ChallengeResponse Systems was Spambuttbuttin Takes Top AntiSpam Honors

According to who?

Compared to a 3-stage mail filter constructed like this:

1. Pbuttlist (whitelist)

2. Conventional Spam filter (SA will do, although procmail is much simpler to use) that dumps the obvious spam and blocklist

3. Challenge-Response

using SA alone is pathetic.

(Unless you get your rocks off looking through tons of crap that might or might-not be spam and spending much of your life up-dating the filters, reading spam, and studying docs.)

The folks at SA are trying to take credit for the fact that spammers are running scared now, after many of them have been jailed.

What you are going to read in response to this are a bunch of lies from spammers, some of whom are also 'spam-fighters' who believe that the spam THEY send isn't really spam, because THEY work for 'legitimate businesses'.

A cesspool by any other name still stinks.

I don't even know when spammers or trolls TRY to get their crap into my mailboxes. No one I want to hear from has any problem reaching me. No, I don't want to hear from headcases that are mortally insulted by having to take 5 seconds, once in a lifetime, to return a Challenge-Response (C-R or C-R).

Trolls and spammers HATE Challenge-Response Systems because they reject anonymous mail.

But the are ratified by the RFCs:

Search: Challenge

Almost every non-profit org and business on the Web sends auto-responses.

And major ISPs like Earthlink have been offering Challenge-Responses for years as a part of their standard spam-fighting packages.

Mailing lists use them to keep spammers and trolls away, and have for years.

I wrote a simple Challenge-Response System (a bash front-end for procmail) that changed my life: Spam and trolls simply don't exist for me any more, and I only have to spend a few minutes a week (if that) updating my pbuttlists and blocklists.

But there are better C-R Systems than mine out there, with more being developed as you read this: Because they out-perform traditional spamfilters like SA by miles.

Use your favorite search engine to check it out. But be wary: Just like on the Usenet, any troll or spammer can post any garbage they want on the Web, and there are a LOT of ant-C-R disinformation sites out there, put up by spammers.

They REALLY don't want you to use them. Because they can't beat them. SA and the like they CAN beat, because they are the world's foremost experts in their use.

Of course: What else do they have to do but sit around and study SA and similar filters, learning how to get their crap into your mailboxes.

But MY simple little front-end for procmail they can study all day long (the scripts are on my website) and it doesn't do them any good at all. They've been trying for years. (I don't even notice unless I check out my logs.)

Michael Heim will probably just ignore this article, in the hopes that you will too.

And what the SA folks won't do is engage me in a public compebreastion to see which one of our filters works the best.

Nope. Never. They'll spew hot air and bullpoo from now until eternity, but they won't take the Challenge-Response Challenge.

Because they'd lose. Big time.

AC

-- See my headers for the URLS to my fanclubs.