Top Dog uses state of the art spam detection methods.
Most spam detection programs
are effective for a short time and then stop working because spamming
methods continually evolve.
Top Dog represents the latest
generation of span detection software.
Instead of relying on a single test, Top Dog uses a full array of different
tests combined with a Neural Network which
learns your personal email usage and adapts to changing spamming methods.
This means that Top Dog gets better and better at detecting spam the more
you use it.
Some of the methods Top Dog uses to detect spam are:
- Bayesian filtering.
- Cooperative filtering.
- Heuristic pattern detection.
- Blackholes (DNS databases).
- Sender address verification.
- Whitelists.
- Content filtering.
Neural Networks are modeled
on the brain.
Like a brain they have the ability to learn patterns and adapt to changing
circumstances.
This is an important ability in the face of changing spamming practices.
Bayesian filtering, another
method of spam filtering used by Top Dog performs a statistical analysis
of the words that make up the email to determine if the words are more
commonly found in spam or in personal email.
Spammers try to defeat this technique by adding random text (e.g. "Tables
bark deliciously...") to their spam.
This is also why some spam email contain only an image with the text printed
on it.
Spam filters which rely solely on Bayesian filtering will miss these spam.
Bayesian filtering does however remain effective in detecting personal
email since spammers are unlikely to know your personal interests and
so email that contain words relating to your interests are easily detected
and allowed through.
Cooperative Filtering.
Top Dog uses information provided by millions of other email users to
better detect spam.
This
is a technique by which the people receiving spam can cooperate to defend
themselves against spammers.
If a very smart spammer manages to evade all of the filters by crafting
a very sophisticated spam.
He can be thwarted by having the first person that receives the spam identify
it as spam.
Top Dog will subsequently filter it out for all other email users using
Top Dog.
Categorizing a message as spam takes a single click of the mouse.
To preserve privacy
Email is shared in the form of "Checksums" which are sort of
fingerprint of the email.
Top Dog uses two such cooperative filtering systems: the Distributed
Checksum Clearinghouse (DCC) as well as Apocgraphy's proprietary database.
Currently more than 150 million email pass through the DCC on week days.
Apocgraphy's database is smaller but it has the advantage of storing email
hoaxes as well as numerous other
types of email.
Cooperative filtering is extremely effective though it suffers from the
problem that people sometimes disagree on what is spam and what is not.
Spam filters that rely solely on cooperative filtering run the risk of
blocking email that you do not consider spam.
Top Dog on the other hand uses cooperative filtering as just one of a
number of filtering methods and automatically learns your email preferences.
The heuristic pattern detection
looks for certain signs commonly found in spam. These indicators are all
weighted as to how strongly they indicate spam and then added up to yield
a "Spam score".
An example is a "Sent" date that is in the future. This is sometimes
used by spammers to place the spam at the top of your inbox when you sort
by date.
This has been proven a very effective technique. However spammers have
learnt to avoid many of the spam indicators checked for.
As well, what may be a spam sign for someone else may not be a spam sign
for you.
Never the less it is difficult to make spam look like legitimate email.
Static heuristic pattern detection is only slightly effective. However
Top Dog feeds the results of the heuristic pattern detection into a Neural
Network to adapt to your personal email usage.
A Blackhole is an online database
of computer addresses (IPs).
Computers are added to blackholes for any number of reasons ranging from
belonging to a company that continuously and persistently sends out millions
of spam, to computers which reside in a particular country.
Blackholes provide very good spam filtering as part of a series of tests
like Top Dog performs especially when configured for an individual user.
For example a result that indicates that the email was sent from a server
in China (where security is notoriously lax) is not an indication of spam
if you regularly correspond with people in China. However if you don't,
it may be a good indicator that the email is spam.
Top Dog's Neural Network automatically learns
what blackholes are relevant to you.
When you receive an email from
an address that you have never received an email from before Top Dog automatically
checks that address to see if it is valid.
Some spam filters offer to "bounce" spam for you.
This is a bad idea for a number of reasons:
- It assumes that the return
address of the email is a valid address.
This is almost always not the case. - It assumes that once the
spammer receives a bounce they will take you off their list.
This is also unlikely since spammers know about this trick and in any case do not find it worth their while to keep their lists updated. - Often the return address is does not belong to the person who sent the email. Often a spammer will choose the email address of an innocent third party to use as the return address. As a result that person gets buried in a mountain of bounced email. By faking a bounce you are only adding to the problem
Because most people communicate
with a number of different people on a regular basis, an important part
of a spam filter is allowing you to indicate that certain senders are
pre-approved and others you never want to hear from.
When installed Top Dog automatically scans your address books as well
as your "sent items" folder and extracts the addresses of people
you have corresponded with in the past. These people are whitelisted.
In addition to this, every time you send an email Top Dog will automatically
white list both the person you sent the email to as well as the subject
line and other information about the email. As a result you are assured
that Top Dog will not block any response to your email no matter how spammy
the response may look.
This means that the longer you use Top Dog, the better it gets at detecting
spam.
In addition to whitelists Top
Dog also keeps a list of people who's email you want to block.
If any spam makes it through Top Dog with a single click you can categorize
the email as spam.
Categorizing an email as spam adds the sender to your personal blacklist
and trains Top Dog's Neural Network to detect
similar spam in the future even if sent using a different address.
Top Dog comes pre-loaded with four different lists of words and phrases that you can choose to block.
- Pornographic Phrases - This list contains words and phrases that are both sexual and crude.
- Sexual Phrases - This list contains words and phrases that are sexual but not necessarily crude.
- Profanity - This list contains swear words and phrases.
- Miscellaneous - This list contains words and phrases that are commonly found in spam.
All lists are completely optional
and you can add or subtract from them to suit your preferences.
Whitelisted senders are of course exempt from being blocked due to using
words or phrases in these lists.