early & late detection

Now to explain the different means of using Spam Traps: Early Detection and Late Detection.

Early Detection generally involves installing a server with appropriate spam-detecting software at an ISP. It monitors messages as they arrive at an ISP and rejects those it determines as spam. This has the advantage of not consuming mail server storage with spam messages and is the most efficient in terms of bandwidth consumption. But it does require that an ISP purchase a rather expensive hardware/software combination regardless of how many of its customers use the service (and that can mean higher charges to those who do subscribe to the service) and it means you can't use the service unless your particular ISP has purchased and installed the system.

Early Detection also suffers from a major design flaw: by analysing inbound email when it arrives at an ISP, it must use only those fingerprints that have been created at that time by the Spam Traps. If message fingerprints could be conducted at a later time – such as when the ISP customer actually connects to his or her mailbox to download their inbound email, for instance – there would be a much larger number of spam messages detected and fingerprinted by the Spam Traps. That means that more spam messages would be detected. For this reason principally, SpamTrap has adopted the Late Detection approach.

Late Detection involves a large, central spam detection and eradication facility, such as is operated by SpamTrap. SpamTrap monitors its Spam Traps and creates fingerprints of detected spam messages. Then, by configuring their email application to retrieve inbound mail messages via SpamTrap rather than directly from their ISP, SpamTrap customers' inbound email is compared against the most up-to-date list of fingerprints of identified spam messages.

This approach does not require that an ISP install any hardware or software. End-users (ie, you) do not have to rely on your ISP installing such a system in order to fight spam. You do not need to download any software (instead, you make some minor changes to your email application's settings). You do not need to maintain any 'Include' or 'Exclude' lists and you don't require colleagues to complete forms in order to be allowed to send you messages.