OpenEuphoria

Re: Anyone want to write an "intelligent" mail filter?

• Posted by Irv Mullins <irvm at ellijay.com> Nov 05, 2003
• 645 views

On Tuesday 04 November 2003 07:47 pm, C.K. wrote:

> I think the best way to combat spam is to create a "white list" (as
> opposed to a "black list").
>
> Any mail received that's not on your white list will be rejected as
> spam. The white list can simply be your address book.

You're absolutely right about the 'whitelist'. That would be the first step - 
or rule - to automatically let emails from friends and clients on your 
whitelist thru. 

> Okay, so how to deal with mail from friends who get new email addresses
> or whatever? Well, the email client will send a response email to all
> non-whitelist email addresses. It will say something like this:
>
> "Hi, I'm using Irv's Mail Control v1.0. It rocks! It has flagged you as
> an unacceptable sender. However, if you're my buddy, simply respond to
> this email and I'll let you in!"

But if this idea becomes widely used, then it will just verify your address 
as valid for the spammer's next list. 

> Since most spam is auto generated, you won't get responses from most
> spammed mail. Any bouncebacks will be handled gracefully by the email
> client. Any responses you get at all will go into a special "check
> these" folder. Any of those that you mark as spam will then forever be
> known as spam. Any you mark as valid will be added to your whitelist.

OK, but the spammers almost never use the same address more than once, 
and it's almost always forged. And, during the most recent virus attacks, 
some of the forged addresses were addresses which would have appeared 
in my whitelist. So I'm not so sure how useful that would be.

> This is the best way to combat spam, even though it might require a
> little effort in adding addresses to your whitelist.

Maybe the *best* way would be to host a few Texas 'necktie parties' for 
the spammers.  I understand that there are only 2 or 3 hundred notorious 
spammers who do 90% of the damage. If they aren't stopped, then e-mail 
will become useless. It's too good a tool to lose to low-lifes.

Irv