These guys are attempting to reduce the amount of spam that floods the Internet. Perhaps even more surprising is that they are all working together. It helps you, it helps me and it helps them, of course.

The players represent some of the largest providers of e-mail services. The problem they’re tackling is monumental; spam from stolen or forged addresses. According to Microsoft, about half of the unsolicited e-mail or spam messages include these bogus sender addresses. Shutting down forged addresses would go a long way to reducing the overall mudslide of spam. Our inboxes get cleaner, and the providers save money.

Who Sent This?

When I send an e-mail, it arrives in the recipient’s inbox by way of my mail server, and it bears my name in the “from” area. The information in the “from” area is something that I can set to my full name or just my e-mail address. Whatever I set is what the recipient will see. However, behind this information that I can control is some information that I can’t control. Every message bears the mark of the mail server from whence it came.

You typically set the information for your own e-mail when you initially set up your account. It’s how I let my mail show up as being from “Steve Simpson” instead of “ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ”. This lets us read e-mail in a more natural and comfortable way.

However, I could even change my account to show as “George W. Bush” or “ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ”. Regardless of what I change it to, though, the “real” server information will give away the origin. Even if I change the message “George W. Bush”, the message belies its origin from “ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ” from a particular mail server.

Spammers have long exploited this fact. Ever received spam that appears to be from a friend or co-worker? Better yet, ever gotten it from yourself? This is the result of e-mail addresses and names being hijacked. Addresses are acquired and used by several methods. The more complex use involves computers infected with worms and viruses. These machines get set up as “zombie” mail servers that sit and crank out thousands of spam messages from all kinds of forged addresses.

Regardless of how an address has been nabbed, the fact is that mail that appears from that address will actually be sent through a mail system other than the one normally used for that address. This is where the new spam foilers come in.

A sort of “caller ID” for e-mail has been developed and is part of the solution proposed by the Big 4 e-mail companies mentioned earlier. The premise is fairly simple, and the process seems even simpler. Let’s say I send you an e-mail using the new system. Before your e-mail system will accept it and put it in your inbox, your mail system would check with the server responsible for “dmreg.com” to make sure that my mail server is allowed to send mail from the “real” address in the message. If the server answers “yes”, the mail makes it to your inbox. Now, let’s say a spammer sends a bunch of messages, some of which appear to be from me. Remember, the “real” server information will carry the mark of the spammer. Once again, your mail server will check with the server for “dmreg.com” to see if the mail server being used is allowed to send from it. In the background, the message that appears to be from “ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ” shows that it’s being sent from a server called strictlyspam.com. The strictlyspam server isn’t allowed to send mail from “dmreg.com” addresses. This time, your server will not get a positive response and the mail will be rejected.

As you might imagine, such an effort is going to require a little time to be completely effective. If you use one of these Big 4 providers, you may, in fact, start seeing (or not seeing) results. Other providers may start to add the mechanisms in the near future, and other techniques for slowing spam will are already cropping up. The end result is very attractive: reduce the amount of spam. I’m glad those guys are looking out for me.