SpamSubtract

I recently lead the design of SpamSubtract software for Windows. This software ships with HP and Compaq PCs and is also sold by interMute online and at most top software retail stores.

Update 23nov05: InterMute was recently acquired by Trend-Micro, and the InterMute team is now focused on their very successful anti-spyware technologies, and as such, Trend-Micro will soon be discontinuing SpamSubtract. :(

FYI, here is some information about the original SpamSubtract design goals and approach:

1. Easy to use. Must pass the grandma usability test; very simple even for non-techies. For example, it does not ask you for your smtp or pop server names or login/passwords, as we found in usability testing that most users could not answer these questions!
2. Family friendly. We do not expose the built-in dirty words list in our UI, we expunge the bad words from messages in the review panel, and we do not allow display of any images from strangers when you preview from the review panel, etc.
3. Squeakly clean email client; we do not create special folders for you to review; spam never touches your actual email client. This improves download and interactive performance, protects against viruses, and for the first time gives you back the ability to never purge your trash, as your deleted items will only be emails from your friends since spam is handled outside your email client at your leisure (vs. interrupting your email processing).
4. No activists! We did not build any "feel good" anti-spam features which do not actually work. Our users just want spam to go away, they don't want to join a club to work on anti-spam.
5. Realistic. Realize that no anti-spam algorithm will ever work completely-- there will always be false positives and false negatives. Thus, the only perfect solution is one which requires the user to review questionable emails! That being the case, it is very important to make that review process as fast and easy as possible. We did stop-watch usability testing of our review process.
6. Four buckets. All email messages fit into one of four buckets. Most users will never have to mess with any configuration options, as this categorization and color coding works right out of the box. Advanced users can easily change the handling for a bucket type, e.g., have all "nice stranger" emails go directly to your inbox instead of being held by the review panel.
   • Friends and interests: go right to your inbox.
   • Evil strangers: mark red and sort to bottom of review panel.
   • Nice strangers: mark green and sort to top of review panel; optionally let these go right to your inbox.
   • Questionable strangers: keep summary info in black/normal text sorted to the middle of the review panel.
7. Architecture which is robust (e.g., does not require your email client to be redirected to localhost) and updatable, so any new categorization techniques can be introduced without having to change the way the user works with the software.

Back to Paul's spam page.