Exchange Anti-Spam Update Planned

New technology that incorporates user feedback to identify unwanted commercial e-mail, or spam, will be offered in an update to Exchange Server 2003. Expected in the first half of 2004, the Exchange Intelligent Message Filter will identify spam based on characteristics of past e-mails that users have defined as spam. However, only customers who have purchased Software Assurance will receive the update.

Definitions Collected from Hotmail Users

The Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) uses Microsoft technology known as SmartScreen. Based on machine-learning technology developed by Microsoft Research, SmartScreen was beta-tested by 500,000 Hotmail users over the summer, and it has since been incorporated into Hotmail (which is also the back end for MSN’s e-mail system) and Outlook 2003. However, the technology did not get the SmartScreen name until the Nov. 2003 Comdex trade show, when it was featured in the keynote speech given by Chief Software Architect Bill Gates.

IMF applies SmartScreen to Microsoft’s e-mail server, Exchange. IMF is intended to be installed on a gateway server—that is, the mail server that sits at the perimeter of a company’s e-mail network and refers incoming e-mail messages to other mail servers throughout the organization. This allows IMF to intercept spam as early as possible so that the spam doesn’t waste valuable bandwidth or storage on other servers or users’ desktops. Many companies, however, use a different type of e-mail server—such as Sendmail—as their gateway server. In these cases, Microsoft suggests that they add an Exchange 2003 Server configured as a “bridgehead” server between the gateway server and the other Exchange servers in the organization.