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TMDA (tagged message delivery agent) is the answer to your SPAM woes!

TMDA (tagged message delivery agent) is the answer to your spam woes. Unlike other filters that look for keywords such as "viagra", and "sweepstakes"; TMDA uses a simple, but highly reliable method for determining which e-mails come from real people... it asks them!

TMDA asks people if they are real?

Yes, it is called a "challenge/response method". When someone sends mail to a TMDA guarded e-mail address for the first time, instead of just blindly dumping the message in your in-box, TMDA puts it in a special quarantine area and sends a "challenge" back to the author. The challenge is just an e-mail that briefly explains the system and asks the user to reply to the challenge (this is the "response" part). Once TMDA receives the response, it releases the original message from quarantine and adds the sender to a list of people from which it will accept mail. Any future messages from that user will be accepted without another challenge.

How does that help?

Spammers typically put fake e-mail addresses on their spam. They don't want  you to reply to them. The address they use is bad, so they never receive TMDA's  challenge, they never get to respond, the message is never released from  quarantine, and it never makes it to your in-box. Instead, it sits around and  gathers dust until the system throws it away.