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• Black List/White List (Score:2)

  by Ovid (2709)

  Eventually, I suspect that most email software will implement blacklist/whitelist technologies. If a domain/user is on your blacklist, they get discarded. Period. If they are on your whitelist, they get accepted. If they are on neither, any email received will receive an "auto-reply" saying "please respond with an email message requesting that you be added to my white list". Spammers will thus be forced to respond to millions of "whitelist" requests. (the auto response could also simply be informing th
  • Re:Black List/White List (Score:1)

    by godoy (2167)

    There are already programs like that.
    
    They demand the answer you talked about. It will, certainly, remove some spammers that use invalid addresses.
    
    On the other hand, the easiness is not that great. See: I'm subscribed to several mailing lists; I see a post from John Doe asking something silly about XYZ's software; I'm in a good mood (this is very important to answer a silly question); I send John Doe an answer and his mail server demands another message from me. I'm sorry, John, I'm not in a good mood anym

    --
    -- Godoy.
    • Re:Black List/White List (Score:2)

      by Ovid (2709)

      I agree that Bayesian filters are a great way to go, but I still think that blacklist/whitelist systems can work.

      There are a couple of potential ways to get around the issue you mentioned. If you have a mailing list on your whitelist, than any email that is sent to or CC'd to the mailing list could make it past a whitelist. Of course, that also requires that whoever manages the mailing list take the time to manage the spam. I'm only on "members only" lists and that takes care of the problem quite nicel
      • Re:Black List/White List (Score:1)

        by godoy (2167) on 2003.02.04 20:30 (#16719) Homepage Journal

        The only problem I see with that scenario is spammers copying a mailing list with every email and having that mailing list slip past your filters. However, at that point, with the spammer sending millions of emails, how can he or she possibly know which mailing lists go past your filters? The amount of work necessary to figure out how to get past the filters would be ridiculous.

        
        
        I receive a lot of computer related spam. I suppose they can use messages from the same place where they harvested my email or something like that.
        
        

        One problem with Bayesian filters is the "conversational style" spam which is becoming more frequent. As that is often difficult for a Bayesian filter to detect, the whitelist becomes perfect for it. Not that I'm knocking Bayesian filters, mind you. It's an awesome tool :)

        
        
        Please, don't take me as a bayesian zealot! I'm not. :-) I'm just impressed with how effective it is. In fact, I think that a combination of some methods is the most effective solution.

        --
        -- Godoy.

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