Posted on 31-1-2003

D.I.Y. AntiSpam Tools
By J. D. BIERSDORFER

THE trickle of unsolicited commercial e-mail that started a few years ago
had long since become a tsunami, but I realized that my problem had reached
an absurd extreme when I got the spam about stopping spam.

Scrolling through my various mail accounts, I routinely waded through
countless unwanted messages advertising pornographic Web sites, and dozens
upon dozens of missives trying to tempt me into clicking for loans, credit
cards, inkjet cartridges, miniature race cars and opportunities to enlarge
body parts that I don't even have. Buried in the mess were one or two
messages I actually wanted or needed to read, but I could barely find them
amid the dross. When I accidentally deleted a message and new-baby picture
attachments from an old college roommate, though, I knew it was time to
take out the trash.

Rather than try to address the problem through my Internet service provider
or an outside spam-filtering site, I was in an aggressive mood that
inclined me toward anti-spam programs designed for home users. I
immediately found three to test, each costing less than $US40: iHateSpam by
Sunbelt Software ($US19.95; www.sunbelt-software.com), Spam Inspector by
Giant Company ($US29.95; www.giantcompany.com) and SpamKiller by McAfee
Security ($US39.95; www.mcafee.com).

All three offer basic spam-swatting tools, like a starter set of junk mail
filters, the ability to set your own rules (for example, weeding out any
message containing XXX, placing beloved friends and annoying enemies on
separate lists for mail routing and even policing multiple e-mail
accounts). The bin of trashed spam is also easily accessible with each
program, just in case you fear the software has gone too far and zapped
that mass-mailed family newsletter from Aunt Ruby.

I have several e-mail accounts that are deluged daily by spam, and the Junk
Filter feature in Apple's Mail program for Mac OS X 10.2 gets a workout
with the account I check on my home Macintosh. On the Windows side,
SpamKiller will work with most e-mail programs and POP3, IMAP and
MSN/Hotmail accounts, while iHateSpam is designed to work mainly with the
Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express programs (and Hotmail accounts, if
checked within Outlook). Spam Inspector also has versions for Outlook, but
I downloaded the edition designed to work with America Online's mail
system, because all my AOL addresses are powerful spam magnets.

After installation on my Thinkpad, the iHateSpam set-up program walked me
through the program configuration and asked me a few questions about how
much and what kinds of spam I wanted to block. One feature I liked about
this program was the ability to pick off messages with foreign characters,
because I am finding that more and more of the mail I receive offering
pornography or merchandise comes from Korea. (Since I don't have a Korean
alphabet, or Hangul, character set installed on any of my computers, those
messages consist of a string of question marks and exclamation points.)

Once iHateSpam was installed, a new series of tabbed menus appeared within
my Outlook Express toolbar. I could click the tabs to declare a message
Spam or Not Spam or add an e-mail address to my Friends list of mail that
can always make it past the spam filters. There was also an option to send
a Bounce message (a note that looks like an automated reply from a mail
server saying that your account does not exist) back to the spammers in the
hope they will update their records and remove you from their Giant List of
People to Hassle.

The program caught a fair amount of spam even the first time I used it,
shoveling the messages deemed junk straight into the Deleted Items folder.
I would estimate that iHateSpam caught 70 percent of the spam from that
account without any coaching and continued to improve as I set up filters
and added spammers to my Enemies list.

Pleased with the decreasing quotient of postal pork in my mail, I picked
yet another of my bulging e-mail accounts and unleashed SpamKiller. For
those familiar with McAfee's antivirus and firewall security software,
SpamKiller has a familiar interface and big icons that make clear what
everything does.

The program operates independently of the regular e-mail software but can
tap directly into your e-mail accounts, so I had to remember to start it
rather than Outlook each day. SpamKiller did stop an impressive amount of
junk mail the first time I used it. The first day, I received 65 messages,
and it correctly rerouted 41 of them into a Killed Mail area. Of the spam
that did surface in my In box, the program placed a question mark beside
each message it thought was junk, and it failed to recognize only about
five messages as possible spam.

SpamKiller gives a reason for each instance in which a message is
quarantined, based on known spammer tactics like having random letters and
numbers in the subject line. Setting up custom filters is easy, and you can
base them on such criteria as country of origin or the message's text.
SpamKiller can even trace the spam back to its source and send a complaint
letter to the spammer's system administrator. I used the feature a lot,
because if there's one thing I like to do, it's complain.

Each spam-blocking program I tried had its strengths and weaknesses. But in
every case, the more you work with it to define your mail standards, set up
message rules and keep it updated with the latest professional spam
filters, the less rubbish you will see. I found SpamKiller to be the most
flexible and powerful for sheer spam-stomping ability, but I loved the way
iHateSpam became integrated right into my Outlook toolbar. Spam Inspector
(not mentioned, as works with AOL accounts not used in NZ - Ed) took its
time to do its job, but the extreme satisfaction of seeing my America
Online mailboxes mostly purged of spam without my having to lift a mouse
was a reward all by itself.