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Chapter 2; Spam and Anti-Spam Techniques

As spam increased in volume and became more of a problem, anti-spam techniques were developed to counteract it. Tools to block spam were developed by a group of professionals. These tools were not always automated, but when used by system administrators of large sites, they could successfully filter spam for a large number of users. In response, spammers evolved their techniques to increase the number of spams delivered by working around and through the filters. As spam filters improved, spammers designed other methods of bypassing the filters and the cycle repeated. This resulted in the development of both spam and anti-spam techniques and tools over a number of years. This evolutionary process continues today.

Anti-spam tools use a wide range of techniques to reduce the volume of spam received by a user. A number of these techniques will be described in this chapter. SpamAssassin is an important Open Source tool that we will examine in the light of the various techniques it uses to filter spam.

Chapter 2: Table of Contents:
- Spam Techniques
  - Open Relay Exploitation
  - Hiding Content
  - Statistical Filter Poisoning
  - Unique Email Generation
  - Trojanned Machines
- Anti-Spam Techniques
  - Keyword Filters
  - Open Relay Blacklists (ORBLs)
  - ISP Complaints
  - Statistical Filters
  - Email Header Analysis
  - Non-Spam Content Tests
  - Whitelists
  - Email Content Databases
  - Sender Validation Systems
  - Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
- Spam Filtering Services
  - Collect and Forward
  - Collect and Return
  - Send and Forward
  - Choosing an Anti-Spam Provider
  - ISP Provided Services
- Anti-Spam Tools
  - SpamAssassin
    - How SpamAssassin Works
    - Easy to Use
    - Techniques used by SpamAssassin
- Summary

	BOOK DETAILS
	Paperback, 220 pages Released: Sept 2004 ISBN: 1904811124 Author: Alistair McDonald

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Intro
1. Introducing Spam
2. Spam and Anti-Spam Techniques
3. Open Relays
4. Protecting Email Addresses
5. Detecting Spam
6. Installing SpamAssassin
7. Configuration Files
8. Using SpamAssassin
9. Bayesian Filtering
10. Look and Feel
11. Network Tests
12. Rules
13. Improving Filtering
14. Performance
15. Housekeeping and Reporting
16. Building an Anti-Spam Gateway
17. Email Clients
18. Choosing other Spam Tools
Appendix A
Index

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