IBM Gets into Anti-Spam

This week IBM introduced a filtering technique it claims will identify about 80% of spam e-mail. Used alone, this wouldn't provide adequate relief to end-users. However, it may prove useful when combined with other technologies to help get rid of spam.

FairUCE is a system similar to Sender ID that's designed to validate the accuracy of the sender's e-mail domain. So far most systems of this nature have required the domain owner publish a public key to be validated against.

FairUCE instead uses a series of DNS requests to try to authenticate the sending domain. This sounds very similar to techniques for blocking spam already deployed on various server-side spam filtering systems.

According to IBM, the system would accurately filter out almost all messages sent by "zombie" computers. "Zombies" refer to systems that have been compromised by third-parties in order to do their bidding. Systems usually become zombies either via malware or being directly hacked. Spammers use zombies to send spam.

Spam fighters claim that zombies may account for over half of all spam sent.

IBM's 80% claim would seem to rely on 80% of spam mails being spoofed, and their new spam eliminator system being nearly 100% effective. I'm skeptical on both accounts.

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