The suffocating effect of spam sometimes seems likely to undermine, if not wreck, Internet communications as we have come to know them. The reality, however, is not so bleak. Several techniques for intercepting spam and discouraging spammers have been invented, and more are on the way. The methods we shall discuss focus on junk e-mail, but many of them could apply to other incarnations of spam as well. No one of these will be a magic cure, but combinations--if embraced by enough of us--could work wonders. It is not unrealistic to hope for a day when our e-mail boxes will once again be nearly spam-free.

By Joshua Goodman, David Heckerman and Robert Rounthwaite at Scientific American.

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