The Real Spam Problem

People are unable to communicate via email.

That's it, in a nutshell.

The problem

Too much spam. Space. 10 MiB fills in a matter of hours, if not minutes.. Not UCE, but viral mail is the current problem. Literally thousands of messages daily. Technically adept users can cope. With spamassassin, fetchmail, procmail, exim, and mutt, I'm keeping abreast. Many friends have installed "SMTP-time" active responses. It's Joe Public who's got a real problem.

The Spam-Virus Connection

Solutions

ISPs and Email Service Providers

AOL, MSN, corporate sites: largely a very good record. Residential broadband: crap. US: crap. Oz: crap.

SMTP-time filters

Classifiers

Bayesians, pattern match.

Tarpitting / Teergrubing

Dramatically slowing down

Active Response -- Filters That Fight Back

Graduated Service

Law

Next Steps

Footnote: what is spam