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So where does
all this leave us? The technical fight over spam is ongoing.
Spammers change techniques as soon as the anti-spammers come up
with ways to block messages. A new IP address, server name and
sending domain can be changed with a simple call to the local
phone company. In fact, many of the spam messages sent are from
cable-modems and dsl lines. These spammers won’t be blocked with
a blacklist server or known server list. These messages will
only be blocked if the administrator has technology in place to
watch for trends and the spammer follows those trends. The fact
is that you will never block all of the spam unless you block
all of the mail and only allow specific people to send something
to you. Other than that, it is a numbers game and a struggle.
The goal is to get software and a process in place that makes it
easy enough for you to block as much spam as possible without
creating too much additional work. In essence, save the company
a lot of time, by spending a little administrative effort.
For a
business to fight spam effectively, a three-prong approach is in
order:
1)
Provide an
intelligent means to scan inbound messages for spam
2)
Provide a means to
allow your end-users to identify spam
3)
Provide a means to
allow your administrators to allow list exceptions and to apply
new filters
Most
anti-spam software comes with default filters and text searches,
but some intelligence is needed in the solution to assign
“points” to a message based on certain items. In other words, if
the message contains a word listed in the offensive word list,
the message gets a certain amount of points. If the message was
sent by a server and the DNS name does not match the IP address
of the sending server, the message gets assigned a designated
point. If the message is assigned enough total points, the
message is flagged as spam and moved to an alternative location.
Second,
messages will eventually get through because of a new technique.
A user may get this message instead of an administrator and if
the anti-spam tool does not learn of this new technique, then
others may also receive the new spam messages. It is important
that a mechanism is put into place to allow end-users to
identify messages and for the “spam pattern” or technique to
become incorporated into the anti-spam software.
Lastly, the
administrators need the ability to allow messages or disallow
messages based on identified criteria. In other words, perhaps
you want to receive messages from a company that would
normally be considered a spam sender or you have identified a
new technique and need to add that knowledge to the logic of the
anti-spam tool. In order to learn and adapt from these changes
and exceptions, the technology you implement needs to be able to
easily address these issues.
In summary,
the solution to the spam problem will be a combination of
legislature and technology. Currently, our choice is technology
and it needs to come fast as it is estimated that 2 trillion
“junk mail” messages will be sent this year along. The most
frightening part of this number is that it is growing.
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