Controlling spam

It seems we’re getting more and more spam. Management wants to stop it from getting to the server, and taking up server space and users’ time. One requirement is that the solution be 100% successful with no false positives. What are my options?

It seems we’re getting more and more spam. Management wants to stop it from getting to the server, and taking up server space and users’ time. One requirement is that the solution be 100% successful with no false positives. What are my options?

– Via the Internet

If you look at the Web sites of vendors that offer spam control (notice I said “control” not “elimination”) you should find information and/or white papers you can give management to help them understand there currently isn’t a way to stop all of the spam all of the time. Consensus is that if you can get 85% to 90% of the spam with minimal false positives along the way, you’re doing really good. There are potential ways on both the server and client sides to get the spam monster under control.

The first involves software installed on the mail server or a server that then relays the “checked” e-mail onto the mail server for final delivery. GFI offers a solution that uses Bayesian analysis to “learn” what spam looks like and keep it from getting through. You have the option of blocking e-mail that use foreign character sets if you don’t expect to get e-mail of that type. You can use a combination of white and black lists to further control what mail can and can’t get through in addition to the Bayesian method outlined earlier. Network Associates has a product called Webshield that checks e-mail for viruses and either strips the attachment or blocks the e-mail altogether.

Anti-spam buyer’s guide

Norton AntiSpam 2004 allows the burden for setup to shift to the client. This has options similar to what you’ll see on the server side.

As with just about anything you could find today, there are open source options as well using languages such as Python that can be deployed on just about any platform regardless of the one on which your mail server is deployed. Look at www.sourceforge.net for the open source candidates. My best suggestion is to look at all the options and see what works best for you.