6/3/03 New SPAM Blocking Measures

[drobee]

So what you are saying is that we have to tell our customers that anyone sending them email must make sure they are on a non-open-relay server or they will not be able to receive their messages?

How do you expect a businessman who is not technology literate and using any of our services to understand what the heck we are talking about, not to mention that they now need to contact anyone and everyone (who they have been emailing with for years), to let them know that they might not be able to send them messages anymore?

Sounds like a scary big-brother way to govern a spam issue. It is one thing to ban a server which has committed spam, its another thing to ban a server because it has the capability of committing spam. If you want to have a message bounced back indicating that the server might not be secure, that is one thing, but to have it automatically block all messages, that's something else entirely which can have serious business consequences.

[jmbeach]

Originally posted by alan
If there sending you emails from an open relay server then they will get bounces as that is where 95% of the spam comes from.. If some one can post a copy of a bounce like that I can tell you why it did bounce..

If they are sending from these "open relay servers" but are still legitimate, how is it possible to make those come through still? I understand you wanting to combat spam, but is there any way to allow legitimate mail pass through all of the time?

I know at one of my places of work that we have 3 different soam protection tools, they do a great job, but it does block some people from emailing us, they have to pick up the phone and call.

But the 4000+ spam messages a day are gone, and we really arent missing the few customers that can't email us.

(this is just speaking from spam filter experience elsewhere, and in general, not about this situation particularly, I understand your concerns, but no solution will be foolproof.)

[Vixen]

If they are emailing from or through a server that is on the RBL list, I think they would want to be aware of that because we are not going to be the only place their email gets bounced from.

It comes down to the simple fact that we must block the spam OR continue having mail problems. Wouldn't you prefer to have your mail working all the time instead of it getting back logged cause a spammer is sending email to the server?? I know I would and from what I have read on this forum the majority of the people here would too. But I guess that was until the spam software was implemented. It seems the mood around here changes after we implement something the uers have been asking for. It doesn't make sense to me.

i dont think we should have to make that choice.... it should block spam and let all valid email go through.

[jmbeach]

Originally posted by Vixen
It seems the mood around here changes after we implement something the uers have been asking for. It doesn't make sense to me.

This is totally false. Yes, we do complain when something that is implemented starts degrading performance, but that's not to say we don't praise you guys when you make upgrades that work.

It's a simple concept, and I know you guys have the worst end of it. Perhaps instead of reinventing the wheel by doing this yourselves, you can commission someone who specializes in implementing spam blocking on large hosting platforms.

[sheaver]

Originally posted by Vixen
If they are emailing from or through a server that is on the RBL list, I think they would want to be aware of that because we are not going to be the only place their email gets bounced from.

It comes down to the simple fact that we must block the spam OR continue having mail problems. Wouldn't you prefer to have your mail working all the time instead of it getting back logged cause a spammer is sending email to the server?? I know I would and from what I have read on this forum the majority of the people here would too. But I guess that was until the spam software was implemented. It seems the mood around here changes after we implement something the uers have been asking for. It doesn't make sense to me.

Vixen- your statement "Wouldn't you prefer to have your mail working all the time instead of it getting back logged cause a spammer is sending email to the server??" is so true - but it's not working all the time. Heck it's not working some of the time right now it seems.

God knows, we all want to eliminate SPAM and I think the measures Matrix are taking should be applauded BUT until the implementation of these measures means we have have little or no downtime I think the old way worked - if not perfectly.

Right now we have a case of Problem Enhancement

We are using the same lists hotmail / MSN8 is using for blocking. But we did one more thing then they did and blocked the openrelays as well where a LOT of the spam is coming from.. We can take these off if its blocking list if its to bad but it has stop a LOT of spam in just a few hours..

[drobee]

Alan,

I had to have my partner send me an email to a hotmail account that I have setup in order to receive the email since it was bounced from here. So, perhaps only blocking the open-relays who send spam should be done instead.

[Vixen]

Originally posted by cwdmark
i dont think we should have to make that choice.... it should block spam and let all valid email go through.

If your users are emailing from or through a server that is on the RBL list, then they have a bigger issue than our spam software. The same RBL list is used by Hotmail, MSN8 and many others. So, we are not the only place they are being blocked from. Maybe you should try making them aware of the issue instead of blaming it solely on the spam filtering software.

[Vixen]

Originally posted by jmbeach
This is totally false. Yes, we do complain when something that is implemented starts degrading performance, but that's not to say we don't praise you guys when you make upgrades that work.

It's a simple concept, and I know you guys have the worst end of it. Perhaps instead of reinventing the wheel by doing this yourselves, you can commission someone who specializes in implementing spam blocking on large hosting platforms.

Totally false?? Not in the slightest but I am not going to argue with you. It serves no purpose.

As for your suggestion. Such *specialists* cost money. So, are you suggesting we raise the prices to comepensate for the out of pocket expense?? If so, I will get right on that.

We are testing other services right now to see who is going to be the best..

[crossway]

Originally posted by alan
If there sending you emails from an open relay server then they will get bounces as that is where 95% of the spam comes from.. If some one can post a copy of a bounce like that I can tell you why it did bounce..

I have just started using MS Outlook as my primary mail system and now using webmail as backup.

Do you want us to send you (fwd) junk mails we get that are still coming through? I got more mail today, one with a .jp on the end of it and another I think from korea.

My guess is that foreign search engines are selling the email lists from those who register on them to these spammers. Any ideas on how that can be checked out? I have many ministry members from all over the world and have never had spam from asia until I added my ministry link to Asian directories. The interesting thing is that they aren't even necessarily addressed to me like the.jp one mentioned above.

[admin]

NO we just need to see messages it may be blocking..

We are removing the ALL open relays and going with on that is openrelays that have been used for spam and reported to MAPS.

Right now we are using MAPS http://mail-abuse.org/ and http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl

[jmbeach]

Originally posted by Vixen
Such *specialists* cost money. So, are you suggesting we raise the prices to comepensate for the out of pocket expense?? If so, I will get right on that.

I would never suggest that your customers get a free ride at your expense. It's like any industry that incurs unexpected cost increases - they get passed onto the customer.

I say if you can get this thing solved, I'd pay a few bucks more every month.

When I came here in January, there were zero email issues, zero. Then we get the stupid password prompt problem, which was blamed on PSoft at the time. Now it's spam that's the culprit.

I would just like to see it work like before, and if it takes a specialist to make it happen, that sounds fine to me. Heck, you guys spent $5,000 to get the new webmail, so what would it take to get the spam issue solved?