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Did You Really Want To Read That Spam? 230

Posted by CmdrTaco from the human-element dept.
Henn writes "The BBC is carrying a story about computers that track how much attention you are paying and the "worth" of individual messages. Based on these criterion, it adjusts how intrusive to make the alerts. The story is fairly short, however you can find more depth over here." Interesting ideas, but for me it's becomming less about time- my filters catch 80% of my spam, meaning it only takes me 10-20 minutes to deal with it, and more about bandwidth. At home, on my modem, downloading several megs of spam seriously interferes with my ability to work. Yay spam!
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Did You Really Want To Read That Spam? More

Did You Really Want To Read That Spam?

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  • A day when CmdrTaco doesn't bitch about spam... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MondoMor ( 262881 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:08AM (#5685450) Homepage Journal
    ...is like a day without sunshine.

  • I'm really sorry ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mikey-San ( 582838 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:09AM (#5685454) Homepage Journal
    I'm really sorry, but I have to be the grammar dork this morning:

    "Based on these criterion [...]"?

    This is incorrect.

    "Based on these criteria [...]"?

    This is correct.

    I mean, you wouldn't say, "Based on these fact," would you? ;-)

    -/-
    Mikey-San
    Burninating karma at the speed of TROGDOR!

  • Modem?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Splatta ( 7993 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:10AM (#5685462) Journal
    CmdrTaco still uses a modem to work from home? What happened to the slashdot house? That modern oasis of nerdlyness with a mythical amount of bandwidth?
    • The dot-com implosion. VaLinux stock isnt worth 300 anymore, so they cant keep printing their own money to fund such extravagances. :)

      siri
    • That modern oasis of nerdlyness with a mythical amount of bandwidth?

      First thought too. Then (since I run an email service that does this) I wondered why he just didn't filter it 'server-side' if bandwidth is such a problem.

    • C'mon Rob, get with the times... time to upgrade that old 14.4 to something with horsepower..
    • Since I got married and started having kids, I have found that one of the best ways to not deal with spam at home (among other problems) is to leave work at work; and when I do (rarely) check my work email at home, I download just headers first.

  • Can you imagine those Tech support calls? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dtolton ( 162216 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:10AM (#5685464) Homepage
    "Other applications developed at the Human Media Lab include a pair
    of robotic eyes that allow a computer to look back at the user"

    People are already get skitish when they think someone is watching
    them, it would be interesting to see how they'd react when the
    computer really is watching them.

    I wonder how well suited this technology will be for practical
    application. I'm a fan of the plan for spam laid out by Paul Graham,
    http://www.paulgraham.com/antispam.html and as he notes in his
    articles one of the most important things with filters is the false
    positive rate. Will the computer be able to accurately assess if I'm
    in the middle of an important task and not disturb me? What if the
    incoming message is more important, and it's urgent that it distracts
    me? If they could solve these issues, I think it could have some
    potential. Interruptions are a big problem IMHO in the work place.

  • What we really need (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dancilmi ( 664358 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:10AM (#5685467)
    What we really need is to have advertisers PAY users when they send spam. When will we finally see federal requirements, like those instituted in places in Europe, requiring ADV in the subject line? I'm tired of having to battle these soulless advertisers. If time is money... and this crap has to occupy my time, give me some MONEY.

  • Smart SPAM (Score:5, Funny)

    by stanmann ( 602645 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:11AM (#5685472) Journal
    Great, the more I ignore it, the more annoying it will be. I'm glad I have a reasonably spam proof e-mail system.

    • Re:Smart SPAM (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rf0 ( 159958 )
      Spammers will always try to out do filters and such like. They will get more devious and its a continual game of one upmanship. The only 100% solution is to go live as a hermit in the mountains but hey even then I would guess that you would get leafleted

      Rus

  • embarrasing (Score:2, Funny)

    by Photon01 ( 662761 )
    That could be embarrasing, my computer knowing how much attention i pay to those "awful" pictures i get sent every day that "i have no idea why i keep getting sent them" :P

  • Wrong approach (Score:5, Funny)

    by yatest5 ( 455123 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:13AM (#5685480) Homepage
    This is bound to impose on corporate synergy. Spam filter developers need to think 'out of the box', possibly utilising the power of OSS development.

