How good are our weapons in the spam wars? | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

How good are our weapons in the spam wars?


Abstract:

Will there ever be an end to "spam wars"? We are bombarded with unsolicited bulk email, we deploy newer and supposedly better ways of filtering spam, and yet spammers con...Show More

Abstract:

Will there ever be an end to "spam wars"? We are bombarded with unsolicited bulk email, we deploy newer and supposedly better ways of filtering spam, and yet spammers continue to devise creative ways to circumvent our defenses. Over the years, the volume of spam has increased steadily, in spite of the continued efforts to contain it. In order to understand the spam problem and to explore control methods, it is useful to analyze spam control techniques by looking at spam generation and transmission as a system. We find that not all spam control methods are equal, because each operates at different points in the system, where their leverage is widely different. In the end, no email control technique is likely to solve the spam problem definitively.
Published in: IEEE Technology and Society Magazine ( Volume: 25, Issue: 1, Spring 2006)
Page(s): 22 - 30
Date of Publication: 20 March 2006

ISSN Information:


Spam – Past and Present

At the root of the spam problem is the fact that, historically, the Internet started as an open medium for people to communicate and share information. After the U.S. Congress opened the Internet for electronic commerce in 1995, the proliferation of both users and businesses on the Internet led to a dramatic increase in the volume of email, and above all in the volume of unsolicited bulk email (UBE) and unsolicited commercial email (UCE), also known as spam.

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