Combating Spam (part 6 of 6)

OTHER METHODS

In addition to the aforementioned ways to combat spam, there are some other popular methods to achieve a lean spam-free diet. Keep in mind though, that popularity doesn’t always equate with user-friendliness or accessibility.

Black Lists

If you’re a Web Administrator you can keep track of IP addresses from known spammers and add them to a black list. Spammers usually spam from the same IP, so this is fairly effective. In some cases, spammers will use dynamic IPs, but this is not as common.

This is a well-known method of reducing spam and is quite effective, but only part of the solution.

Captcha

This method has gained a lot of popularity in recent years as well as some scrutiny. Basically what this method does is ask you to type what letters/numbers you see in the image provided. If correct, the message will be sent; if not correct, you have to refresh the page to get a new image. In some cases you may have to enter the information all over again. This would prove tiresome and annoying especially if you made a mistake because you couldn’t make out the letters/numbers in the image.

The scrutiny is well justified as issues of accessibility and user-friendliness come into play.

Skill Testing

A more recent method I have been seeing is one which involves the user answering a basic skill-testing question, one that a spambot wouldn’t be able to answer. For example: “What color is an apple?” or “What is 12 divided by 2?”

Again, while potentially effective, the question of accessibility and user-friendliness comes up. Users don’t like having to answer extra questions just to submit a simple contact form.

Note: This method works just like the hidden field method described earlier, but in this case it is ok to have data in the field. The chances that an automated spambot can answer the question correctly are slim. And even if somehow spambots figure it out, you can always change the question.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

No E-mail Addresses in HTML

An obvious, or should be obvious, consideration is to avoid hard-coding e-mail addresses into your web pages. This is one of the first things spambots and spammers look for. A general rule of thumb is if you can view the source code to your web page, so can a spambot!

Don’t Reply to Spam

You have to realize the majority of spam is automated. It in no way is a personal attack on you. So don't start replying to all your spam with death threats. If you do reply what this effectively does is tell the spammer that your e-mail address is active, resulting in, you guessed it, MORE spam!

Besides, a spambot is a cyberNETic organism - it has no feelings. Threats are futile.

CONCLUSION

There are many ways to combat e-mail spam. Applied correctly and in tandem, you should see a significant reduction of junk mail. Unfortunately some people like leaving the back door open, wide open.

Keep in mind that the volume of spam is directly related to how long your website has been on the net, how well known it is, how many e-mail addresses there are, etc. If your business website falls into the large and popular category, I hope for your sake your web guy isn’t asleep on his keyboard.

I hope you have learned a thing or two on the nature of e-mail spam and how to combat it effectively.

"Knowing is half the battle..."


Part 5
Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1