  • Downloading megs of spam... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Randolpho ( 628485 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:13AM (#5685483) Homepage Journal
    At home, on my modem, downloading several megs of spam seriously interferes with my ability to work.
    Try using IMAP rather than POP, or, better yet, get email with a webmail service. Seriously, it's the best option on a modem with tons of spam.
    • The other solutions that works for me is that my email drops onto my server where I ssh in and read it via pine. Anything I don't want I delete. Spam is filtered off using spam assasin and procmail.

      Anything that is left I just download via POP3. Works, is simple and robust

      Rus
      • Hey, wow, someone that uses the same solution I do :) Cool! Well, at least the pine bit. I found spamassassin pretty annoying with false positives at too high a threshold, and too annoying with not blocking much of anything at too low. TMDI seems a pretty good option, or I installed a Bayes filter in Squirrelmail where I work, and that seems pretty incredibly effective. Maybe I'll get to work on Squirrelmail on my openbsd firewall...
    • IMAP with good filters and the right client can download just the headers, which should be enough to decide whether the message is spam or not. Webmail can be good because it only typically shows the date, subject, and from, and doesn't bother with the other headers (at least not on the overview), but that may not be enough to automatically sideline messages which get past the server-side spam filters...
      Also, using a web-browser to read email suck :-)

  • modem? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 )
    CmdrTaco, lovechild of the Internet dotcom explosion, uses an analog modem? This isn't April Fool's Day anymore.

    If you can kill 80-90% of your spam on the server end, and end up with 2 or 3 spams per day, even on a modem its tolerable. Geesh.

    Go drink more coffee.

    • Dunno about you and how it is where you live, but in Norway getting shell-access to do server-side filtering is not in the standard-package. In fact it's quite rare.

      Not that I have that problem anyway :)

  • neat concept (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MoreDruid ( 584251 )
    "We now need computers that sense when we are busy, when we are available for interruption and know when to wait their turn - just as we do in human-to-human interaction," said Dr Vertegaal.
    So if my eyes are in motion - like reading /. - it means I'm busy? Great, now my boss can remotely monitor my activities and think I'm working! Still a neat concept though... I wonder if you can set the "attention level" yourself. I mean if you're stuck with a problem and just thinking behind your computer doesn't neces
    • Actually, if your eyes are stationary ...
      The eye contact sensors work by locating where your pupils are looking. Your eyes actually jump around, and take snapshots of what you are looking at. The sensor can tell if you are looking at a particular thing, monitor for example, and then the system can reason about how to interupt you and if the message is worth it at all. Thus, allowing you to be left alone if you are busy working or god forbid reading /.

  • Yahoo already does this... (Score:3, Informative)

    by j0hnfr0g ( 652153 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:16AM (#5685502)
    ...with their online email. They pay attention to how much you pay attention to different types of email and then tries to put most of the spam in a "Bulk Mail" folder.

    John

    • Re:Yahoo already does this... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Randolpho ( 628485 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:25AM (#5685543) Homepage Journal
      I love my yahoo account. It's the only address I give out publicly, and the bulk folder works wonders. Grabs easily 99% of all my spam. Unfortunately, that 1% is still a problem -- when you get hundreds of s-mails a day, that 1% becomes a largish number -- but I diligently report it to the yahoo spam-cops. :)
    • Yeah, I agree that their bulk mail folder works pretty damn good...

      yeah, some days that gets filled with a bunch of crap, but all it takes to wipe 'em out is a single click....and if you want to scan over them real quick to make sure nothing got in there by accident you're just reading the subject lines, not waiting on any msg downloads

      And every once in a while some will creep into my inbox, but if what you're saying is true, its probably because I'd opened a some spam earlier in the week to confirm its sp

  • c'mon Taco (Score:5, Funny)

    by squarefish ( 561836 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:17AM (#5685507)
    We know that spam has become part of your work. [cmdrtaco.net]

    You can't fool us!

  • Please... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:18AM (#5685510)
    At home, on my modem, downloading several megs of spam seriously interferes with my ability to work.

