Offensive words list released for use with spam filters in fight to protect children

Staff Writers
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:14

Business IT - Security

Message Partners has just released into the public domain for use with spam filters, what it claims is the world’s most extensive offensive language list, including hundreds of thousands of permutations of sexually explicit language.

The US company, which the produces the message processing platform or MPP, says its mission, in releasing the list free-of-charge, is to “'protect minors from online predators and spammers.”

According to Message Partners CEO, Michael Katz, the Offensive Language List is “an incredibly effective tool that plugs the holes in dynamic spam filters,” and the company now needed the help of the community to make the defense system as impregnable as possible.

Katz says Message Partners compiled the “bad words” list based on six years of close cooperation with its customers, and the list was available for free with MPP Core, an anti spam filter, email compliance and email archiving product targeted at Apple Xserve, Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD Open Source Mail Transfer Agents like Postfix and Qmail.
 
He  said Internet Service Providers who provided ISP, email hosting and website hosting services, as well as SMB and SME enterprises like schools, universities, research institutes, local government and  small businesses, were using the Offensive Language List to protect their users from pornography. Institutions that were under severe public scrutiny used the list as an extra layer of protection.

Message Partners announced that it is soliciting contributions in an effort to make it the most comprehensive list available in the English language and it said suggested additions could be made as 'comments' at the bottom of the list on the Message Partners web site, www.messagepartners.com. After vetting, new and unique contributions would be added to the list.

Katz also said the company was interested in compiling similar lists for its overseas customers and if they had a public domain list in a foreign language it could be forward as an attachment to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .