An email spam filtering proxy using secure authentication and micro-bonds

The Apuma system described in this thesis was designed and implemented as a novel combination of existing technologies in order to give an email user full control over their incoming email. The innate uncertainty of automatic spam detection creates a tension between the desire to filter 100% of spam, and the need to avoid the loss of legitimate mail. Apuma attempts to solve this problem by combining accept-lists with payment systems and content evaluation. Messages from known senders can be exempted from filtering; combined with intelligent automated management of the accept-list this can eliminate the vast majority of false-positives. Remaining mail can thus be subjected to much more rigorous screening. Finally, first time contact and other special cases can be handled with micro-payments or micro-bonds. Apuma includes a plugin interface that allows any financial, proof-of work, or other desired protocol to be integrated into the Apuma filtering framework.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Rideout, Ariel Lauren

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert Miller.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33348

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33348