    So how do you think operators of websites feel when their sites are brought to their knees and/or they are hit with huge and unexpected ISP bills, because of an article posted on your company's website ? How do you think these operators feel when said effects become little more than a running joke on your company's website ?

    If you can't see the parallel between spam and slashdotting, then you're not being fair. What's that old saw about the goose and the gander ?
    • Hmmm, speaking of the goose and the gander, looks like you need a good goosing! Too bad you didn't post the URL of your website so /.r's could goose you. /. provides a valuable tool that inspires awe and admiration in each and every marketing department.
    • Oh please. If you put something on the web, then you are inviting people to come see it. If you put something out there that MANY people want to see, then dont get upset when MANY people come to see it. That would be like putting up a sign in a busy city stating you had free donuts and then yelling at the customers for coming to eat them.

      If I stuck something on my website that people wanted to see, then I would expect them to come see it. If I wanted to stick something up for just a few people, I'd either
      • So you don't mind spam then? Because, after all, you do have an email address which is reachable by anyone from anywhere. If you're such an interesting person that LOADS of people want to send you informative and useful mail, then, well, tough.

        You made the choice to have an email address, pardon us for wanting to send you junk.
        • Not exactly. You put information out on the web for the purpose of it being accessible -- if you didn't want it to be accessible, you wouldn't put it on the web. You don't set up an email address for the purpose of getting spam (hopefully not, at least). And if you consider penis enlargement and other such spam 'informative and useful mail', well, no comment :P. All of these people complain about slashdot linking to pages, but you won't see them stop clicking on the links to help solve the problem. Alt

    • There's a big difference though. Slashdot isn't actually going to these sites, they're merely posting links. They're less like spammers, and more like companies which give out email addresses.

      Also slashdotting is lots of people hitting one address. Spamming is one person hitting lots of addresses. Spamming is more like Google's webcrawling than slashdotting.

    • I think those are not exactly the same -- after all, the websites are there for the public to see. But perhaps /. should ask permission or automatically mirror the sites, because somtimes as cool as they are, they just can not handle the load.

    • Re:Please... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by leeward ( 313589 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @12:16PM (#5686857)

      Ah, nice troll ;) Of course, you can always find "parallels" between any two things. Parallels by themselves are completely meaningless.

      Yes, slashdotting can be a problem for those hit by it. But it is a onetime hit for a few people, and is soon forgotten. Slashdotting is more like a spectacular train wreck than spam.

      Spam on the other hand is unrelenting. It effects everyone, and continues day after day forever. Even if someone is filtering, or is having filtering done for them, you are still ultimately paying for the effort of setting up and maintaining the filters.

  • The team is designing devices that can work out the level of attention a person is paying to their PC and the importance that each message received may have for them.

    This could have implications for not only email but the entire way we use our computers. What if the operating system delivered appropiate messages about the status of the network based on the sysadmins attention and the piority of the message?

    Web pages that could deliver shorter copy if the user is in a hurry/inattentive and longer copy if

  • Always a trade off (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:19AM (#5685512) Homepage Journal
    It's always a trade off as to how we want to administer our mail server. The more spammers lists we add in, the less spam we get, but we end up bouncing a lot of legit mail and having to deal with clients who get rejected for spam. Of course, why anyone wants to put penis enlargement in a normal email subject line is beyond me.

    Case in point: If you follow the letter of the spec, you really are supposed to reject email which comes from a server who's forward and reverse lookups don't match, or who are missing either. Logic behind this is to block people on DSL lines who have a DHCP-assigned IP address from sending spam through one of the few ISP's who aren't yet blocking outbound port 25 traffic.
    Unfortunately, what this ends up doing is pissing off a lot of people who run their own little mail server in their office of 20 people, and don't have it configured correctly in the DNS, or something like that.

