One of the simplest and safest is a filter
built into certain email software packages that a user has in his/her own
computer. For example, Eudora, the email software I use on my computer, has
an in-built device for segregating incoming messages suspected as spam. (This
software assigns a "spam score" to each incoming message, and you can fix a
threshold such that messages assigned score above it are segregated from the
rest.) These are filed in a separate in box, where they can be rapidly
inspected; the false positives (ie messages falsely suspected as spam) can be
transferred to an ordinary in box, and the remaining ones (real spam)
deleted.
Conversely, the false negatives (spam messages
undetected as such by the filter) can be transferred into the spam box. This
clever piece of software can "learn" from experience: in future it will
reduce the "spam score" of messages similar to those you have detected as
false positives, and increase the "spam score" of messages similar to those
you have detected as false negatives.
This solves your problem, as email user. But
there remains a big problem for internet service providers (ISPs). Your ISP
is the service through which you get and send your email. In many cases you
can tell a user's ISP from his/her email address. For example, you can see
from my email address that my ISP is KCL: King's College, London. (To be
precise, it is the Information Services and Systems -- ISS -- unit at
KCL.)
All ISPs are nowadays inundated by gigantic
quantities of spam addressed to their clients. In order to overcome this
overload, ISPs are resorting to filtering spam, so that it is blocked by
them, before reaching you, the user.
These filters are of two kinds. The more
benign kind sends the suspected spam to a "quarantine" (usually managed by a
commercial company, not by the ISP itself), where you, the addressee, can
still inspect it (via an internet browser, eg Netscape or Explorer) and
release the false positives, which are then sent to your in box as originally
intended by the sender. You can also delete the remaining real spam; or, if
you don't, the manager of the quarantine will delete it after a period of a
few days. In other words, this kind of filter works much like a filter of the
mail software in your own computer, except that you have to go to the
internet to sort out the false positives from the real spam. And you still
get a few false negatives -- real spam that your ISP's filter fails to detect
as such. This kind of filter is used by my ISP at KCL. The commercial firm
that manages the filtering is Spam Manager, and is based in the US.
The less benign form of filtering is that
whereby the ISP simply blocks the suspected spam message and dumps it into a
black hole (cyberspace's virtual Guantanamo Bay). You, the addressee, cannot
get it released by any simple procedure. You don't even get to know that it
has been blocked, unless you are informed by the sender (who may get a
"bounce" notice saying that the intended addressee has not received the
message). America On Line (AOL) an IT mega-giant, uses this kind of
filtering. If AOL is your ISP, this is how some of the email addressed to you
gets blocked.
Over the last few weeks, since my ISP has
started to use the Spam Manager filter, I began to notice something rather
disturbing: quite consistently, the false positives that I found in my
quarantine box (at the Spam Manager website) were messages sent to me by
human rights and peace groups. These were newsletters sent by these groups to
subscribers only, of whom I am one. It appeared that these groups -- or some
material included in their newsletters -- are classified by the filter as
"objectionable" and quarantined as "spam".
The most outrageous instance of this was a
message sent to me by Amnesty International, to whose newsletter I subscribe.
The message, whose subject line was "One year after Abu Ghraib, torture
continues" and was dated 29 April 2005, was quarantined by Spam Manager as
"suspected spam"!!! Other cases included newsletters sent to me by Israeli
peace/human rights groups, and by a journalists' club based in London
(established in 2003 to support those journalists, cameramen and
photographers throughout the world who risk their lives in the course of
their work).
I then noticed another strange thing. I often
send to my friends material concerning human rights, especially in connection
with the Middle East. In particular, I forwarded to these friends some
newsletters from the human rights and peace groups mentioned above --
messages I released from the Spam Manager quarantine. I soon received a
"bounce" notice from AOL, telling me that those of my friends who have AOL as
their ISP had not received my messages, as they were classified as "spam".
(These friends were told nothing by AOL; they did not know my messages to
them were blocked until I informed them of this.)
It appeared that these human rights and peace
groups -- or something included in their messages -- had been put on a black
list used by both Spam Manager and AOL. Moreover, the reason for blacklisting
was evidently political.
