Spam Fighting Tools

This post goes hand-in-hand with a previous post where I list some of my favorite Internet related tools. In the following paragraphs I briefly describe some of the spam fighting tools I use.

Spam is a problem as you've undoubtedly known about for some time now. Part of the problem is that many web sites force users to provide a valid e-mail address when registering and then turn around and sell your e-mail to spammers. That's where SpamGourmet comes in. With this service, you can link a valid e-mail address to any number of made-up e-mail addresses. You never have to give out your real e-mail address and junk e-mail sent to the made-up e-mail addresses is automatically deleted before it ever gets to you. This service is free.

To deal with the spam that you're already receiving, I recommend taking a look at Cloudmark's SpamNet. This is the only spam tool I've found that doesn't need to be trained with complex e-mail filters. Its power lies in using the input of hundreds of thousands of users that collectively decide what is spam and what isn't. Note that you'll need Outlook to use it. The SpamNet service used to be free, but now has a monthly charge.

The third spam tool I use is called PocketKnife Peek. This is another free Outlook add-on that lets you "peek" in to an e-mail that you suspect is spam or perhaps contains a virus. The key with this tool is that e-mails with malicious code in them or ones that contain web bugs won't function. But you'll be able to see the text of the message so that you can determine if it is legitimate.

[Update: October 16, 2003]
I'm now recommending SpamNet (see above) be used in conjunction with another anti-spam program: SpamBayes, a Bayesian-based system for classifying what is and isn't spam. One key advantage to this technology is that it learns from the e-mail that each user receives and develops rules specific to that user. It also adapts the rules as the spam changes which makes it difficult for spammers to get passed the filters. The biggest drawback is that it needs to be trained by you. That is, you need to initially give it a large number of spam e-mails and good e-mails. There are various incarnations of this program, but I prefer the Outlook plug-in. This program is free.