Fighting SPAM

Today I checked the statistics of my SPAM-filter. Since November 2006 the daily flood of SPAM e-mails increased alarmingly. It is always a bit tricky to mention or even recommend a certain brand of SPAM-filter. What works now could well not work in a few months or so.

First some numbers. In the last seven months I received a whopping 11.752 SPAM e-mails. My anti-SPAM programme automatically filtered 11.212 of them, a score of 95%. 540 SPAM e-mails were not recognized outright and had to be blocked manually. Thus, on the average, I receive about 56 SPAM e-mails every day, of which I manually have to block three. More importantly only 19 e-mails were incorrectly labelled as SPAM. I remember most of them being 'legitimate' newsletters of larger well-known corporations. Interestingly an e-mail by Lendal got blocked initially. Anyway I am quite impressed with the client-based anti-SPAM programme that I use. And it appears that the programme gets more and more intelligent at it, because there is less and less need for manual blocking lately.

The one thing that annoys me though is that the SPAM still enters my computer before it can be dealt with. The reason for this is that I host my own domain names and that my provider is in fact myself and I do not have a server-based SPAM-filter. But, as the world's most famous Dutch soccer player Johan Cruijff one-liner goes: "Each disadvantage has it's advantage". I do not have to log onto any server to actually delete the SPAM and check/unblock any incorrectly labeled SPAM e-mails.

Now I can pull the rabbit out of the hat. I uses SPAMfighterPro. It is freeware if you don't care for a SPAMfighterPro promotional line under each of the e-mails you sent. Having used it that way for a few months, I decided that this software, for now, is "bang for the buck". And I have not been disappointed yet.

Part of my problem of receiving so much SPAM is that I have at least three domain e-mail accounts that start with info@. It is rather easy to blindly send something to any info@ address of gathered domain names. My personal e-mail account receives the most SPAM though. I could change my info@ accounts to something less obvious. But the way SPAMfighterPro works now I see no need for that yet.

It goes too far to describe here how SPAMfighterPro works. If you are interested then go to their website www.spamfighter.com.

Most of the day was spent checking my gear and packing for my trip to Washington State for Ginni Callahan's Lower Columbia River Kayak Roundup. I packed my dry-suit AND my dry-bib and jacket AND short neoprene AND shorts. Maybe it is Summer out there, maybe not.

Ginni spread the word that I would be arriving at SEA-TAC late this Thursday evening and Kiwi (I had to ask for his 'real' first name) is so kind to pick me up and put me up for the night AND take me to Puget Island on the Lower Columbia River AND maybe go for a paddle.

In the time it took to write this entry I received 19 more SPAM e-mails.