By careful controlled experiments with sending
such material to one of my friends who has an AOL email address, we
discovered that -- at least in some cases -- what was blacklisted was not the
email address of the original sender (an Israeli peace/human rights group)
nor the main text of the message, but the URL (internet address) of the
original sender's web-site, which was included as a clickable link in the
message. When I tried to forward to him the original message intact, it was
blocked by AOL; when I removed the link, the message got through. QED.
After some frustrating email exchanges with
the person in charge of my ISP, I had a face-to-face meeting with two of the
very senior people in that unit.
They confirmed that not only Spam Manager and
AOL, but other ISP spam filters world-wide, use the same black list, which is
US-based. It also transpired that the whole drive for this had come from the
US administration. (I understand that the US has applied pressure on all
concerned to use that US-based black list.) This black list is fed into a
program that automatically filters and defines as "spam" message containing
blacklisted item.
Apparently, the black list consists of
"objectionable" email addresses, URLs (addresses of websites), words and
phrases. Of course, most of these are really politically neutral and their
presence on the black list quite legitimate, or at least acceptable.
But the black list evidently also contains
items whose presence there is politically motivated. The two senior people
whom I met were unable to tell me what exact criteria are used for
blacklisting: apparently this is a Great Commercial Secret, which is a sealed
book even to them.
But they confirmed that it would be possible
for some malicious person (or, more likely, group of persons), motivated by
political hostility, to complain to their ISP that, say, some website
contains "objectionable" material, for the URL of this website to be
blacklisted.
Or -- even more disturbing -- Big Bushy
Brother Himself can order an item to be blacklisted. Undoubtedly, this is
used to stifle and muzzle "inconvenient" political discourse, mainly
concerned with the violation of human rights and displaying disrespect to
BBB.
Once an item gets blacklisted, it is very hard
indeed to get it whitelisted. It is a matter of "guilty until proven
innocent". And you can imagine how hard it is to prove innocence. Apparently,
you have to provide impossibly stringent guarantees for the future good
behaviour of, say, the owner of the blacklisted URL. Might as well forget it,
I was told (not in so many words, of course).
Now, what can you do about this outrage?
First of all, make it widely known. Evil
triumphs when decent people stay silent.
If you feel as I do, please forward this
message to your friends.
Second, make sure that your ISP does not
simply dump "suspected spam" addressed to you. If it does, complain. If this
doesn't help, move to another ISP, one that uses no filtering at all or the
relatively more benign kind.
Third, if you get a "bounce" message telling
you that a message you sent has been blocked as "spam", let the addressee
know about it.
Finally, be prepared for the next phase in the
battle for free speech and communication. My hunch is the BBB will eventually
apply enormous pressure on all ISPs to use the less benign form of "spam
filtering".
Best wishes,
M Machover
A Personal Note from the Webmaster of this
Website:
As one who has experienced first hand the
alarming increase in Email tampering over the past few years, I can attest to
the accuracy of Moishe Machover's excellent article.
Many of those working at the front lines of
human rights, peace, anti-globalisation and environmental movements,
regularily experience Email tampering. This can range from Emails being
delayed for days, to Emails which are sent but never arrive.
Despite the extent of this infringement of
liberty, we have grown so accustomed to it, that many now consider it a minor
irritation. And rather than spend valuable time campaigning about it, choose
to ignore it and concentrate effort on their chosen cause.
However, as Moishe Machover's message shows,
the manipulation of the Internet's Email systems under the guise of
preventing spam, has dramatically increased in scope. Now 'Everyone' is
affected to some extent.
Over the years I have come to the
understanding that very often the most effective solutions to a problem, are
usually the most simple. The solution in this case is also very simple:
Reiterating Moishe Machover's advice.
- Do not use ISP's which impose anti-spam systems. You are paying good
money for the privilege of having your personal freedoms removed.
- Instead use an Email program which will filter and remove the spam.
There are a number of very good Email programs which will do this. Eudora
is one such program. Another excellent and 'Free' program is Mozilla
Thunderbird.
By adopting these simple steps you can be
assured that legitimate Emails sent to you will not be killed by commercial
anti-spam systems.
