By Jason Collum | AFA Journal Staff Writer

Spam has finally met its match.

That’s the slogan of SpamRival, a new junk-mail blocking service recently endorsed by American Family Association. One reason the product gained AFA’s endorsement – beside the fact that it works – is that it was created by people and a company devoted to fighting pornography and other immorality.

“More than anything, we want this to be a tool in the fight,” said John Calloway, of Vern Six & Associates Inc., developers of SpamRival. “The main passion behind it is, I truly believe, just as with telemarketers, spammers invade my privacy. Not only that, the Internet is a great tool and a great gift, but people take advantage of it for the wrong reasons. I want to make sure that when my four-year-old is old enough to use the Internet that he is protected from the bad side of it.”

“Pornographers have started to avoid promoting through Web sites because they’re tired of the filters or Web blocks,” Calloway said. “E-mail has been left completely open.”

SpamRival has proven very effective on AFA computers. Because AFA is in the spotlight fighting pornography and other anti-family causes such as the homosexual and abortion agendas, the organization is often the focus of spam attacks. In one four-day period, SpamRival prevented some 1,800 spam E-mails from reaching one AFA employee’s inbox.

“Our object is to kill spam E-mail,” Calloway said.

How it works
Without giving away any trade secrets, SpamRival works on the server level, or at the stage on the Internet equivalent to the Post Office – where all incoming and outgoing letters eventually route to, before users download them to their computer. When an E-mail is sent to someone using SpamRival, the sender must prove to SpamRival’s computers he or she is a real person sending a legitimate letter, not a computer spitting out thousands or millions of pieces of spam to people on mailing lists. The sender receives a “challenge,” or reply E-mail asking him to click a link and type in the word shown on the screen. Once done, that E-mail is sent on to the recipient. The challenge process usually takes less than a minute to complete, and once that person proves the first time that he is a legitimate person sending a legitimate E-mail, he does not have to answer a challenge again – unless the recipient decides to block that sender’s E-mail.

If this explanation has been confusing, the frequently asked questions page (FAQS) at SpamRival.com might be more helpful. The important thing to know, though, is that the program works.

Calloway and the company’s namesake, Vern Six, are both passionate about fighting pornography and spam as both of their families have been affected by it. After seeing the devastating effects pornography has on people, Calloway and Six knew they had to so something.

“We really want to be in the battle,” Six said. “We want Satan to know our name. We want to put the outpost right in his face.”

Apparently Satan is well aware of Spam-Rival. In the days after SpamRival was launched, someone tried to send some 1,000 messages to AFA, each verbally attacking Vern Six and SpamRival, and saying that SpamRival would never work.

Funny thing is, though, it did work. That blast of junk mail was stopped dead at SpamRival’s servers, never reaching AFA computers.

In addition to blocking porn spam, Spam Rival can also fight smut by keeping statistics on where spam is coming from and where it’s being sent. Then, they can take those statistics to leaders in Congress, show them how their constituents are being affected by this, and fight for tougher laws against pornographers and spammers.

SpamRival is available for only $29.98 per year. Vern Six & Associates has committed a portion of the proceeds from SpamRival to AFA to help in the fight for America’s families. Of the rest of the profit from SpamRival, about 40% will be given back to God’s work, and will allow Six and Calloway to travel and speak about the dangers of Internet pornography.

Additionally, Six and Calloway say those who use SpamRival will never have to worry about their E-mail address or personal information being sold to third-party vendors, or anyone else for that matter. SpamRival is the only E-mail blocking company to make that pledge, and they do it in writing on their Web site.

For more information on SpamRival, visit them on the Internet at www.spamrival.com.