Gates: I'll rid the world of spam

IT IS the curse of today's computer user, but the days of unsolicited spam email clogging up inboxes may now be numbered. Microsoft chief Bill Gates has vowed to make spam emails obsolete.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, Gates admitted that spamming, which usually offers computer users pornography, cheap medication or fraudulent get-rich schemes, was innovative.

But he confirmed that Microsoft is investigating three different solutions to rid inboxes from the clutter of unsolicited bulk emails. Although he did not give any details, Gates's pledge - that he would rid the world of spam within two years - will be welcomed by computer users.

Filters that are used to sift real mail from spam do not currently enjoy a great success rate because those sending spam - known as spammers - use random words in subject headers and replace text with pictures to go unde tected.

One way of stopping spam is to force the sender to solve a puzzle, or make the computer sending the email do a simple computation. This would be easy for a machine sending a few emails, but expensive and difficult when dealing with lots of spam.

The ultimate solution would be to make senders of email pay a fee if their mail was rejected as spam. It would work like an the electronic equivalent of a stamp and would not deter genuine emailers who would be confi dent their mail would be accepted.

Common techniques used by spammers include forged sender names, false subject lines fake server names, inaccurate and obscured transmission paths.

About 70 per cent comes from virus-infected machines which install miniature mail and web servers on home PCs belonging to innocent third parties. Research has showed that an estimated 40 per cent of all emails sent worldwide are junk.