Letters To The Editor  

Fighting Spam
More On Small Objects

We are not alone in hating SPAM and wanting to do something, anything, to avoid it.  Several readers shared experiences and advice.

Amy,

I think you should look into Cloudmark as a spam fighting tool.  It's a type of real-time black hole list for spam based on client feedback, slickly packaged as an Outlook plugin.  The installer could use a bit of maturing (I had some difficulty with it), but the idea of tapping into what real people already do to eliminate spam (i.e. Dragging into a spam folder) and using that act as a vote on what constitutes spam, then using this to filter in real time on other people’s mail clients, strikes me as a novel approach that could yield dramatic results.

I like the idea a lot, the technology seems like they'll be able to implement it in a straightforward manner, the initial reviews I’ve read have been good (75-90% success rate - no false positives) and once they have a critical mass of voting I see many opportunities for the company to commercialize their 'votes'.  Take a look. www.cloudmark.com. 

John Sequeira
Systems Architect
johnseq@pobox.com

John

Thanks for your comments.  I have actually tried Cloudmark and I see that I did something not smart in the article -- I described how it works and mentioned it, but didn't tie the two things together.  May I print your note and use it to do that?

I love the idea but for some reason my personal machine is unhappy with Cloudmark and Spamnet.  It doesn't want to smoothly receive and send mail when the filter is installed.  The Cloudmark folks did fast and beyond-the-cause technical support trying to figure out why that happened, but no one can replicate the problem.  Probably some weird combination of hw/sw/and ISP.  I'm glad you like it and I wish I could use it, too.

Amy Wohl

Amy,

I installed Choice Mail last week after reading Walt Mossberg's review in the WSJ, and being slightly desperate to avoid drowning in Spam.

The install was fine, no problems, but immediately it began blocking people that I wanted in. It would send out an E-Mail saying that people had to ask permission.  Most did, some didn't but the immediate impact to me was that this was not a solution that was going to work, but I was too busy to worry about it.

On Sunday I was talking with Marty Heyman, and he suggested that I try Cloudmark. What Cloudmark does is that it creates a "Spam" folder in Outlook and leverages off a big database somewhere.

When I get spam that has been previously noted on the big data base, it is immediately vectored to the spam file, but most everything that is either not denoted as Spam gets through, and I am then given the opportunity to block stuff.

The blocking works well, and it appears to send a "vote" to the big data base so that it then shares that information with others, the net effect being that when some kind of ground swell reflects that something is Spam, then it is forever label accordingly. At the same time I can go to the "Spam" folder and unblock stuff, which I have done, then it comes in normally.

Also, if I have previously built a rule in Outlook for something it is not affected by Cloudmark.

I just did some quick numbers.

Using Choicemail, I had targeted 78 different spammers and granted permission to 111 senders.  I had designated 33 domains from which I absolutely refused to accept anything. This number is mostly included in the 78 above.  Just as I uninstalled Choicemail, I noted that 11 senders were seeking permission, of which 6 I wanted, and 5 were spammers.

I was using Choicemail v. 1.221, which I have now uninstalled, and which did so without problem.

I get somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 E-Mails a day, and I think that I was getting at least 50% spam.

I am going to go with Cloudmark for the moment. It is free, but my guess is that a subscription service is on the horizon. Also, it doesn't reject anyone, but simply leverages off the web based rules model that it is building.

Buzz (Burton L. Bruggeman)

Buzz,

I have tried Cloudmark.  It is mentioned in my article but I foolishly described how it works in one place and mentioned it in another so that there's no way to tie the two together.  I've had several notes from Cloudmark users who think I don't know about it.

I actually know the people at Cloudmark and I know them a lot better now because when I tried it out (after reading about it in two columns on the web) it froze my machine into oblivion (couldn't send or receive mail).  The Cloudmark people worked valiantly to try to figure out how that could have happened, trying to replicate the main features of my environment, but we can't figure it out. (They even loaded ActiveWord.)  I had already removed Cloudmark and returned my machine to its previous working order.

It sounds like a great idea to me.  And yes, they do intend to have a paid version offered soon.  I wish I could figure out what was interfering with it on my machine so that I could get rid of it (assuming that it's not something I can't live without). 

Amy

More On Small Objects

More on the subject of Small Objects and Mobile Killer Apps.

Amy,

You actually wrote two articles on the same thing.  Convenience.

I've played with a number of devices, and hands down the best I've used yet is my new Handspring Treo.

The killer app, of course, being email.  I can synchronize my Outlook Mail for offline reading, and I can use another application (One-Touch) to check my mail wirelessly.  Similarly, I can use AvantGo for offline web reading and Blazer for wireless web browsing.

Combined with the relatively tiny form factor and the built-in keyboard, it's relegated my laptop to development, PowerPoint and other more intensive knowledge worker activities.

Sadly, cellular connectivity is simply horrible compared with the reliability of desktop DSL, so two apps (one for synchronized access and one for wireless) are probably going to have to remain the norm for a while.

There may be a significant opportunity for a software vendor that can remove that bit of complexity while keeping the functionality.

Cheers & best regards,

Will Iverson

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