Anti Spam How Spam Filters Work From GoodbyeSpam

Anti-Spam: How It Works

Goodbyespam.com is a completely unique solution to spam and is superior to any Spam filter available.

It is a completely different anti-spam technology. Goodbyespam.com is a challenge response spam blocking system -- this system is hosted away from your computer and maintains a white and black list for you. This means you can stop wasting time as spam is downloaded to your PC and then filtered.

It could not be any simpler. When someone who is not on your white list sends you an email, his or her email is quarantined. The sender is then challenged by the system to verify that they are a real person and from a real email address, not a spam spewing robot.

The challenge is an email saying that you are using Goodbyespam.com as a spam blocking service and that for their email to be sent to you, they need to respond once by clicking on a link in the email. Once they click on the link, they are added to your white list and the email is released from quarantine and sent to you. From then on they can send you email without any more challenges.

This method works best because the majority of spammers don't use a legitimate email address and/or they use automated computer systems that are unable to respond to the encrypted challenge email sent back to them. This method also prevents you from missing legitimate emails that could be accidentally stopped by a regular spam filter.

Problems with using a traditional spam filter:

1. False positives. A false positive is when a legitimate email is falsely accused of being spam by a spam filter and put in your junk folder. False positives happen quite frequently and require you to read through your junk folder to make sure you didn't miss something. In that situation you still have to read through your spam thus defeating the purpose.

2. Junk Folder. All accused spam is filtered into a junk folder in your email program for you to manage yourself. This forces you to read through your spam before deleting it. Also the spam is still going to your computer including pornography, scams and viruses so you are not necessarily protected.

3. Installing spam software. Unlike our system, regular spam filters are installed on your computer thus spam is not dealt with until after it has been downloaded to your PC. This consumes bandwidth, ties up your connection longer and makes you wait while all of your emails arrive more slowly.

4. Spammers have their own filters. They are smart. They buy the same spam filters that the public can buy and test their emails against these spam filters, changing their spam until what they are sending is not considered spam by the current version of the popular spam filters. As spam filters are updated, the spammers adapt. This creates an un-winnable arms race.

Positives of using the Goodbyespam.com challenge response spam-blocking system:

• All legitimate email is sent to your inbox. Therefore you don't have to read through your spam to make sure you didn't miss any real email messages.

• All spam (i.e. adult material, scams and viruses) is kept away from your computer completely. Spam is filtered before it wastes your time being downloaded and then filtered on your PC.

• There is no software to install or complicated email modifications needed.

• Spammers are not able to trick the system. They would have to physically click on the encrypted link on the challenge email and if they did, with a click you can blacklist them forever.