News on war against spam isn't very good.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Spam, spam, spam _ we all hate it, and we all want it to go away.

The bad news regarding what's also known as "unsolicited commercial e-mail" is very bad. The good news, I'm sorry to report, isn't particularly good.

First, the bad news: Spam is getting worse, volume is increasing and with ever-more devious subject lines trying to trick you into opening junk messages. If nothing is done, one research firm estimates, we'll be drowning in nearly 1,500 pieces of spam a year in 2006.

While working with my colleague Mary Anne Ostrom on a special report on spam, I kept asking experts what ordinary consumers could do to protect themselves.

The very depressing answer: not much.

There is no way to stop the spam heading to your in box today, because spammers keep finding ways around blocking mechanisms. While there are ways to keep your individual level of spam from getting worse, almost everyone with an e-mail account remains a big juicy target for spammers.

Just about the only umbrella offering any relief from the spam deluge is filtering _ software that attempts to identify incoming spam and move it to one side. However, it's virtually impossible to make a ...