Outlook 2000/XP & Spam

TacT

Thought a few people might be interested in this. Should kill spam dead and will soon support outlook express

Anyone used it? Does it do a gj? Reports say it's very good, what you reckon?

dahamsta

I use a domain name and a separate account specifically for web forms and the like, so I don't get a whole lot of spam in my primary mailbox, but I did have it for a couple days just out of interest. Vipul's Razor is very cool, but it doesn't stop spam at the server-side, which is the key problem in my view. It's kind of like the old DM argument that spam isn't harmful because you don't have to read the messages, you can just hit delete. But of course every spam message that comes in is eating my bandwidth, and in Ireland in particular, that's a Bad Thing, because it's costing me money. Even if we did all have broadband though, it's still eating into global bandwidth every day. And legislation like the recently passed European directive won't solve it either, because it doesn't stop the spam coming from, for example, Asia, where most of it comes from anyway. There's no real solution without global cooperation, and what are the odds of that?

adam

flamegrill

Any spam i get i deal with in 2 ways usually.

first i check the mail headers for 2 things. the relaying host and the source ip/hostname of the sender.

i then do 1 of 2 things or i do 2 things.

i black all email from that relay. put the ip into my sendmail access file and reject it. i then look up the isp of the offender and i then add either that entire domain or if its cable or adsl i just block the ip address of the machine.

I sometimes block entire domains. todate i have blocked 56 domains/relays/ips that have spammed me. i get on average about 1 - 2 spam emails a week. there have been about 4000 emails dropped by my mailserver in the last 3 months.

i hate spam, but i love blocking it

TacT

well I think I'll do without the proggy and use your techniques so, thanks.

dahamsta

I use Sendmail REJECTs to kill off a rake of spam too - and of course the RBL and ORBS, etc, - and it's great running my own servers and being able to manage it in this way. I come at it from the other angle too though, which is handy for tracking who's doing what with my data: I use a dedicated domain name for everything I do on the web, and give each website a different email address when I subscribe. So Boards.ie gets boards.ie@spamfilter.cc, and if I start getting spam to that address, I know where it came from. I've never had any trouble from Boards of course, but it's nice every now and then to be able to block off an addy and know that I'm blocking every person who buys the CD with my address. And of course I can file the odd complaint against an Irish spammer, most of whom haven't a bulls notion what they're doing anyway...

adam

Mr E

I use Mailwasher.

Screen emails on the server before they're downloaded to your PC. Bounce unwanted emails back to sender.

And in the case of Virus emails, just delete them while they sit on the server.

Been using it since January, no problems......

- Dave.

flamegrill

Originally posted by TmB
I use Mailwasher.

Screen emails on the server before they're downloaded to your PC. Bounce unwanted emails back to sender.

The down side of using programs like that is the email still has to get to your pc before it can be dealt with. Using a server side solution and a bit of cop you can really control what gets into your inbox. As i said iv blocked about 50 or so ips/domains/relays and i have sucessfully blocked 4000 emails ~ from my and other users inbox's. The trick is to try and set out with a policy so as people who use your machines/domains for email report spam so u can block it for them and for everyone. The hardest part is getting [l]users to report spam.

dahamsta

The down side of using programs like that is the email still has to get to your pc before it can be dealt with.

I don't think it does with Mailwasher flamegrill. I've looked at it before, and as far as I can see it's just a cut-down mail client that retrieves just the headers, so you can browse your mailbox and delete what you don't want off the server. It also has the option to bounce mail, although I don't know how that works.

I have a problem with Mailwasher too, in that it doubles your workload. You have to open Mailwasher, browse your mail and take appropriate action, and only then can you get on with the real work of checking your mail.

Of course, there's always the option of using IMAP and skipping out Mailwasher altogether, but that's not really an option for people with regular ISP POP accounts. And it's not an option for me either, since I have gigabytes of stored mail, some of which I don't want to leave on my server...

Ah, it's an imperfect world.

adam

flamegrill

Well i use Imap - but i keep all mailing lists local. as in outlook moves em from my imap folders to my personal folders. i then have sefver remote mail boxes where i have mail from different people and companies. They are all viewable from either my webmail client and or mutt/pine if im away from home or outlook when im at home. i try to keep mail boxes below 200 emails especially if there are attachments. after that disk access on the server side becomes a chore for imap. other than that i would never ever go back to a pop mail solution. - i tell a small lie thou i use fetchmail to snag all mail from my pop accounts and then i recieve them thru imap nice and handy and it means i can use sendmail to filter unwanted crap

so pop+fetchmail+sendmail+imap = clean email solution

dahamsta

IMAP shouldn't really have that much of a problem flamegrill. I run much the same system as you, with 280-odd megs of mail archived in an IMAP account on my local network. All mailing list messages are filtered there automatically by Outlook, and I clear my Inbox and Sent Items over there once a month or so. A good number of the IMAP folders have 1000-2000 individual messages in them, with no real adverse affects on performance. And it's not even a hefty server, it's a 300MHz PII whitebox with about 250MB RAM, running Red Hat 7.3.

adam

flamegrill

My imap server is remote. it is also a 300 mhz processor. but it just couldnt handle my inbox when it had 500 - 600 emails and the inbox was 300mb in size. college mates forwarding pics/mpegs etc. its a slack 7.0 box with many updates and patchs. You could say its around the same as 8.1 or current. Actually iv not let my inbox grow significantly in ages now. And i have installed a new kernel 2.4.18 in the last 2 months. I must go check it out. But ill say this is not the number of messages - its purely the size of some of them that cause the problems.

