When you describe these annoying spam files as 'junk', the junk filter seems to do nothing at all! I thought it was meant to notify Limewire that these files should be removed!

> Problem:

Spammers continually disguise messages by using file names that contain popular search terms or simply echo back searches performed, applying a large range of IP addresses as the source, making them impossible to block. Also, blocking a file that an unsuspecting user has already downloaded, means we cannot share other files with him or her.

> Answer:

A modified G-Mail spam model offers the best hope. Users mark unwanted items as spam, which uploads a file content identifier (MD5) to a LimeWire database. Every user sets his/her spam sensitivity level in the tool. If a file has been marked as spam by enough people to reach the user's spam sensitivity level, the file is removed from his/her search results.

What about it LimeWire Geeks?

AlphaKid42

If i block an file i dont want to block the user or IP adres, only that file .

If i block also that user that wont be an good idear ............
i hope this is not the case.........

it would be simple for limewire engineering to calculate a mathematically unique number for any file (based on contents only, excluding name and datetime), using a publically available algorithm known as Message Digest version 5 (MD5), so they could easily add a feature to block a specific file.

problem is that a spammer could simply auto-add a character to a spam file to change its MD5 signature. still, with so many users, it would only take a few flags to mark a file as spam, sex content, violent, stupid, or whatever categories they wanted to offer. the block level for each category would be directly related to the number of flags received from unique user logins, so each user would have control over block sensitivity.

blocking a host is what i do now, because most of the time, it is a spammer ip address. the problems with that approach are that spammers manufacture many addresses, so its not fully-effective. also, any legit user that downloads the spam file is also blocked, and we cannot share files if i block the ip address. perhaps the number of host blocks could be centralized in a scheme similar to the one proposed above, with sensitivity under control of the user.

spammers know that small files tend to get downloaded quickly and get their messages through, so they tend to deliver small size files, so we can at least sort on size to find suspect files before selecting what to download. this is more true of audio file or video with a single image than full ads in video format. also, there are exceptions, such as the spam that echos your text search, of size 3462 K.

for now, i'd simply be happy with a file size blocker to nip spam. even if it means blocking other legit files of the same size. at least i could block 23.7, 277, and 3462 globally.

i'm new to this forum, so wonder if our discussion has any impact on what lw engineering does. perhaps this is just an exercise in futility to apease the masses -- a place to vent frustration.

<insert smiley-bang-head-on-wall icon here>
alphakid42

When you do a search. the response will be a file with exact the same name as you typed it in and the filesize is always 3.462kb. I think this is junk.

Does anybody know what this is ?

I voted.
Thanks, Sleepless!

Now, Limewire Fans, here are the links from Sleepless ...
Let's ask for some tools to filter files & reduce SPAM.

Register at LimeWire ... LimeWire - Open Source P2P File Sharing

Voting ...
https://www.limewire.org/jira/browse/GUI-26 (File Size Filter)
https://www.limewire.org/jira/browse/GUI-144 (Separator characters)
https://www.limewire.org/jira/browse/GUI-29 (symbols and/or phrase)

Spammers will stop at nothing ahort of jail to flog their garbage. I have found so many ad-ware, spy-ware and god knows what else mislabeled as every you can think of. And security programs are behind the curve all the time.

Yeah Man Youre Right,,

Hey You Guys Im New At This But I Believe You Are Right -on With This Issue Of Spam Messages,

I agree with Kick4U3. Come on, LW, be all that you can be!