Spam. I think we're all in agreement that it needs to end. Earlier this year, I reached a point where I spent 5 to 10 minutes every morning deleting my overnight crop of spam at work. Fortunately, over the last six months, I've developed an effective program to stop the flood of spam in my in-box. Here's what I learned and what you can do to slam spam.

Identifying the source
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), when you post your e-mail address to an online forum or if you have a Web site with your e-mail address emblazoned across it, you're more likely to get spam. Why? Sophisticated spammers use Web bots to scour the Internet, looking for anything that resembles e-mail addresses and collecting them from sites and newsgroups. The FTC recommends opening a free or throwaway account on Juno, Hotmail, or Yahoo and using that account when you participate in newsgroup discussions.

Another way spammers get your e-mail address is from you. Whenever you fill out a Web form, you are providing your address to a database somewhere. If I'm asked to provide an e-mail address for something I don't feel strongly about, I'll just make up a random e-mail address (the form will accept anything if it ends with @[random letters].com). If the site concerns something I care about and I want to submit my e-mail address for future use, I now take a quick glance at that company's privacy policy.

Opt out, not in
Currently, if you sign up for a newsletter or open a new account, you automatically opt in to whatever marketing strategy the company employs. Thus, the burden is on you to contact the company and opt out. I encourage everyone to opt out whenever possible. Usually, all you need to do is send e-mail or write a letter to the company.

Lessons learned
When you do receive spam, don't respond. Whether the spammer obtained your address from a list of harvested addresses, a database of opt-in addresses, or a list that randomly created your address, by responding you have identified yourself as a warm body on the Internet and therefore have opened yourself to a flood of e-mail. The FTC recommends forwarding the e-mail to the abuse desk at the spammer's domain address (abuse@domain-of-the-spam-sender.com or .net). But often, the sender has already moved on. You can also report the spam to the Federal Trade Commission by forwarding it to uce@ftc.gov. I don't think, however, that a spam report will get very high priority within the FTC.

Filters
My work e-mail address is widely available on the Internet, so I needed a quick way to cut the spam I was receiving. I started by creating filters within my Outlook e-mail client, using Outlook's Rule Wizard to identify a keyword and automatically send the e-mail to a Spam folder. This worked, but creating the rules and refining them was tedious. Then last summer, I was hit with a wave of foreign spam and almost threw up my hands in resignation.

Software antispam solutions
I tried SpamAssassin Pro for Outlook from Deersoft. This program eliminates spam based on its characteristics. That might sound like ripe territory for false positives, but after six weeks of use, I can tell you it's not. SpamAssassin Pro uses algorithms to evaluate the likelihood that a piece of e-mail is spam. Also, SpamAssassin Pro "learns" your interests as you override it. Better yet, this software blocks several dozen foreign-language character sets, so I rarely see any foreign spam in Outlook now.

Unfortunately, SpamAssassin Pro for Outlook is no longer available for download or purchase from Deersoft. On January 6, 2003, McAfee Security purchased Deersoft and plans to merge the technology within SpamAssassin Pro into McAfee's own SpamKiller program later this year. In the meantime, there is an open-source version of SpamAssassin available for download. It requires you to compile the Perl scripts yourself, but die-hard computer users may like the additional features not available in the commercial version.

Do you have an effective way to handle spam at home or at work? TalkBack to me!

Senior Associate Editor Robert Vamosi covers hoaxes, viruses, and security threats for CNET Reviews. Have a question for him? Let him know!