mouse game between spammers and blockers - and legit messages sometimes get bounced. SpamCop (www.spamcop.net) claims its Unix-based RBL catches 80 to 90 percent of unwanted mail.
2. Vote It Off the Island
Distributed identification lets a community of peer-to-peer users flag spam for one another. Once enough recipients object to a particular message, it's automatically transferred to everyone else's spam folders. SpamNet, an Outlook add-on from Cloudmark of San Francisco, pioneered this approach and says it's more than 90 percent effective.
3. Profile It
Heuristic analysis software looks for invalid message IDs, bugs, and other telltale spam traits - as defined by an evolving set of rules - and develops a numerical score for each incoming email. If the score hits a designated limit, the email is blocked. Sometimes legitimate messages get velvet-roped as well. The popular SpamAssassin (spamassassin.org) nails more than 95 percent of spam this way, but the open source app is also moving toward Bayesian filtering.
4. Outsmart It
Bayesian filtering, the most promising new technique, doesn't adhere to any particular set of rules - it learns and relearns how to spot spam by scanning the mail you've read and the mail you've rejected. The AI filter calculates probabilities based on each email's most unusual characteristics. Before long, it knows what kind of email to deliver - and what to toss. Popular in the open source community and expected to be adopted commercially in the next year, this method filters out more than 99 percent of unwanted messages.
5. Slap a Label on It
With labeling, senders simply mark messages as legit or spam. More than 25 states already require senders to label (or limit) spam, and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig wants federal labeling legislation with a bounty for nabbing spammers. Habeas of Palo Alto, California, has a private-sector approach: embedded haiku. To help companies or individuals brand email as legitimate, it's pushing the use of a copyrighted poem ("winter into spring/brightly anticipated/like Habeas SWE") in message headers. Violators can be sued.
Words to Avoid
What's the most obvious spam tip-off? Ask SpamArchive.org. Its parent, email security firm CipherTrust, combed through more than 250,000 junk emails for Wired and identified the telltale signs that you've got spam.
Top 25 subject-line words and symbols:
Fwd, Free, Get, FREE, $, !, SPAM, You, Your, Norton, Credit, Save, 000, Now, Check, Year, Make, Sale, Money, DVD, just, now, Lose, software, Earn
Top 25 phrases in body text:
opt-in, now!, offers, most, partners, 999, fulfillment, yamato, naviant, partner, removal, recurring, mailings, free!, assistant, enjoy, grocers, mailing, subscriber, cash, sun, rewarding, buy, today!, marketing
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