Background: The earliest Internet spam was sent in
1978 when
the Net (as we now know it) barely existed. But since then it's been
a
plague that wastes literally
millions of hours of human time and
effort around the world each year.
The best remedy for spam is simply for Governments to get tough. In
Australia (for example) our own Government passed the Spam Act
2003 and Australian spam dried up almost overnight.
Why? Because the Act made it obvious that anyone spamming in
our country would be hunted down, bankrupted and then
imprisoned. It's not hard to do if a country is absolutely determined
to wipe spamming out with one of the toughest pieces of anti-spam legislation
in the world!
But sadly, other countries have been less strict than Australia in
wiping out spammers. So Australians (and everyone else around the world)
still suffer from this plague. And we'll probably continue to do so until
there's zero tolerance for spammers (ie criminals) globally.
In the meantime a lot of time, effort and money has gone into creating spam
filtering software - sometimes also called spam blocking software
- to weed out the torrent that saturates the Net every day. Some of the more
highly technical spam filtering software is used by ISPs and some of it by
network administrators.
But this page reviews popular spam filters that you can download and
add into your own email software to get some breathing space from the seedy
underbelly of the Net.
Tip! The best way to kill spam is the simplest: never respond
to it. Never buy anything from a spammer. And if your country has officials
you can report spam to, report it. Spammers only spam because there are people
out there - less and less each year, fortunately - who are foolish enough
to give them money. But cut money out of the equation and spamming loses
its lustre ...fast!
Spam Filtering Software