What
is SpamSucks and how does it work?
SpamSucks
uses a technology designed to
significantly reduce the amount of SPAM
(junk-mail) received. SpamSucks combines
a "whitelist" (for known/trusted
senders), a "blacklist" (for undesired
senders), and a cryptographically
enhanced confirmation system (for
unknown, but legitimate senders).
SpamSucks strives to be more effective
and less time-consuming than traditional
filters. With SpamSucks, unrestricted
access to the user mailbox can no longer
be assumed, a premise which spammers
rely heavily upon.
The way SpamSucks thwarts incoming
junk-mail is simple yet extremely
effective. The user maintains a
"whitelist" of trusted contacts which
are allowed directly into his/her
mailbox. Messages from unknown senders
are held in a pending queue until they
respond to a confirmation request sent
by SpamSucks. Once they respond to the
confirmation, their original message is
deemed legitimate and is delivered to
the user. Updating the whitelist insures
they won't have to confirm future
messages. SpamSucks can even be
configured to automatically whitelist
confirmed senders. This methodology has
the advantage of being very selective
about what it allows in, while at the
same time permitting legitimate, but
previously unknown senders to reach the
user.
Traditional anti-spam technical
countermeasures are based upon
maintaining a "blacklist" containing
e-mail addresses, domains, and/or
network subnets of known junk-mailers.
Or worse, a "profile" of message headers
and message body text that fits the
software's idea of what a piece of SPAM
looks like. The problem with this
approach is that spammer's intrusion
techniques are evolving as fast as your
prevention techniques are, so the battle
is never ending. Maintaining the
blacklist is often just as
time-consuming as pressing the "Delete"
key on the easily recognized junk
messages. If wasted time is your biggest
complaint with junk e-mail, you can see
why this traditional methodology is
flawed. The chance of accidental "false
positives" is also significantly higher
with this more complex approach. If you
really want effective and reliable SPAM
control, you need something like
SpamSucks that doesn't rely on
heuristics that spammers can work
around.
Will
there be any changes in the way I send
or receive E-mail?
No! You will
continue to send and receive E-mail the
same way you always have. Your E-mail
address will not change and there is no
need to sign up for another E-mail
account. You will still be able to use
the same E-mail client and keep all your
existing E-mail rules/filters. The only
difference is that you will receive
virtually no spam.
SpamSucks
checks your E-mail every few minutes.
This guarantees that the majority of
spam will be removed prior to you
collecting your E-mail. To increase the
effectiveness of SpamSucks your E-mail
client can be set to pre activate
SpamSucks with almost 100% removal
success. This is the recommended mode of
operation, particularly for minors.
Please see our
tutorial on how to set your E-mail
client to work in this way.
What
is the format of the challenge message
that 'New Senders' receive?
Messages from unknown senders are held
in a pending queue until they respond to
a confirmation request (challenge
message) sent by SpamSucks. The format
of the confirmation request is as
follows:
ATTENTION!
A message you recently sent to a
SpamSucks user with the subject " test"
was not delivered because they are using
the SpamSucks anti-spam service. Please
click the link below to confirm that
this is not spam. When you confirm, this
message and all future messages you send
will automatically be accepted.
http://spamsucks.com/verify.phpl?m=381&v=d00299770c6a34asdhSSFgsg
(Where ''test'' is replaced with the
original subject of the message.)
Most spam is sent by automated
programs, which are not able to complete
the verification process. However, if
you do receive email from a sender from
whom you do not wish to receive email,
you may simply block them explicitly in
which case E-mail will be bounced.
