There have been many proposed ways to get rid of spam but no real solution has been found so far. One of the most common and efficient methods of filtering out spam is by using Human Interactive Proofs or HIPs when registering e-mail accounts.

This safety feature requires people signing up for a service to enter a series of letters which are shown to you in a rather distorted manner. While this works, spammers have found ways to modify their programs to distinguish which letters are being shown on screens.

Kevin Larson, a researcher at Microsoft's advanced reading technologies group, has found a method to improve the system. It involves showing 16 or more photos of cats and dogs then asking the user to identify each one. This method looks to be very promising with Larson jokingly saying that "it's possible that kittens are the wave of the future."

The main problem with this solution though is that Microsoft will have to keep a huge number of photographs in its archives to prevent spammers from using "brute force" and mapping each picture with an answer. Many suggestions have been given and Microsoft is taking them into consideration at the moment, hopefully this research will lead to an inbox with less or no spam at all.