Can Spam be Stopped?

According to AOL's head mailman - Carl Hutzler, spam is a fixable problem.

He claims it doesn't take any new anti-spam filter technologies - just ISPs taking ownership and fixing the issue.

According to him, the problem is that most ISPs didn't take any basic steps to lock down their email systems when setting them up.

Commonly ISPs allow full outgoing access via port 25 - the SMTP / outgoing mail port. This lets end users easily send bulk email out through their connections.

Also, limits are typically not set on how many email messages a user can send in a given period. This makes it easy for someone to blast out thousands of spam mails.

While I think his critiques are on target - I don't think its enough to get rid of spam on their own.

The problem with spam is that its so incredibly cheap. The return on advertiser's investments is incredibly good. These steps would make it a little more expensive, but I doubt expensive enough.

Much spam is now sent out by zombie systems. If a spammer has thousands of PC's under they're control, they only need each one to send a few messages to have an effective campaign.

If U.S. ISPs crack-down, spammers will just go overseas. They already have.

Certain SMTP blacklists apply standards like these to various ISPs. Administrators can use email spam filters to block those who don't comply. These have helped with the problem, but don't provide a solution in and of themselves.

SpamButcher can help minimize and Outlook Spam, and Outlook Express spam. SpamButcher also works with other email clients supporting the POP3 protocol.

The SpamButcher spam blocking software is available as a free 21-day trial download. When optimally configured it can end up to 98% of unwanted junk messages.

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