Email spam blocker software

Tony Palmer · Post by **Tony Palmer** » 29 Jun 2005 10:34 am

One email I sent was returned automatically and I had to verify I was "human" and not a computer by reading the scrambled numbers in a screen, typing them in, and then, presumably the recipient gets to allow or disallow my email message as he sees fit.
Does anybody use this type of software or know what it is called?[This message was edited by Tony Palmer on 29 June 2005 at 11:36 AM.]

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 29 Jun 2005 3:26 pm

I hate spam and get truckloads of it, like everybody.

I refuse to just accept it, and cull through all the garbage each day, looking for anything legit and having to trash the rest.

I don't use the one you mention, but I have been using Choicemail for years. Choicemail is a "challenge-based" process, and seems similar to what you described, except that it doesn't send the email back to the sender. or use any scrambled numbers to read.

Instead, if someone not on my "whitelist" of approved senders sends me an email, it saves the original message, and simply sends a "challenge" email back to the sender, giving them the opportunity click a link in the message and state the reason for their email. I can choose to accept their message, or not. Emails sent from people on my "approved" list open my mail client and I receive the email normally. Choicemail adds the email address to my whitelist automatically whenever I send to anyone not already there.

Since the vast majority of spammers send from bogus domains and use invalid return addresses, most spam is transparent to me. Choicemail deletes emails after a user-determined time if replies are not received from challenges sent.

Choicemail has a long list of added features I purposely am not describing for brevity. I have no vested interest in it, I'm just a satisfied user.[This message was edited by Dave Potter on 29 June 2005 at 04:31 PM.]

Jonathan Cullifer · Post by **Jonathan Cullifer** » 30 Jun 2005 5:17 pm

That software is usually something the ISP has to install (it runs on the mail server). The best spam blocker software that runs on an end-user's computer, sadly, doesn't work in Windows, just Linux.

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 1 Jul 2005 5:20 pm

I sometimes get the scrambled letters when I don't get my email password correct. I didn't realize it was a check for human thing. That's clever and I'll not be so PO'd next time I have to do it.