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SPAM
What does SPAM stand for?
Here are a few meanings:
Sad Pointless Annoying Messages
Self Promotional Advertising Messages
Sending Particularly Annoying Messages
Anti-Spam Technologies
Different technologies exist to battle in influx of Spam.
We'll explain below the reasons behind Detention's technology. Detention balances automatically validating each sender, forcing non-validated senders
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themselves, and easy access to detained e-mails. This approach
allows redundancy in receiving e-mails and delivery assurance for the sender.
Sender
Validation
This technology is emerging as an industry standard. Each
sender is required to verify that he or she exists before the e-mail is delivered.
Detention: Detention
sends a "Please Validate" response e-mail to either all senders or un-validated
senders (configurable). A validation is required only once per sender.
Con: Some people don't and
can't answer a "Challenge" email, and a challenge email can be blocked by anti-spam
software.
Detention's Answer:
On the receiving end, Detention allows each user to get to his or
her detained e-mail via a e-mail reader (auto-file into a Spam folder) or a web
interface. If a challenge e-mail is not answered, Detention users can easily
get to detained e-mail. Each Detention user can manually white-list a recipient;
when a sender visits the "Please Validate" web page, the sender white-lists
his or her own e-mail address. A per-user black-list overrides the white-list
thus allowing each Detention user to have complete delivery control.
Sender Identification
Microsoft (Sender ID) and Yahoo! (DomainKeys) have developed competing technologies
that allow senders to use credentials in order to verify e-mail authenticity.
E-mails from verified senders are passed though.
Detention: Detention
uses a proprietary method of sender validation that can be turned off or on.
Con:
Some message filter and IP lists technology
are more accurate than Detention's Sender Validation Technology.
Detention's Answer: In
our two years of testing Detention's Sender Validation technology, Detention was
able to identify Spam with around 95% accuracy. In practicality the difference is
3 or 4 additional Spam messages getting through per 100. Filtering technology
has downsides that Detention's Sender Validation does not (see below). Detention's
Sender Validation can be turned off and Detention can require that all inbound e-mail
messages be validated. This will raise the Spam detect rate to 100%.
During a 6 month testing period of one of the leaders that claims to have the best
Spam protection, we experienced a Spam blockage rate of 82%.
Message Filtering
Message filtering technology, such as Bayesian filtering,
"reads" each email and based on the content analysis either "traps" the email or
allows it to pass to its intended recipient. This technology was a breakthrough
for Spam trapping.
Con:
Confusing. Some filters need to "learn" about incoming Spam, and
other filters need to be told what to block given rating systems.
Con: High administration.
As Spammers develop new ways to send bulk e-mails, some filtering technology requires
updates in order to trap offending e-mails.
Spammer Lists &
IP Blocking
Companies publish lists of spammers, and software can subscribe to these
lists and block incoming e-mail accordingly.
Con: Lists
can be inaccurate.
Non-spammers can be labeled as a spammer, and legitimate company e-mails
can immediately be trapped.
Con: List providers
may be in legal trouble. Judgments have
been awarded against at least one spam list provider for putting a company on one
of its list of known spammers
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Con: Lists need to be maintained.
Maintaining a list is problematic in nature which can lead to inaccurate information.
Community-based lists are subjective.
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