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CloudMark or other systems that use peer based filtering seem like the way to go. If 10 people have said this is spam, why should I have to see it?

Then, I should ofcourse plug this Openchallenge submission about Learning e-mail classifier:The use of a naive bayesian algorithm in automatically filtering spam and classifying e-mail has been discussed and also implemented in the past. Implement an automatic e-mail classifier system which works together with an IMAP server. The system should: a) constantly refine the database used to classify messages either by periodically re-analyzing the IMAP folders or by tracking each incoming message and periodically checking to which folder the user actually moves each message. b) assign each incoming message an extra header item which contains the path of the IMAP folder where the message belongs according to the classification algorithm.

Also, you could also mine your site for smammers like this.

So, my point is that just during last two years the spam problem has exceeded so much that there is enough interest in fighting it seriously. Spam will die.

Unfortunately, Spamnet doesn't fully support IMAP. That makes it useless to me, but they say they're working on it.

Speaking of SPAM filters... I use SpamNet with very good results. Unfortunately I'm stuck with OL2000 for now, so this is the closest I found to what I wanted.

This is exactly why an objective filter (software) cannot be relied upon
People every day write intelligent algorithms to handle vague concepts. For example, Cloudmark does a good job with "spam". Again, it need not be 100% to be effective.

Note in all this that I'm not objecting to libraries blocking porn
Then you are in direct disagreement with the ALA and ACLU.

But it sure makes for good campaign fodder.
So your theory is that politicians are doing this for votes. Well, I'm not a politician, and I hold these views. I know plenty of others that do, including librarians who say it IS a problem- or was before they added filtering software. You dismiss our opinion based on your speculation that filtering software isn't good enough, speculation that it's not a problem, and speculation that it's a campaign ploy. The facts are, though, that it is a problem, there is a reasonable solution, and that those truely opposed believe children have a right to view pornography.

If you're running Outlook 2000 or XP - Cloudmark is a nearly PERFECT solution to Spam - and IT'S FREE (for now, at least).

Ms. Betterly says she refuses to send e-mails about adult fare, because it "disgraces society."

Yeah whatever - spammers claiming moral superiority over pornographers. What's next, the RIAA claiming it supports artists?

Thankfullly, Spamassassin means I don't have to deal with her garbage. Unfortunately it just hides the problem, but at least I get the satisfaction of a "fuck you" when it redirects to /dev/null.

If you've got an unfortunate friend stuck in Outlook, Cloudmark does a decent job of cleaning up the mess, and Mozilla's soon-to-be turned on anti-spam features are looking nice.

Another interesting part is that the only email client that they have working code for is MS Outlook, so I guess in a way Microsoft really is playing a part in killing spam just like some in this thread had hoped.

I use Win2K Pro and get my mail from a POP3 server with Opera's email client. I'm not willing to downgrade to Outhouse, which both cloudmark's SpamNet and Deersoft's SpamAssassin Pro require. Any suggestions for a general POP3 solution for the Win32 platform?

Make it Distributed and make it work with eudora, and i'll gladly use it.

spamnet (see link above) promises to make it so that, if you add a filter to your email, and it (or you) shows promise as a good spam filterer, that filter gets added to those that all subscribers get. unfortunately, it's currently only for outlook, but i expect it will either add support for other clients, or someone will come up with an open source alternative...

(Yeah, yeah, I know...)

But if you do, check out Cloudmark's SpamNet. I've been quite please with it's ability to stop spam, and it gets better the more people that use it.

I've been using a beta of Cloudmark's SpamNet for about a month with no false positives. Seems to do a good job, plus you can mark SPAM that you might get and it will update it on everyone's (that is using SpamNet) spam signatures.

Even if you are forced to use Outlook and IE at work or something, there is NO NEED to tolerate this. Despite all the anti-Outlook sentiment in these pages, it is easy to configure it to avoid problems.

Simply go into the security settings in Outlook and tell it to treat all incoming HTML mail as if it were in the "Restricted Sites" zone. And make sure that EVERYTHING (especially all scripting and java) is turned off in Restricted Sites. Boom, no more email popups (or cookies tracking when you read it, etc, etc).

It is also recommended that you install the latest security patches of course. You can go to the Windows Update site and it will automatically tell you what you need.

You don't even need to be running the latest Outlook or IE to do this, and you don't need to install the "Outlook Security Update" that cripples your ability to use certain attachments. It works back to Outlook 98 and IE 4.x.

Here is a good page on configuring Outlook to avoid malware.

P.S. While you are tweaking Outlook, take a look at SpamNet by CloudMark. It was written up here at Slashdot a few weeks back. I've been using it since then and it does a great job of culling annoying emails for you.

Actually, Cloudmark is the company created by one of Napster's founders and it takes advantage of Razor, the software mentioned in other replies to this post. The link is here and they're actually doing pretty well at sorting my spam for me. Unfortunately, they only work with Microsoft Outlook right now. But it's a start.

Is there a Spamassassin/Razor type product that works with OutlookExpress for Windows?

Unforunately Cloudmark's Spamnet only works with Outlook, not OutlookExpress.

Yahoo and CNet, I mean.

Cloudmark
Brightmail

It doesn't work with Outlook Express 6 so I'm in no position to test it :(

http://www.cloudmark.com/

... because the guy who posted this obviously couldn't be bothered....