Monday, May 05, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

THE ONLINE GUY: Al Gibes

Software stops spam in its tracks

It's too early to claim victory, but I've gained an edge in the battle against spam. Not the canned-meat variety, officially known as SPAM. I'm talking e-mail in-box clutter. If you use e-mail, you probably know what I mean.

The average Internet user gets about 1,500 unwanted e-mail messages a year, promising everything from lower mortgage rates to cheap prescriptions to enhanced, enlarged or improved body parts. I get that many a week. Or at least I used to.

I have begun to combat spam with the help of a weapon called Spam Arrest (www.spamarrest.com). The service was brought to my attention after I sent an e-mail to a colleague and received a reply from Spam Arrest, asking me to type a word I saw displayed when I followed a link to the Web site.

I followed the instructions and quickly received a reply telling me I was added to the recipient's verified list of mailers and that I wouldn't be asked to do it again.

This is the secret to Spam Arrest. The premise is that automated spam messages won't have a human on the other end typing the random word. It helps verify that those e-mail messages are being sent by actual people. After reading more details I signed up for their 30-day free trial.

Instructions for changing e-mail settings are simple and only took a couple of minutes to complete. After two weeks I find that my e-mail routine has changed radically. I now launch Eudora, get 15 to 20 "approved" messages and later visit the Spam Arrest site to manage my approved senders, quickly browse unverified messages by subject and sender, and act as gatekeeper of my in-box.

It's working well, as I now have 163 approved senders and 4,140 blocked senders. Spam Arrest has processed 4,880 messages, of which 341 were forwarded to my approved in-box. That's just less than 7 percent "good" e-mail in two weeks.

Best of all, I spend about one-third as much time handling e-mail today than I did before using Spam Arrest.

To continue the service I'll need to become a paying customer, $19.95 for six months, $34.95 for one year, or $54.95 for two years. Sign me up.

The service works for users who rely on POP3 mail and e-mail programs such as Outlook Express, Outlook or Eudora to receive and send messages. "POP" is short for "post office protocol" and refers to the method of zipping e-mail from computer to computer.

For the millions of others who use Web-based e-mail products or are clients of one of the Internet's giants Yahoo!, MSN and America Online, get ready for these companies to begin waging their own war against spam. The three currently deploy spam filtering and have agreed to work together to strengthen their antispam forces.

Let the battle rage on.

Share your Internet story with me at: agibes@reviewjournal.com and be sure to visit The Online Guy Web site at: (www.reviewjournal.com/columnists/onlineguy/)