Spammers can't spell "cat"

New ideas - new weapons, if you will - are sorely needed if we are serious about eradicating spam before we're all too old to care.

Existing spam filters appear to be causing many legitimate e-mail senders and recipients more grief than does junk e-mail - witness the nightmarish tale from the online magazine TidBITS that we chronicled here two weeks ago. (Network World recently had its own brush with a spam filter run amok.)

Instituting effective antispam legislation nationwide would seem to be a long shot, because it will require the involvement of - heaven help us - our Washington politicians, and unwisely burden law enforcement officials who have stinkier fish to fry.

Which brings us to an antispam start-up called Vanquish, and its plan to battle e-mail evildoers by hitting them where it hurts: in the wallet.

"There are three things people expect from e-mail: It should be fast, free and uncensored," says Jeffrey Asher, the company's chief sales and marketing officer. "We wanted to not violate any of those principles and still solve the problem."

Whether they've succeeded remains to be seen - they're still in alpha tests - but the concept certainly warrants attention.

"The challenge with spam is that it costs the spammer between one and three ten-thousandths of a cent to send a spam," Asher says. "Therefore you don't have to create very much of an economic hurdle in order to stop spam."

Details of the Vanquish system are available at vanquish.com, but here's an example of how it will build a personal wall of protection against spam:

First you download the Vanquish Java applet that works with standard e-mail clients. During the installation process, you will be asked to designate who in your address book and e-mail archives should be allowed to send you future e-mail without having to pass through the Vanquish gauntlet. The default setting is everyone. These folks will never even know you're using the system.

Anyone else who wants to send you e-mail will have some hurdling to do.

The first leap involves unknown senders proving they are not a machine by passing a simple validation test. For example, upon the receipt of an e-mail from a party not previously approved, Vanquish may ship a small JPEG photo of a kitten to the would-be sender along with an explanation of Vanquish and the question: "What does this become when it grows up?" If the sender types "cat" in a reply, this hurdle is cleared and the e-mail is delivered.

It's a piece of cake for humans, but spam-generating applications will be stymied, meaning you won't see the spam, Asher says.

Doesn't that solve the problem, because most spam is of this ilk? Not permanently, because spammers are relatively bright and are likely to find a way around the validation screening. Moreover, Asher says, e-mail users will want to ensure that unknown persons or companies can send them legitimate e-mail.

Here's where the economic hurdle comes into play.

"If I don't know who you are and you're contacting me, then you have got to agree that for your e-mail to go through you are going to guarantee my satisfaction with that e-mail," he says. "That satisfaction guarantee is very low, say 5 to 10 cents."

In other words, if I decide your e-mail is spam, it will cost you a nickel or dime out of the "bond" account that you have established through Vanquish. Down the road, Vanquish users will be able to set the price higher. You say nobody's going to go through all that trouble to send e-mail to a stranger.

Spammers certainly won't.

Whether anyone else does may determine whether Vanquish thrives or vanishes.

No hurdles here. Fire at will. The address is buzz@nww.com.

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