Spam Scalpel

Introduction

Almost all anti-spam solutions are focused on filtering out spam either before or at the inbox. While this is a good solution from the end-user point of view, it is a reactive approach that does nothing not stop spam. Spam Scalpel is about proactively taking the fight to the spammers.

Spam Scalpel is an open source spam intelligence engine. Spam Scalpel's main objective is to automate data collection and analysis for monitoring compliance with anti-spam laws.

What does that mean?

Open Source

Spam Scalpel is licensed under the GNU GPL.

Anybody is welcome to contribute to the development of Spam Scalpel, copy it, look at its source code, and use it for any purpose permitted by its license (i.e. almost anything).

Spam Intelligence Engine

Spam Scalpel collects and analyzes email spam. It even performs ongoing analysis of messages and spammers while you sleep.

Compliance

Everybody gets spam, and most people get a lot of it. Some of that spam is illegal -- for example, in the United States, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 applies. Spam Scalpel helps separate the wheat from the chaff, making it easy to take action (see Resources). Specifically, Spam Scalpel helps you:

• identify illegal spam
• associate messages with actual companies, products, and people
• maintain an organized database of spam

What Spam Scalpel is Not

Spam Scalpel is not:

• a spam filter
• a virus scanner
• a meat product
• a surgical instrument

What Spam Scalpel Can Be Used For

There are plenty of things you can do with the data Spam Scalpel collects. Here are a few:

• write nasty letters to spammers
• sue spammers
• report spammers to their internet service providers (ISPs)
• build better spam filters

Technical Details

Spam Scalpel is a client/server system. The server component typically resides on an email server, and uses XML-RPC to communicate with clients.

Server

The Spam Scalpel server is being written in Python, making use of the standard xmlrpclib library.

Spam Scalpel is designed to work with the free MySQL database engine. However, we intend to make this modular and configurable to allow for other common databases like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or PostgreSQL as well.

Clients

Much of Spam Scalpel's functionality is implemented by small client programs that communicate with the server via XML-RPC. Clients can be written in any language, as long as you can get it to speak XML-RPC.

Several clients are included in the Spam Scalpel package:

• The Syringe spam submission tool, which works in conjunction with server-side spam filters (e.g. SpamAssassin) and mail delivery agents (e.g. Procmail)
• Analysis plug-ins: The heavy lifting of Spam Scalpel's analysis is done by lightweight client programs that take orders from, and submit results to the server via XML-RPC.
• The Harvester PHP page, which generates unique "spam trap" email addresses. (Under certain circumstances, harvesting email addresses from the web for sending spam is an "aggravated violation" of the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, 15 USC § 7704(b)(1)(A)(i).)

Because the Spam Scalpel server exposes an XML-RPC service, you can build your own client. Here are some ideas:

• Spam submission plug-ins for email clients like Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail, etc.

Server Requirements

• Python
• MySQL
• MySQL for Python (MySQLdb)

Get Involved

If you want to get involved, take a look at the Developer Guidelines and contact Ansel (ansel at spamscalpel dot org), the founder of the project. This is a list of current needs:

• Python programmers (especially those with expertise in packaging and threading)
• C/C++ programmers (to write efficient clients)
• database modelers
• a cool logo!
• resources for legal action outside California and the United States

Feeds

• SF.net summary and statistics
• SF.net news items (currently none)
• Commit messages via CIA

Bounties

Donations to the Spam Scalpel Project will fund bounties for reproducible recipes for tracking down spammers. See the Bounties page for more information.