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Reducing SPAM



Anyone who either belongs to a list, or has a website is usually plagued by
spam. This would include most members of this list. While there are some
filters that just block messages in a fairly mindless fashion, some better
products have recently become available. For all systems there is a naive
Bayesian filter which can be added to any mail system. It is not well
integrated, although it works well. One of these is available at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/popfile/

For MS Outlook users there is a product available free at
http://www.upserve.com/spammunition/default.asp

These products look at overall characteristics of messages rather than just
at a few words or headers. They are supposed to be much more accurate.

An article about other currently available filters is available at:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021115S0018

I realize this is not physics education, but I consider it to be a service
for those of us who are plagued by spam. Incidentally it is possible to get
rid of a lot of it by requesting removal from the spammer's list. If they
advertise a web site to do this, it actually works.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX