6/7/2003 Getting tighter and tighter on spammers...

[admin]

javier011, nothing, not a thing, we are not blocking any thing at this time.. So if your not getting something from yahoo it not us.

Just tested my "Yahoo" and came right through..


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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 12:25:18 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: testing
To: alan@vortechhosting.com

[thecomputerpro]

Love these heated issues......

No perfect way to block spam.. Bottom line!

As a buyer of services, I think it should be offered as an option to add to the account if I want it. But, as that same buyer, it is hard to have the control I need to make sure I get the emails I want..

Sooooooooooooo...

I personally do not think it is your job (matrix) to put a SPAM blocking measure into place because that is not really what we pay you for. We pay you to use space on servers and the bandwidth to use that space.

Originally posted by admin

You pay $35 a month we pay over $30,000 a month in bandwidth and datacenter costs. This does take into account the THOUSANDS we spend on parts and new servers.

Knowing what your costs are to provide us the service is irrelavent. If $35 is not enough to provide the resources to handle what we need / want / can't control (including SPAM) then maybe, just maybe you need to rethink your pricing sturcture to add the additional resources needed to handle the demand? If indeed and especially, on this issue, the email usage including spam is the drain on those resources. (Please don't take this wrong!!!!!!!!!!! I am not telling you how to run your business that is merely an observation!)

Lastly, I think if the cusotmers are complaining to you to remove SPAM, I think your best apporach is education and recomend. I have yet to post my "Best Practices" for email usage on my site but when I do I will be sure to post it here for all to read as well... Anyway, I think it is fairly safe to say that you can avoid spam! It just all comes down to how you use your address. I use an email for personal use, business use, and misc web use. Guess which one gets the most spam.... misc web use one of course because I am less discriminate about where I use it. So what I am saying is that the people with the problem can change their email address and be in the same boat 6 months later because of their "practices". If they are never told the best ways to avoid spam then they will continue to have the problem and bottom line is, why is that your (Matrix) problem to deal with? You should point them to a best practices article and offer up or recommend client side utilites to help them fight it on their own.

[javier011]

My question will be,
what can I do with my lost emails last weeks, how to recover them, If There Is Any Way To Do It?

Finally, I think the spam blocking action has create many issues. But I Also Do Understand Brad.

I think spam-filters OFF is the wise option rigth now, UNTIL better option will be found.

Let's work together!

I've only been trying to stop spammers from sending mail from our network, as that seems to cause a lot of issues... It has nothing to do wit hwhat you guys want, you still get your emails, we just dont let people spam from our servers, whihch is in our AUP/TOS. So we are just trying to enforce it better to reduce our server load and network traffic, and the time we waste tracking down spammers to ban them.

[Brangwyn]

we just dont let people spam from our servers, whihch is in our AUP/TOS. So we are just trying to enforce it better to reduce our server load and network traffic

That I think everyone can agree on. If we have other Vortech customers, or Vortech Reseller Customers abusing the resource then this should be ended, this is different though to allowing or disallowing spam to be received externally by the server.

As far as I can tell you've got the basic precautions in place already.

1) No External realying unless POP before SMTP

Now as for allowing spam into the network, would it be possible to work with Psoft to find a solution that could be enabled or disabled on a per customer basis ? If you could then it could be sold as a value-add service that the customer has the choice to purchase or not.

[admin]

Originally posted by thecomputerpro
Love these heated issues......

No perfect way to block spam.. Bottom line!

As a buyer of services, I think it should be offered as an option to add to the account if I want it. But, as that same buyer, it is hard to have the control I need to make sure I get the emails I want..

Sooooooooooooo...

I personally do not think it is your job (matrix) to put a SPAM blocking measure into place because that is not really what we pay you for. We pay you to use space on servers and the bandwidth to use that space.



Knowing what your costs are to provide us the service is irrelavent. If $35 is not enough to provide the resources to handle what we need / want / can't control (including SPAM) then maybe, just maybe you need to rethink your pricing sturcture to add the additional resources needed to handle the demand? If indeed and especially, on this issue, the email usage including spam is the drain on those resources. (Please don't take this wrong!!!!!!!!!!! I am not telling you how to run your business that is merely an observation!)

Lastly, I think if the cusotmers are complaining to you to remove SPAM, I think your best apporach is education and recomend. I have yet to post my "Best Practices" for email usage on my site but when I do I will be sure to post it here for all to read as well... Anyway, I think it is fairly safe to say that you can avoid spam! It just all comes down to how you use your address. I use an email for personal use, business use, and misc web use. Guess which one gets the most spam.... misc web use one of course because I am less discriminate about where I use it. So what I am saying is that the people with the problem can change their email address and be in the same boat 6 months later because of their "practices". If they are never told the best ways to avoid spam then they will continue to have the problem and bottom line is, why is that your (Matrix) problem to deal with? You should point them to a best practices article and offer up or recommend client side utilites to help them fight it on their own.

Its all very simple thecomputerpro, its our systems and we will do every thing we can to keep them running smooth and at the top of there game. As for knowing what some of our cost is very relavent here. Because over 20% of the bandwidth cost comes from spam.. Our new system should allow us to cut out this spam with out blocking full spam networks like comcast, verio and chinanet.. We are now working on the list, we will also be scaning ALL mail coming in and out of the network for about 3 to 6 weeks once its all setup. The system will be able to tell how many hit an email gets on the system a day baside on IP and email address. Using a scoring system they will be classified as spam and black listed.. This along with the forum where users can post the spams they get to be added to the black list..


We are doing what we can for both side here to try and cut down on incoming spam.. We have been able to just about stop ALL out going spam now. So we just need to work on the incoming spam issue.. The out going was easier incoming will be a little harder.. We are also looking at http://spamassassin.org/index.html but Psoft may get this in there mail server work over so we may wait on them. But this will not stop the spam only "TAG" it.

[MEELAN]

OK,
Now its Monday morning here in my Country and already getting calls on "Email not getting through!".

I try to explain the situation and but they are not ready to accept it.

My clients say, "Even it is a Virus, there nothing you should do, Send us and we will take care of it.". They want to handle themself and they are happy to hit "DEL" everytime they say see a spam than Not gettting email from ligitimate business contacts.

Guys, do NOT forget one important thing.

Email is being used for communication. It may be business, medical, or whatever. No body can influence the sender of an email to use a particular network. Thats not fair.

In case of China, there is not much choice in selecting ISPs. Many of my client's suppliers are from China.

I am kindly requesting you to understand the real life business problem here and take necessary actions to solve this ASAP.

[Vixen]

Originally posted by lankan
OK,
Now its Monday morning here in my Country and already getting calls on "Email not getting through!".

I am not sure how many different ways we can say this. NOTHING IS BLOCKED!! If someone's email is not going through it has nothing to do with us because we removed all the blocks earlier today.

[admin]

OMG... Does no one read the first post any more.. Closing this post..