I had been thinking that it's only the moves of the big players -- AOL, MSN, Microsoft, and perhaps a few others -- that really matter in the spam war. Now, I'm having second thoughts about that. Spammers will do whatever it takes to get past any anti-spam technology set up by the big players. They feel they have a right to get past those road blocks. However, a filter set up by an individual to block spam is probably an indication that he isn't going to be persuaded to respond to the spam messages. Will spammers fight so hard to get past those individual's filters? I guess that depends on their goal. If there goal is just to get past filters, then they will do whatever it takes. If their goal is to sell products or services, then can they really be successful by harrassing those they are trying to sell to?
If we accept this argument -- that spammers won't try so hard to get past individuals' filters, but they will try extremely hard to get past ISPs filters -- then we ought to hope that MSN, AOL, and other ISPs don't ever build too sophisticated filters, because that would lead to extremely sophisticated spam. Yes, put all the anti-spam techology into client software, like Outlook Express. Make it anti-spam technology that learns, based on individuals' email usage.
Filters that "learn", and thus become unique to each individual, would be effective, even if implemented at an ISP's servers instead of at the subscriber's PC.
Posted by Doug Sauder at January 24, 2003 05:40 PM