Spam Slayer

Have you ever been so frustrated and angry about junk email that you wanted to scream? Well relief has arrived…(or so they say). IBM is “spamming spammers”. That’s right on Tuesday, Big Blue announced the release of software that identifies computers that originate unwanted email then bounces it back to the sender…(”Here’s right back at you” )“Spam the spammer”. The software is called FairUCE (Fair use of Unsolicited Commercial Email). This is how IBM’s explains it:
“Technically, FairUCE tries to find a relationship between the envelope senders domain and the IP address of the client delivering the mail, using a series of DNS look ups” (I don’t know what that means either, but I think it's good). “For the vast majority of legitimate mail from AOL to mailing lists to vanity domains, this is a snap. If such a relationship cannot be found, FairUCE attempts to find one by sending a user-customizable challenge/response”.
In other words FairUCE ID’s the email sender then checks its address against other known spammers. If FairUCE can’t verify the sender’s address it sends a “challenge” email. The sender must reply to the challenge to prove that it is a “live” person and not an automated spammer. If it identifies a certain machine as a source of spam… Bam...FairUCE bounces the messages back. The the intent is to clog the spammer and hence slow it down. It’s a great idea, but it's not perfect. IBM estimates that about 20%-30% of spam will slip by its new system. What would you pay for this "spammer slayer"? $100?…how about $200?… maybe $300? Well how about FREE…yes free…IBM is making the software available free on its Web site. You know what they say...an eye for an eye...and a spam for a spam. Sounds FairUCE to me.