Spam

Contents: Spam, as mail, Spam, the meat

[edit] Spam, as mail

Unsolicited bulk mail. Very annoying.

Methods to combat spam:

Implement greylisting on SMTP servers
Implement white-listing and black-listing
Use RBLs on SMTP servers
Implement a "spam scoring system," such as spamassassin. Such a system checks each email for characteristics which are common to spam. Each little item gets a point (or fraction of, or many points). If the point-value exceeds a threshold you can be confident that the message in question is, or is likely to be, spam.
Give up and abandon email
Do nothing and just live with it.
Use "throw away" email addresses. In this instance you use a seperate email address for each site/vendor you visit. Something like myname-wackyforum@domain.tld for use at the Wacky Forum site, and myname-freegames@domain.tld for the Free Games site. In theory, if you begin to receive spam on an account from someone other then the site you use the address with you know who leaked/sold/gave out the address to spammers. This does suffer a weakness as much spam is sent out in a dictionary-attack method.

It's the yummy mystery meat in a can! The Offical Spam Site.