I had been swamped with junk e-mail like all of the rest of you whose
email address is published somewhere on the Web.  As one who shuns
all advertising generally, seldom being influenced by popular trends,
I find it not only a waste of time for me to deal with, but also an
invasion of the sanctity of my home.  I feel the same way about
telemarketing.  I am annoyed and insulted that someone feels that they
should have the right to wake me from a nap or interrupt my dinner to
tell me about the great deal they can give me to put aluminum siding on
my brick house.

With junk email, the assault can be worse, because even though I have
some control over the timing of the invasion, I find the proliferation
of sleazy ads absolutely repulsive and disgusting.  I always had looked
forward with eager anticipation to checking my email, and did so
several times per day, to see what gems awaited me.  However, the
growing amount of spam was turning this formerly pleasant activity into
a dreadful chore.  I had set up all kinds of filters to delete them
directly off of the POP server before they reached my inbox on my
computer.  But on those occasions when one got by, I was disturbed.
I was tired of receiving messages offering me larger breasts or other
body parts, pictures of someone's teenage daughter and the things she
can do with farm animals, higher income, lower interest rates, lifetime
XXX access, or a college diploma and "the admiration of all."

Then my neighbor told me about MailWasher.  It is a shareware program
that enables you to preview the message information without downloading
it, and select individual messages for priority treatment, deletion, or
attempted bouncing.  That is the feature that appealed to me the most:
that I could generate a forged "bounce" message and send it to the
spammer as though from the mailer-daemon.  Of course, this does not
work for the increasing number of spammers who forge return addresses,
but at least I am able to delete them from the server by simply putting
a checkmark in a box, without having to download them.

I installed MailWasher and have used it now for several months.  I do
believe that I have reduced the flow of spam to my POP server by about
30% to 50%, and the ones that still reach my mail server I am able to
filter out, or spot immediately without having to preview.  I am just
delighted that I can zap them before letting them end up on my hard
drive, and better yet bounce some back.  Since installing MailWasher
I can say that only by my own error do any unwanted emails reach my
inbox.

I agree that there needs to be some long-term, widespread solution;
however, as one who believes firmly that intrusive government causes
more problems than it solves, I believe that the solution needs to come
from the private sector.  Anti-spam software seems to be a good start.

You can check out Mailwasher at www.mailwasher.net.

Mark Chester