    So, it's hard to know where the line is. Spam costs us money either way - but it costs us less money in bandwidth than in tech support, so we're inclined to go for slightly less strict spam rules (aka good sendmail rules and only one spam db instead of like 6 of them) so that we don't have to deal with the customer complaints. Surprisingly, few customers complain about spam, compared to customers who complain about spam rejections. I would attribute that to the fact that, even with only light spam filtering, we still catch a lot of spam (I would say probably 80%), and what gets through, most people accept as an inevitibility. But, the bandwidth issue is small, because spam constitutes incomming bandwidth, and as a webhosting provider, incomming bandwidth is never in short supply.

    Now, if we catch someone doing spamming on the network (outgoing), we deal with that damn quick. Some of those spam lists, if they catch you, will block your entire /24.

    ~Will
    • "If you follow the letter of the spec, you really are supposed to reject email which comes from a server who's forward and reverse lookups don't match, or who are missing either"

      What spec is this? I don't remember reading anything about reverse lookups in the SMTP RFC's, especially consdidering that relaying was designed as a feature, not a bug.
      • I think it was reccomended, but optional, in one of the RFC's.

        At any rate, if everyone's mail server were configured correctly with both a forward and a reverse dns zone that matched, it wouldn't be a problem. But, you can't rely on people to do that.

        ~Will

  • Several MB a day? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lawrence_Bird ( 67278 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:21AM (#5685518) Homepage
    I get my share of spam too.. but I really have to question getting several MB of spam a day. The only spam I get larger than a normal 2k message are people trying to pass virus files. What have you done to get yourself so adored by spammers? I have two email addresses that get 95% of my email - one since 1990 and the other from 1994 and do a fair amount of purchasing and usenet posting (the past few years with my email blocked - but its certainly in the archives), but I dont think I've ever had more than 100k in a day. I wonder what others on here feel is a typical amount of spam?
    • I can easily believe that. I average around 100-120 SPD (spams per day) to my personal address, of which around 80% gets filtered. However, if you include the stuff that gets sent to invalid addresses on my domain (of which I'm the only user), it's been running around 1200-1300 SPD lately.

      Because of the volume, and the fact that I frequently check my mail on the road with a dialup connection, I use mailfilter to delete spam on the server without having to download message bodies. Otherwise it can easily tak

    • You are a very lucky man Mr. Bird. I'm using various filters and I receive over 700k per day, often over 1MB. It's not me either. I signed up for a new account on an ISP and didn't use it for anything but shell access (no email, no newsgroups). My email address for that ISP was never shared, yet I was receiving about 20 spams per day starting with the very minute I signed up. Spammers now just spam random addresses for ISP domain names, it's unavoidable. Honestly, I have trouble believing you get as l
      • No, I think you're unlucky. I own 2 domains, one of which has a web site that was linked from slashdot, and have all of the e-mail from those diverted to an e-mail at a third domain. I also have a forwarding address on a fourth domain. As an author of free software, some of my addresses have been widely published. I control every server that my e-mail for three out of four of those domains passes across after it leaves the original sender's control. Other than stuff I've specifically signed up with, I
        • You know what the difference must be? You have your own domain. I'm using various ISPs and obviously, the spammers must target them. So, that's what must be happening with the other poster too. Sorry, I'm a little slow! :) However, if you have to play with the unwashed masses (ISPs) without your own domain name, you're in for a world of hurt spam-wise (A new Lord of the Rings character?).
    • Several MB per day is plausible, and it's within half an order of magnitude of my own experience. If you want to see this for yourself, post to Usenet for a few years (well, ok, I guess you already did that, but maybe the groups matter) using an unmangled address and put up a web site that has your address at the bottom of every page.

      That's what I did in the mid 90s, naively failing to forsee the magnitude of the coming Spam Problem. I still technically have access to the mailbox for the address that I

  • At home, on my modem, downloading several megs of spam seriously interferes with my ability to work.

    You mean you don't have a personal T1 at home by now?

  • Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wheany ( 460585 ) <wheany+sd@iki.fi> on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:26AM (#5685547) Homepage Journal
    With POPFile you can see why a particular spam got caught. Or why a spam got through.

    That is the only time I look at spam for more than a second.
  • ... actually looks like it belongs in a brothel.

