Dealing with Spam, Part 1

[Igor Chudov @ home]

Tim May wrote:
> At 7:12 PM -0800 2/17/98, Marek Jedlinski wrote:
> >Did you read to the point in my post when I said I would happily shut up if
> >there *was* technology available? I agree with your "basic philosophy",
> 
> Suppose someone said, "I will happily shut up and stop proposing laws to
> restrict online pornography if someone shows me that there is technology
> available to block it."?
> 
> How about, "I will happily shut up if there is technology to block bad
> thoughts from reaching me. Otherwise, I favor censorship."

To add to this, the spam blocking technology is widely available and can be
used by anyone with half brain. My spam filters make me spend no more than 
a minute or so a day on quickly reviewing and deleting spams.

I do it by saving all messages that are likely to be spam to a separate
folder. A quick browse through subject lines of these messages is enough
to delete them really quickly.

In the future such spam detection is going to become a lot harder. Perhaps
a system where the first time sender pays a refundable digital fee to
the reader will become necessary.

	- Igor.