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Backing Up Your Stuff Part 2: A Solution
So what do you do when you have so much stuff on your computer that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to back up the whole thing on a regular basis? You know that you must perform backups (the world is full of dangers to your computer and...
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Falling in Love With More Than One Screensaver: The Fun Part
Having from five to ten and more favorite screensavers is cool. But how do you enjoy them all in a straightforward and convenient way? Draw the power you need from the little yet useful tools discussed in this article! As you remember, earlier...
Firewalls :::: What They Are And Why You MUST Have One!
A firewall is a system or gateway that prevents unauthorized access to your computer or private network. It is usually the first line of defense in protecting your private information or data. A good firewall will help protect you from malicious...
PHOTOREALISM WITH BERT MONROY
Do you find it hard to distinguish between a real photo and a digital image? Bert Monroy, one of the pioneers of digital art who created many software products such as Photoshop, ImageStudio and PixelPaint, introduces another break through in...
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Challenge Response Spam Filters Explained
As the flood of spam increases end users are looking for new and more efficient solutions to block spam. In turn software developers are knocking themselves out trying to come up with the killer app that will stop spam forever.
For several years now companies have been focusing on faster and smarter software to be installed on your PC or on your servers that will detect spam through increasingly more complex algorithms. The ingenuity behind these products can't be argued with. The problem was that as the spam filters became better so did the quality of the bulk email software used by the spammers. The battle to fight spam was spiralling out of control.
There's an old scientific principle called Occams Razor. It simply means that all things being equal the most simple solution is often the best one.
Somebody somewhere realized that there was a simple solution to the vast majority of spam. Spammers email millions of people each day. This is an automated process that they can't possibly monitor manually. Enter challenge response spam email filtering.
When using a challenge response system each email address must be authorized to deliver email to you. You can either authorize these email addresses manually by adding
them to your challenge response whitelist or the challenge response email server can take care of that for you.
The process is simple but incredibly efficient.
Spammer sends email
Challenge response email server doesn't recognize address so issues a challenge email that must be phyiscally answered by a real human.
Challenge answer = yes = sender is authorized to send you email
Challenge answer = no = senders email address is added to blacklist and all future email from them is automatically blocked.
Challenge repsonse spam filters demand that a real person reply to the challenge email. Spammers who generate millions of emails a day simply don't have the time to do this and are therefore blocked from sending you any future junk email.
Using a challenge response system initially can be extra work but after 30 days you'll see a dramatic reduction in the amount of email you receive from spammers. Our challenge response system is currently showing 11,000 blocked pieces of spam in the last *5 months*. Those are hard figures to argue with.
About the Author
Niall Roche is the content author and owner of www.spam-site.com which reviews spam blocker software.
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