CNET | DOWNLOAD DISPATCH (PC Edition) June 3, 2003 Vol. 8, No. 22 Making mincemeat out of spam I rail against various forms of advertising and electronic solicitation pretty regularly, and I feel compelled to do so again because two-thirds of my e-mail is spam. I used to rely on antispam tools that bounced spam back to the sender, saying my address didn't exist, but most spam I get now comes from fake addresses. Everybody recognizes that spam is a big problem. It wastes our time, reduces our productivity, and uses up bandwidth. Software developers have responded with an assortment of tools to combat spam, which we've collected in our new Spam Filters category. Check it out here: <A HREF="http://cl.com.com/Click?q=86-8fH1QCJH04LeB9mAr6eFl9akU_ZR">http://cl.com.com/Click?q=86-8fH1QCJH04LeB9mAr6eFl9akU_ZR</A> I'm currently trying out SpamFighter, a utility that works with Microsoft Outlook. For every e-mail you receive, it consults a list of known spam. If it gets a match, it dumps the e-mail into a special spam folder. Users help generate the list of known spam by clicking a Block button for every spam e-mail received. A central server adds that spam to the list if multiple users click Block. So far it works as promised. Add your spam to the list here: <A HREF="http://cl.com.com/Click?q=9b-7-TFQSIH1Aw0I1eKI-VK9lRTnhsR">http://cl.com.com/Click?q=9b-7-TFQSIH1Aw0I1eKI-VK9lRTnhsR</A> What useful techniques or applications do you use to combat spam e-mail? Let me know at newsletters@download.com. Wayne Cunningham Senior Editor, CNET Download.com Consider each day a gift. Use each for who knows when we shall no longer be able to do so. James R COTTRILL. BuckyK3LIE@aol.com 3119 Pioneer AVE, Pittsburgh, PA 15226-1740 412-563-2379