SPAM Protection

Fergal C

Has anyone used the Veto Mail SPAM protection service, or have an opinion on it?

Cost is $1.95 a month. I'd happily pay it if it's as good as the site promises.

Perhaps the fact that the sender of an email may have to click a hyperlink to verify themselves might result in you loosing emails you want to read.

I came across it myself by finding one of these verification emails in my SPAM folder.

A sent me an email which went to my inbox

I replied to A's email

I was not on A's authorised list so

A verification email with the hyperlink was delivered to my SPAM folder

mneylon

Any system that relies on C/R (challenge response) is flawed. Keep away from it, as you will find that a lot of us will refuse to accept the challenge

tom-thebox

postini.com is very good.

most hosts will offer you free AV filtering of some sort if you ask.

mneylon

Taken from their site:
"If the sender is "unknown" Vetomail sends an authentication email back to the sender, if the sender is a real person they simply click a link in the email and their address will be approved from then on and email will be sent straight to your inbox.. If they are not a real person [ie a spammer!] they never see the email and email is left in a special queue. There are mechanisms to prevent spammers from authenticating themselves."

There are a number of problems with this.

Why should I, as a potential business contact, for example, want to jump through this loop to contact you?

The C/R system generates even more mail than you would be getting if you took preventive measures against spam. This extra mail is both unnecessary and "spam-like" as well.

A system of this type could be circumvented by spammers, but even if it isn't the price for this type of "protection" is a loss of email's primary attraction - ease of use.

"If the sender is a known "spammer" it is immediately deleted before ever reaching your inbox"

No details of the criteria for this judgement. One would presume that this is based on RBLs, but which ones and how?


The cost of this service is not too high, but it only "works" (if at all) against SPAM/UCE. A lot of companies are able to offer a more complete solution with a higher level of transparency that would also protect you from viruses.

Whether you opt for a free solution, such as a host offering Spam Assassin, or one which can give you a more complete, but not necessarily free solution, is up to yourself. However I would recommend that you consider your options carefully.

Capt'n Midnight

If using outlook 2000 have a look at spambayes do a search on web and boards and you should pick up a few other products.

spambayes - filters based on content - learns as it goes along - great for getting rid of mailshots that a commerical service would let through. and it's free

if using smtp there are a rake of filter apps that sit between your email program and the mail server.

"known spammer" - most spam comes from addresses made at random and a lot of it comes from zombied PC's - so you can't even block off all the IP addresses.

If you have a mail server then reverse dns lookups should filter out a lot too. (checks that the email came from where it claims to have originated.)

mneylon

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight

spambayes - filters based on content - learns as it goes along - great for getting rid of mailshots that a commerical service would let through. and it's free

The spammers copped onto that quite some time ago and now target the Bayesian filters, so it is no longer effective by itself.
Being realistic the only effective way to block spam is to outsource it to your ISP/host, unless you are running your own mail server

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by blacknight
The spammers copped onto that quite some time ago and now target the Bayesian filters, so it is no longer effective by itself.
Being realistic the only effective way to block spam is to outsource it to your ISP/host, unless you are running your own mail server

www.TheRegister.co.uk has a nice series on spammers.
must dig up the link sometime