    -S

  • This would be better... (Score:3, Funny)

    by kinnell ( 607819 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:30AM (#5685569)
    ...if the robotic eyes were embedded in a robotic head which you could punch the f#%k out of. I think this would solve the most pressing problem in human computer interaction.
    • That would be wicked. Still better would be if you could make a programming language out of beating the fsck out of it.

      left punch: decrement the pointer

      right punch: increment the pointer

      left backfist: decrement the byte at the the pointer

      left backfist: increment the byte at the the pointer

      ...

      Of course the IDE for this could be a bit of a pain when you're having your code reviews. On the other hand it might encourage you to write better code the first time so you didn't need to read it again so many ti

  • As a Queens Grad Student... (Score:4, Informative)

    by idfrsr ( 560314 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:37AM (#5685595)

    Since I almost ended up working in this lab here at Queen's (and some of my friends do...), I think I should offer some more information. The lab home page is here [queensu.ca] and more information on what exactly they do can be found there.

    The article glosses over the main idea, but the implications are not entirely stated. The goal is to prevent our computers (and all other devices that are a part of our tech world) from becoming our masters. With more and more devices becoming common place, we just can't pay attention to them all and so we cannot use them effectively. This paper [queensu.ca] is another good read about Attentive User Interfaces and what directions the research is going for those who are interested.

  • Stop accepting email for work related feedback. Use a web-based feedback form instead. Establish a new, separate account for your coworkers which isn't so easy to guess.

    You're not checking your personal mail while you're at work, are you?

  • Then don't read spam at home! (Score:4, Informative)

    by hardaker ( 32597 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:41AM (#5685613) Homepage
    By using a mail server that lets you split the incoming mail into mail boxes (see also: imap, procmail), you can then pick the folders you want to browse. When I'm out on the road, I don't read my spam box. Even when I do, using imap means I can get "just the headers" when sorting through the list and deciding what to delete. It's my own fault if that subject line looks too interesting and I click on it to download the article. But in actuality, when I'm on the road: I don't sort through spam.

  • Dial up is the problem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by micahmicahmicah ( 600841 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:41AM (#5685618)
    "At home, on my modem, downloading several megs of spam seriously interferes with my ability to work." Being on Dial-up would seriously interfere with just about anything online. I cannot understand why anyone with technical knowledge would still be using dial up. The first thing I look at when I am moving is what broadband options are available in the area. I won't even move into Comcast territory because of their speed restrictions, and their unreasonable "giganews" setup. I currently live in Optimum Online territory, and I am moving in June, still in the same territory. With services available like VOIP from www.vonage.com, it is easier to justify the added expense of broadband. I even know a few people with a lowered sense of ethics who decide to provide hosting from their local machines through cable modems. Some of them uncap, some of them don't - check www.dslreports.com and search for Optimum Online, the average user speed is enough for most geeks.
    • I won't even move into Comcast territory because of their speed restrictions, and their unreasonable "giganews" setup. I currently live in Optimum Online territory

      Wow, that is strange to read. It's kinda amusing and horrible at the same time. Your choice of area in which you are willing to live is dictated by the local telecom monopoly. The fact that this situation exists is just actually kind of depressing.

      People actually have the need to look into which monopoly they are going to be moving under th

    • I cannot understand why anyone with technical knowledge would still be using dial up.



      Uhhhh, try, not having anything but dialup in your area? I wish I could demand cable and Verizon come to my house but they won't.

  • Many people here talk about the ability of the internet to self regulate... There are more of us than them.

    hack them. denial of service them. make it very expensive for them. Target the business and products that they sell! Just shut them down. Do whatever it takes (don't be too stupid).

    Take email back from the spammers. This is war.

    • the spammers already hide behind false addresses and forged email headers and send their spamn through unsecure servers.

      you would probably end up hitting something else than the originating spammer.
      • Before any action would be taken people need information. Is there a repository of spammers and information about their whereabouts? We need everything from server IPs to personal names and locations. I bet there are under a 1000 individuals on just a few networks that are the worst offenders.

        This wouldn't need to be a game of whack-a-mole if a consortium of concerned individuals, with contributions from the ISPs would gather together to block the worst offenders.

