[PLUG] spam abatement with a challenge/response system

[Eric <eric@lucii.org>]

Like many of you my inbox is increasingly filled with spam.  In a typical
24 hour period I probably recieve 200 emails - 80% or more of those are 
spam.  I tried spam-assassin but found it to be a resource hog and not
that good - I had too many false positives or spam get through anyway.
Setting up filters in the email client is a waste of time... they have to
be adjusted every few days as the character of the spam changes.  I want
to spend _zero_ (or near zero) time messing with spam.

While exploring the internet for something else entirely I found mapSoN - 
a challenge/response system for filtering email.  

Simply put, mapson keeps a list of email addresses that I correspond with.
When an email from one of those addresses arrives (or it's a reply to an
email that I send) then the email is delivered to me.  Otherwise, it's filed
where I don't see it and a challenge is sent to the sender asking them to 
confirm that they are human.  If they are real then they reply to the message
thereby sending the "key" in the email back to me.  Mapson sees this and
then delivers the corresponding message to me and adds the user to the 
whitelist.  They are never challenged again.  If it's a spammer then the reply
goes un-answered and I never see the email.

Does anybody have any experience with mapSoN (or other systems like it?)

Eric
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
#  Eric A Lucas
#  ------------
#   "Oh, I have slipped the surly bond of earth
#    and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings... 
#        -- John Gillespie Magee Jr.
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