TRAP: Open Decentralized Distributed Spam Filtering.

Spam is a significant problem in the day-to-day operations of large networks and information systems, as well as a common conduit for malicious software. The problem of detecting and eliminating spam remains of great interest, both commercially and in a research context. In this paper we present TRAP, a reputation-based open, decentralized and distributed system to aid in detecting unwanted e-mail. In TRAP, all participants are equal, all participants can see how the system works, and there is no reliance on any member or subset of members. This paper outlines the TRAP system itself and shows, through simulation, that the fundamental component of TRAP, a distributed low-overhead trust management system, is efficient and robust under the normal conditions present on the Internet.