Using Email Networks as P2P Spam Filters

Oscar Boykin writes "New Scientist is running a story on using the social network in email as a P2P network. The idea is that email networks have structure that is conducive to a type of search called percolation search . This means email clients could query the social network of email users to filter spam. This story is based on a preprint available."

Comments

YahooMail, GMail and Hotmail Do This Already

[osewa77]

What strikes me is that the idea of "pooling information" isn't really new. When one yahoo-mail/HotMail/Gmail user marks a particular mailing as spam, it affects the likelihood that the same email would be marked as spam for other yahoo users. So, the idea of "pooling information about spam" (from article) is already in use! However, it would be nice to create explicit protocols to allow such data (what mailings I have marked as spam) to be made public so that people using other email providers or their own mail servers can share in this pool of knowledge. Of course, the big three email providers (yahoo mail, hotmail, and gmail) will be foolish to make this information public: the spam filtering is one thing that makes a yahoo/gmail account more attractive to potential users! Good idea in theory, but bad business prospects. To add insult to injury, there is no way for the researchers to profit from the arrangement.

Re:Wondering if this works for mailinglists

[geoffspear]

If you're sending messages to email addresses that didn't actually subscribe then yes, you're a spammer and you should be blocked.

A well-designed opt-in list won't have any fake addresses on it (although it may have messages to invalid addresses bounce is once-valid accounts stop working), because anyone with half a brain designing an opt-in list would require the addresses it's mailing to be validated by the recipients of the messages before sending them anything.