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Our solution
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An outline of how the software works is set out below.
Conventional EMailing
With conventional mail systems, a sender sends emails to your ISP, where it sits in a mailbox until it is collected. The collection is carried out by EMail software (such as Outlook), which retrieves the emails onto recipient's local computer. Where the local user has spam software, the emails pass through the spam software, at which point they are deposited either in the spam-free or spam inboxes.
In this circumstance, where the recipient is mobile, every device that the recipient uses to collect the emails needs spam software installed. Every time the spam software is upgraded, new software needs to be installed on every machine.
With this configuration, every single email is downloaded from the ISP, even where it is spam.
"Spam A Lot Less" EMailing
With the "Spam A Lot Less" configuration (SALL), a sender sends emails to an existing email address, as before. The SALL system collects emails from the mailbox every ten minutes. It processes each email individually. Where the email is sent using an invalid email address or is sent quoting a false "To" address, it is deleted. (Typically, this accounts for around 25% of spam)
Where the "To" address is valid and the "From" address is not recognised, SALL emails the sender, using an email personalised by the recipient. If the sender is valid, they will respond to the confirmation. The sender is free to respond either by following the instructions or calling the recipient. Once validated, all emails from that sender are passed through to the Spam-Free mail box. In over 99.9% of cases (as at 27 March 2007), spammers do not reply to confirming emails. So the email is kept in a "Pending" folder for 21 days, following which it is deleted.
Where the "To" address is valid and the "From" address is in the "Whitelist" (very close to being the recipient's address book), the email is added to a "Spam-Free" mail box.
The recipient collects emails from the SALL spam-free mail box. In this way, the bulk of spam email that is unvalidated never reaches the recipient's computer (or mobile device).
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