The Spamalot system uses intelligent agents to interact with
spam messages and systems referenced in spam. The goal of Spamalot is to consume spam senders' resources by engaging
the spammer in an unproductive conversation or information exchange. To date two Spamalot agents have been
implemented: Arthur which handles Nigerian spam and Patsy which processes spam requesting information via web forms.
We believe the Spamalot approach is novel and shows
promise. We view the Spamalot approach as complementary
to existing filtering techniques, giving mail users the option of
employing Spamalot on spam messages that make it through
their server or client filters. A more aggressive strategy
would be to also apply Spamalot agents to automatically
classified spam. In such cases the confidence level that the
target is spam would need to be high.
Though we would like to eventually develop commercial
grade tools that can be mass distributed, there are other
potential uses for Spamalot in combating spam. Spamalot
dialog could be posted online with password limited access to
allow ISP and email service providers to shut down websites
and email addresses. Similarly Spamalot can provide logs of
its exchanges with phishers to financial institutions which can
then take appropriate action when they detect fraudulent login
attempts with Spamalot generated login data.
Nelson, Peter C.; Dallmeyer, Kenneth P.; Szybalski, Lukasz M.;
Palarz, Tom P.; Wieher, Michael. Spamalot: A Toolkit for Consuming
Spammers' Resources. Conference on Email and Anti-Spam. 2006.
Press: Fighting Spam With Spamalot
AUGUST 24, 2006 | New software engages human side of spammers, dragging out correspondence
and flooding them with duped messages and replies