Continuing the fight against SPAM at SYIX

Here you will find a few helpful resources on ways to finally get a handle on the SPAM you recieve.

Nearly all Internet Service Providers now utilize some type of filtering for SPAM; useless emails that seem to bombard you every time you check your email. I've read just recently in an article that now 90% of all emails are SPAM. Much of it comes from what is called 'botnets' that infect people's computers without their knowledge.

With a bit of patience and daily checking, you can get your SPAM filter to kill well over 95% of the SPAM you will get. You'll also be surprised at just how many SPAMs are being sent to you now that you never see.

Some mail that is trying to get to you may be blocked or rejected at first request. An email server like ours that uses SMTP will answer to a 'helo' from the sending server. An exchange of information follows and once our server knows where the message is being sent from, that address (or domain) is checked against several black lists or RBLs. If it's found to be a known SPAM domain then the message is rejected out of hand.

When the incoming mail continues on its way it next gets sent to our virus and SPAM filtering software. SYIX uses MAIA Mailguard to help fight against SPAM. Every message is checked against a large list of rules. These rules look at the way the mail is arranged like is it all in CAPS, does it have any words suggesting money will be involved, is it in HTML or plain text and on to things you don't even consider would be a factor. Each of these rules assigns the piece of mail a number and depending on that number and where you have your SPAM filter set, that mail either gets through to your email box here on the server or it gets sent to your SPAM bucket.

In your SPAM bucket you'll have 7 days to look and see if you want to confirm it as SPAM or mark it as NOT SPAM and it will get sent on to you. In addition to getting sent through, the software will also add it to your whitelist, allowing future contacts from that sender. There is a blacklist but we suggest you only use it for people you really don't want to hear from and not for SPAMmers. The SPAMmers will change their address every time they make a run of SPAM and although you may see the same name as the sender, the actual email address is always different.

Nearly every email with a score of 3 or more is SPAM. When I get to my SPAM bucket I don't even look at the ones over a score of 3 anymore. Your threshold in your filter is set by the system to 3 and that's where it is today unless you changed it or we changed it at your request. I have mine set to a -1 and the only ones that now get stuck in my SPAM bucket are from first time emailers to me. I can reject over 98% of the SPAM sent to me. The only thing that keeps my score from being higher is that I have to receive system messages that are not filtered.

With about 3 or 4 weeks of checking your bucket every day and adjusting things in your filter, you'll not only see just how much SPAM you're not getting but also be able to better tune your filter to keep out nearly everything you don't want.

If you have any questions, search for them in our Forums. If a search returns nothing then post a question about it or any other thing that for which you would like an answer.

Check out your new configurable SPAM filter here! Login with your user name and password for the email.

The following information was garnered from our old website. I don't think that spampal is being actively updated any more but looks to still be available for download. Cloudmark is alive and well and free for 15 days. Mailwasher offers both a free and paid for version.

First off, let me introduce you to a couple of programs, ones that watch your incoming email, and either move away, or flag mail as SPAM so you can filter it out.

1. First choice, a freeware program called "SpamPal". Its under pretty constant development, and currently catches about 50 SPAM emails a day out of my email load. Only works with Windows at this time.

a. Download it HERE
b. Installation Instructions HERE
c. SPAMPAL website

2. Free for a 15 day trial, this one is called Cloudmark SpamNet. This is a distributed network, one that you get to participate in. It works VERY well and has versions for Outlook Express, MS Outlook and Thunderbird. The Thunderbird versions is also available for the later MACs.

a. Download it HERE
b. Installation Instructions HERE
c. SpamNet Homepage

3. Last one, (and by the way, I have tested all of these) is one called, "MailWasher". It runs as a mail pre-processor, deleting and bouncing spams before you run your mail program, and then runs it for you. Probably the most complicated of the 3 to use, its also VERY effective, but I did have a few little problems with it.

a. Download it HERE
b. Installation Instructions HERE
c. MailWasher Homepage