URI based black lists have been extremely effected in identifying spam. I propose another kind of black list. A list of email addresses embedded in the message body as replies to nigerian type spam and other spam where you are instructed to reply to the email address in the message body.

One thing about all spam is that the spammer wants you to do something. And it's what the spammer wants you to do that is the key to identifying spam. Most spam wants you to click on a link. So the URI black lists work well because it catches the sites that spammers link to.

But - a lot of spam - like nigerian spam - wants you to reply to an email address in the message body in order to do what the spammer wants. So if there were a blacklist of email addresses that spammers use as the place to reply then that would cut into the remaining spam significantly. If we can block email based on a real time list of email addresses within the body a whole new class of spam can be blocked with very high accuracy.

Who likes this idea?

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