        I suspect the ISPs are not innocent byst

  • I use Mailwasher... (Score:3, Informative)

    by jeeptj ( 463368 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @08:49AM (#5685658)
    and kill (then bounce the fuckers into oblivion) spam right before they hit my mailbox. Mailwasher [mailwasher.net] does an awesome job by only looking at the headers in your POP3 account. You can then bounce the spam and the sender receives a non-delivery message, yay! The amount of spam I've gotten since I first started using it has decreased immensely.
    • You do realise that most of the time, spam doesn't have the spammers real return address, don't you? Either the return/sending address is totally faked, in which case those bounces just end up back at YOUR isp as a non-deliverable, making their spam bandwidth problem worse; or it goes to a real but totally unrelated domain that's been spoofed by the spammer to hide their tracks, otherwise known as a joe job. So your bounce report just increases the amount of unexpected bounce messages they get, again, incr
  • The real question is, how much time are people spending resolving the problem of false positives?

    We've all been there...the CEO bitches because someone can't get an email through because it has a combination of "adult" "free" in the subject!

    -rob
    • I just went through this. My boss is convinced that there's got to be a 99% effective way to reduce spam without getting more than a few false positives, all for less than a couple hundred dollars. We use Exchange 5.5 and all the features it has, so I can't just stick him on POP3 with SPAM Assassin. Currently we're using SPAMCOP's DNS blacklist which catches about 50% of the spam. The problem is, my boss just has to have his contact information on EVERYTHING, including the registration information for o
  • If you don't like spam, take a look at my guarded email protocol: http://www.dwheeler.com/guarded-email [dwheeler.com].

  • Filters only catch 80% of your spam? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @09:21AM (#5685838)
    Your filters suck. Try POPFile [sourceforge.net], a cross-platform open-source mail sorter. Once it is properly trained you shouldn't get less than 90% accuracy and you will probably get even higher.
  • I agree that spam is awful, and the scourge of the earth. But realistically I dont think I have ever had nearly as many problems as most slashdot story posters have...and I am not sure why.

    Perhaps it is because I dont use a yahoo or hotmail account (they will sell you out in a heartbeat) and perhaps it is because I am VERY careful about giving my email address out...(the phone company asks for your email address? well I told them it was devnull@mydomain.com..). I think that if you are just a little car
  • A four-letter word springs to mind: RTFA.

    (Or RTFS - read the la-la-laa submission)

    The messages the article and the submitter are talking about are the various alerts, instant messages etc. that interrupt our concentration.

    The device described in the article monitors the attention of the user and uses it to prioritise different messages the user sees; the pdf-link gives more details about the technology.

    I repeat: the article is far more interesting than Yet Another Solution to Spam.

    --Antti
  • Why not combine both? Put spamvertized sites slashdot front page, so this sites and maybe the entire countries that host them be slashdotted, and you did part of your job (post/moderate stories here) and at the same time, did something against spam (most of those sites will dissapear after several slashdotting incidents faster than because spam complains). With the time, you mail address will be the scariest one for spammers, and you will be slowly off of most lists.

  • Spam Is Easy To Stop (Score:3, Informative)

    by SecretAsianMan ( 45389 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @09:47AM (#5685971) Homepage

    Spam is easy to stop. Forget using this filter crap and start requiring that unrecognized senders go through a confirmation step. For a good pre-canned solution, use tmda. Or, you can do what I did and write a custom confirmation system in procmail, which takes some skill but is enormously fun.

    Note that for for this solution, you should have access to a real email server, whether your own or at a hosting company; the confirmation software has to run somewhere. For personal use, I recommend a hosting service, even if you do have a mail server at home. That puts the spam bandwidth somewhere other than your personal internet pipe. There's always fetchmail to pull mail off of your hosting service.

  • I get around 1000 messages (mostly spam) every day over my 56K modem without even noticing.

    I've got Herbivore [herbivore.us] (my anti-spam program) set up to retrieve my mail from the mail server every 2.5 minutes and I've never noticed a slowdown from spam. Most spam messages aren't very big. They include links to images instead of the actual images. Still, I guess 1000 messages at 2K each is around 2MB but spread that over 24 hours and there's very little impact on my work.

    <shamelessplug>
    If you're interested

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