Anti-Spam Measures: Analysis and Design [Hardcover]

Guido Schryen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 354071748X | ISBN-13: 978-3540717485 | Publication Date: August 8, 2007 | Edition: 1

This book examines anti-spam measures in terms of their potentials, limitations, advantages, and drawbacks. These factors determine to which extent the measures can contribute to the reduction of spam in the long run. It examines legislative, organizational, behavioral, and technological anti-spam measures, including an insight into their effectiveness. In addition, it presents the conceptual development and analysis of an infrastructural e-mail framework, which features such a complementary application, and considers deployment issues.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews: "Schryen’s book basically contains his German habilitation dissertation. … This work is a methodical analysis of the potential, limitations, advantages, and drawbacks of antispam measures. ... In summary, Schryen provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art of the antispam field. An excellent work for those working in this field. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Faculty; researchers; professionals." (C. Tappert, CHOICE, Vol. 45 (6), 2008) "This book investigates the problem of email spam … . It is well written and important concepts … are exhaustively outlined along with relevant code headers and sensible discussions. I was actually very impressed with the work here and once I started to delve into the contents of this book, I did discover a lot more about this field … . a tour de force of anti-spam measures and I would hope that this book will become a bedtime read for researchers in the field." (Kevin Curran, Informer, Issue 26, Spring, 2008) "This book … reviews the history of spam, assesses the current situation and the economic significance of spam, analyzes current anti-spam measures, and proposes changes to the email infrastructure framework to address spam. … Anyone frustrated by spam will find the book to be an excellent reference … . The book is a timely review of the current state of spam email on the Internet. It contains thorough references, several appendices, and a good index." (David B. Henderson, ACM Computing Reviews, January, 2009)

From the Back Cover

The primary goal of this work is the methodical analysis of the potential, limitations, advantages, and drawbacks of anti-spam measures. These determine to which extent the measures can contribute to the reduction of spam in the long run. The range of considered anti-spam measures includes legislative, organizational, behavioral and technological ones. Furthermore, the conceptual development and analysis of an infrastructural email framework that features such a complementary application, is pointed out. After the presentation of the technological and organizational facets, the framework is analyzed twofold: its theoretical effectiveness is assessed with the aid of the formal model mentioned above, its storage and traffic requirements are analyzed quantitatively. The author further considers deployment issues, as the framework will have to be integrated in both the technological and the organizational Internet infrastructure. About the author: Guido Schryen graduated from the RWTH Aachen University (Germany) with a Master’s degree in Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Operations Research. He obtained his PhD from the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics at the RWTH Aachen University, where he now holds a postdoc position at the Institute of Information Systems. His current research activities focus on Internet security and anti-spam measures. Features & Benefits: It provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art of the anti-spam field. It includes a description and a methodical analysis of a broad range of technological, organizational, behavioral, and legislative anti-spam measures. It empirically shows how email addresses on the Internet are harvested and used for spamming. Presents a technological and organizational email infrastructure framework for long-term prevention of email spam.    

Product Details

• Hardcover: 229 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (August 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 354071748X
• ISBN-13: 978-3540717485
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,866,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars deployment of methods is a big issue, March 15, 2008

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This review is from: Anti-Spam Measures: Analysis and Design (Hardcover)

Several years ago, Bill Gates famously predicted that spam would soon be defeated. Well, we're not there yet, and this book is proof of that. It describes how antispam measures evolved over recent years. In a competitive feedback loop as spammers responded with adaptive changes to the nature of spam.

One good way to look at this book is to compare it with one of the first books on spam, written in 1998, Stopping Spam. The 9 years between these books led to considerable changes. The biggest difference is the use of a blacklist of domains, applied against links in the message body. A simple and devastatingly effective approach. Easy to understand and implement by an ISP. Yet in 1998, it had occurred to no one. Schryen describes this usage.

Other current ideas include bolting down the mail relays, and securing the sender address. Various ways are mooted, usually involving cryptographic certificates that can be used by a receiving mail provider to authenticate the message or parts thereof. SPF and Domain Keys are explained. But the book devotes space to explaining how deployment of any antispam scheme is also a huge issue. Some methods that require an overhaul of the email protocols, or of other Internet protocols, are awkward for this reason. All the more so if a substantial uptake of the methods across the Internet is needed for efficacy.