Adam do you use procmail at all?

dahamsta

Well, I don't get that many attachments - people get roundly roasted if they send them to me unsolicited - so maybe that's it. Still though, the way I have it set up, with Outlook as the client, attachments shouldn't have much of an affect anyway, since all I'm pulling off the server is the headers most of the time. I only need the full messages when I'm doing a search, and most of the time it's quicker and more productive to ssh and grep anyway...

Adam do you use procmail at all?

Nah, never got around to it flamegrill. I won't bother with procmail until I (finally!) buy a third machine to act as a gateway, or decide that Linux is good enough in the GUI to use as a client. Not far off by the look of Red Hat 7.3 and from what I hear of the latest Mandrake and Suse distros. I'm looking forward to tinkering around with SpamAssasin too.

adam

flamegrill

yes using outlook is probably the best way to go.

I dont suppose you use a webmail client at all? i only set it up cause i used to work in a place where i couldnt even tunnel out. had just web access using microsoft proxy (heap of junk :P).

Ever have a squiz at squirrelmail? i use it when im away from home. keeps things nice and tidy. filters are very usefull and work a treat. iv just got the latest version of slackware today and im going to install it on my home pc over the old one and see what new things it has - it should be quite nice as a workstation OS.

dahamsta

yes using outlook is probably the best way to go.

Well, Evolution is the bees-knees, but it's built for Gnome and I really dislike Gnome. I dislike Ximian Gnome even more because it completely takes over your system. And Gnome 2.0 is pretty shoddy by all accounts. I wish they'd all (Gnome and KDE) just get over themselves and start working together.

I don't like Kmail either, and I was very disappointed when the mail client was removed from Star/OpenOffice. It befuddles me to see the most valuable application in an Office bundle removed just when they were getting their act together. I just can't see the logic.

I dont suppose you use a webmail client at all?

I do indeed. That setup I described before, that uses a catch-all, pushed everything @spamfilter.cc into a storage account, which I check via SquirrelMail on the server. I used to use TWIG, and it's still available on the server for my clients, but the multiple accounts in SquirrelMail are a boon for my own particular setup. And of course if I want to handle certain addresses from my local client, I just add a mapping in the virtusertable to that account. Bloody handy.

I'm actually thinking of setting up a paid service using this kind of setup, but using qmail instead of Sendmail, because it seems to give more control over mapping in the users HOME directory. So it'd be a case of offering people a subdomain @spamfilter.cc, or getting their MX record pointed at me, and then they'd be able to pop into a web interface and point addresses at particular accounts. Plus we'd have a central SpamAssassin database too, so everyone would be working together. It's very valuable to me anyway, I just wonder if it would be valuable to other people.

iv just got the latest version of slackware today and im going to install it on my home pc over the old one and see what new things it has

Ssh now, or I'll be fired or reassigned to the Unix forum.

adam

Mr E

Originally posted by dahamsta
I don't think it does with Mailwasher flamegrill. I've looked at it before, and as far as I can see it's just a cut-down mail client that retrieves just the headers, so you can browse your mailbox and delete what you don't want off the server. It also has the option to bounce mail, although I don't know how that works.

Its not even a cut-down mail client, Adam. There is no composition functionality at all. As you said, its basically just a header browser.

The bounce functionality works as follows.... you mark a message for bouncing. The sender will get a message back to say that the email address doesn't exist. Its an authentic message that should make the sender think that the address doesn't exist any more. I just sent a message from my work account to my personal account, and bounced it back. Here is what I got in the mail:

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: test
Sent: 6/30/2002 4:18 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

xxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx on 6/30/2002 5:24 PM
The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this message was sent to. Check the e-mail address, or contact the recipient directly to find out the correct address.

(Obviously, I've obscured my address with x's).

So theoretically, the spammer will remove you from their lists (or they will get a bounce every time they send you something).

I have a problem with Mailwasher too, in that it doubles your workload. You have to open Mailwasher, browse your mail and take appropriate action, and only then can you get on with the real work of checking your mail.

Initially, yes. But as you use it, you build up two lists - a blacklist (spammer addresses) and a friendlist (addresses that you'll never bounce). So after using for 6 months, my lists are fairly comprehensive, and I have the minimum of work to do when I load mailwasher (spam is usually already checked for bounce and delete).

Plus don't forget one of my original plus points about Mailwasher - deleting virus emails and large attachments. There is nothing worse than being on a dialup, and having to download a stack of 120k KLEZ virii emails........

- Dave.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Snaga

A bit OT but ......

if anyone uses linux as their daily workstation and really needs certain things to work (in this case outlook) the latest version of codeweavers crossover Office is the bees knees. (The other option being evolution and the ximian connector(which you also have to pay for)).

You have to pay for it sure, but tis worth it if your company forces you to use certain apps that wont run natively.