Anti-spam Masters Project

................................................................................................................................... I CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................... 2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION............................................................................................ 2 CONTEXT OF RESEARCH ...................................................................................................... 2 RESEARCH QUESTION AND OBJECTIVE ........................................................................... 2 CHAPTER 2 PROJECT PLAN................................................................................................... 3 ACTIVITIES ............................................................................................................................... 3 DELIVERABLES ....................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 3 EXECUTION OF THE PROJECT...................................................................... 5 PROCESS.................................................................................................................................... 5 LITERATURE SURVEY ........................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 4 ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................. 7 PROBLEM ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................... 7 EXISTING SOLUTIONS .................................................................................................................. 9 POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS................................................................................................................. 12 THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS ......................................................................................................... 13 ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS ......................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER 6 EVALUATION .................................................................................................... 17 POSITIVE .................................................................................................................................... 17 NEGATIVE .................................................................................................................................. 17 REFLECTION............................................................................................................................... 17 SELF-ASSESSMENT:.................................................................................................................... 17 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 18 FIGURE LIST ............................................................................................................................. 20 APENDIX-A LITERATURE SURVEY FINDINGS ............................................................... 21 CHAPT ER 1 B ACKGRO UND BACKGROUND INFORMATION At the moment of writing, the major part of all e-mails that are received are unsolicited (spam). There are now various other forms of spam; Usenet spam, SMS spam, web log spam, etc. Spam is the primary threat to the survival of e-mail as a useful communication medium. Figure 1 gives an overview of the amount of spam a user received between the years 1997 and 2000 [55]. The attack of spammers has increased dramatically during the past few years and has consequently decreased the usefulness of e-mail. We are not only experiencing annoyance but are losing millions in the form of human resources and server time. Fighting spam is appropriately called a war. In our efforts we are spending (or rather wasting) time and money trying to stop spam, which could be employed for any number of constructive projects. Figure 1. Spam in Europe 1997-2000