I've found this works extremely well, having a very small number of false positives - ham marked as spam accidentally - and most of those are messages from mailing lists I've opted into that look a little like spam. E-mails with a score of 4 to 8 are marked as spam but delivered. I have several of my mail server's users' accounts set up at their request to toss any e-mail receiving a score of eight or higher, which indicates a very high likelihood that it's spam. SpamAssassin applies the score and then you can filter at the server or client based on the number. The rules include checking databases of reported spam and analyzing common spam techniques, such as sentences containing all capital letters. SpamAssassin ( is free software that can be installed on a server to examine incoming e-mail and apply a set of complex rules to it. The next layer of defense is SpamAssassin, which I put into effect in January before a trip to Montana when I worried a dial-up connection might be overwhelmed just downloading the headers of all the spam I would have to delete. It also rejects mail that purports to come from domains that don't exist. I run a mail server for myself and a few colleagues and friends, and the mail-server software is configured to check well-run blacklists and reject mail from servers that spew out or at least relay it from spammers. My first line of defense for several years is one routinely used by Internet service providers (ISPs) and information technology (IT) departments. The most notable exceptions are in e-mail clients, such as the filter that's part of the adequate mail application Apple Computer offers with Mac OS X, and the junk-mail filter that can learn a bit and be adjusted with Microsoft's Entourage mail and contact software. Macintosh users have traditionally had less access to spam tools, and that's still the case. (You can read more about policy and general e-mail issues in my colleague Charlie Bermant's regular Inbox column.) Last month, experts say, more spam was received than "ham," which is a growing term for the shrinking category of good e-mail from people you know or that you opted-in to receive.Īlthough many people have solutions for reducing spam, from jailing and fining spammers to revamping all the technology on the Internet used to deliver e-mail, I've deployed three tiers of spam avoidance that have made my inbox tolerable. Instead, it's the reality of receiving e-mail on the Internet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |