What's the first thing I should
do to reduce my spam? |
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Probably the single most effective thing you can do is to turn on Greylisting
for your account.
- What is Greylisting? Greylisting is a new method of
blocking significant amounts of spam based on the behavior of the sending mail server.
It is used at the mail server level so it places no load on the end user's machine.
Greylisting relies on the fact that most spam servers do not behave in the same way
as "normal" mail servers. In testing, our Greylist has vastly reduced the amount of
spam our testers received while at the same time reducing the burden on our mail servers.
The only thing our testers noticed was that sometimes, with the first email someone
sent them through the Greylist, receipt was delayed usually about 10 to 15 minutes,
but occasionally up to an hour. After the first mail passed through the list however,
receipt time was back to normal for that sender.
- How does Greylisting work? The Greylist works by returning
a "Temporarily Unavailable" message to the sending mail server the first (and only the
first) time a message is received from a given sender. Normal mail servers, such as
ours or Yahoo! or AOL, will respond to this message by attempting to resend the email.
Most servers try again in 10 to 15 minutes, but some may wait up to an hour before making
the next attempt. However all legitimate mail servers will retry. Because of
the tremendous volume of messages spam servers are trying to send, most do not try to
resend these "failed" messages; they simply give up and move on. This is how Greylisting
defeats spam.
- How Do I Turn Greylisting On/Off for My Email Account?
Because Greylisting is so beneficial, we very highly recommend that everyone turn it
on, or have us turn it on for you. To enable Greylisting for your account, just go to
https://mailhost.idcomm.com, and log in with
your full email address and password. On the following page, scroll down to Greylisting
and check the box to turn it on, or uncheck it to turn it back off. Then click the Update
Settings button. This will turn Greylisting on or off for your account. If you prefer,
you may contact us locally at 303-790-4343 or toll free at 888-790-4343, and we'll change
the Greylist setting for you.
SpamAssassin is offered by id Communications as a free, easy-to-use, customizable solution
to your spam problem. If you're tired of searching for "real" mail in the mountain
of unsolicited and often offensive junk, SpamAssassin is for you. With SpamAssassin
you can:
- Manage and eliminate unwanted junk emails before download.
- Ensure delivery of wanted messages by entering your personal address book.
- Blacklist specific addresses or entire domains. For instance, you can blacklist
servers that have repeatedly ignored requests to be removed from their lists.
By default, SpamAssassin is turned on when we create your email account.
Based on default or customized settings, SpamAssassin rates messages for specific words,
phrases, and patterns common to unsolicited email. When SpamAssassin detects spam, the
email is identified with two numbers in the subject line, for example, *****SPAM*****[11.58/05.00]
Overnight home delivery of vitamins. The first number (11.58) is the total score tallied
by SpamAssassin. The second number (05.00) is the Required Hits value.
How do I get to my SpamAssassin
Settings? |
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To get to your SpamAssassin settings to customize them, just click on the following
link:
https://mailhost.idcomm.com/login.php
When you see the login screen, enter your full email address and email password.
You will then be taken to a page called "Email and SpamAssassin Settings for:" and it
will show your email address. On the right side of the screen, there will be a button
called SpamAssassin Settings. Click this button, and you're there.
The Required Hits value represents the minimum score for
a message to be labeled as spam. Using the default settings, *****SPAM***** is
added to the beginning of the subject line of a message that has a point value of 5 or
more. This is useful if you do not want to delete any messages or prefer to sort
spam into a separate folder. You can make SpamAssassin stricter by decreasing
the Required Hits, or increase the number to make SpamAssassin more lenient.
When enabled, the Trashcan Hits value represents the score a message
must reach to be deleted directly from the server before reaching your mailbox.
Enable the trash can feature by entering a number in this field that you feel comfortable
will not delete legitimate emails. If spam has been redirected into a separate folder,
scan the contents and see if any are misidentified. Determine the highest score of the
incorrectly identified messages, and set the Trashcan Hits value to one higher than that
number. Now that you know what the numbers in the subject line mean, start controlling
your mailbox!
By entering the email addresses of friends and family members in the Allow List, you
ensure that those addresses are never identified as spam. On the other hand, entering
undesirable addresses in the Deny List ensures that, regardless of scoring, these blacklisted
addresses will always be identified as spam. In fact, entire domains can be blocked if
you desire. (Enable Trash Can Hits to guarantee automatic deletion of email from denied
addresses.)
How do I use the "Allow/Deny Addresses
List"? |
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- In your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) go to
http://spamfilter.idcomm.com.
- Enter your email address and password, then click the Login button.
- On the following page, near the top right, click the Spam Assassin Settings button.
- In the section marked Allow/Deny Addresses List, enter or paste the address for which
you'd like to make an exception into the box labeled Address.
- Below that box, select Allow to always allow through, or Deny to always block.
- Click the Add New Address button.
- The page will refresh, and you'll see the address appear in the list.
- Simply repeat this procedure for any addresses you want to always allow through, or always block.
When you're logged in and looking at the Allow/Deny Addresses List, the text just above the list tells you how to allow or deny entire domains
in addition to specific addresses.
Do you have recommendations
for configuring SpamAssassin? |
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Of course we do. While some spam is easy to detect, much of it is concealed because
solicitors and viruses try to disguise messages. You can configure SpamAssassin
to match your definition of what's important and what's not.
We recommend
a three-step process:
- Filter spam messages into a separate folder. This step will help you create a mail
rule for your email program that will sort all email with *****SPAM***** added
to the subject line into a spearate folder away from your inbox. Instructions
for creating your mail rule can be found below:
- Decide if your Required Hits should be more restrictive or lenient. For instance,
a number of emails may be incorrectly identified, all with a score of less than 8. You
can either input the incorrectly identified email addresses into the Allow List, or
you can increase the Required Hits to 8 instead of 5 so that fewer messages are misidentified
as spam.
- Determine the value for the Trashcan Hits feature. Once this feature has been
enabled, messages scoring higher than this number will be deleted before reaching your
mailbox. To choose a number, review messages marked as spam. Find the highest
scoring mis-identified email, round the score up, and add at least 1 to that
number. For example, assume the highest scoring mis-identified message shows
*****SPAM*****[11.58/05.00] Monthly Billing Invoice for the subject line. In
this case, you would set the Trashcan Hits value to 13. (Round off 11.58 to 12, add
1 for a total of 13). We recommend using an initial value of 15 until you determine
whether you need to enter some friends into your Allow List. Once you have entered any
mis-identified addresses into your Allow List, you can lower the Trashcan Hits value
to further reduce your spam.
I've got SpamAssassin enabled but still
get some spam.
What else I can do? (SpamAssassin Tips) |
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If you are already using SpamAssassin and would like to reduce the amount
of spam you receive even further, try some of these tips.
- Use your Allow/Deny list to block entire domains instead of
one specific email address. For example, if you receive spam from buynow@greatdeals.com,
and you don't want to ever receive mail from anyone at greatdeals.com again, instead
of buynow@greatdeals.com, enter *@greatdeals.com, select
Deny, and click the Add New Address button. This tells SpamAssassin to block anything
from that domain.
- Block mail from entire countries. Many spammers now
are using mail accounts based in other countries, accounts that end not in .com but
with .fr (France) or .ru (Russia) or .jp (Japan). To block mail from entire countries,
for instance from France, simply enter *@*.fr, select
Deny, and click the Add New Address button.
- Block spammers with multiple mail servers. Some spammers
have several email servers, such as smtp5.greatdeals.com and smtp6.greatdeals.com.
To block this type of spam, enter *@*.greatdeals.com,
select Deny, and click the Add New Address button.
- Use your Allow/Deny list, Required Hits, and Trashcan hits
together to drastically reduce spam. PLEASE NOTE: If you
use your email for business purposes or otherwise receive legitimate email from those
not in your address book, this tip may cause some legitimate email to be lost.
User discretion is advised. Initially, this tip may take some time depending
upon the size of your email address book. However it can be well worth the effort.
Enter all addresses from your email address book into your Allow list with
the exception of yourself (if you are in there). Now lower your required hits
to 2 or 3, and your Trashcan hits to 3 or 4 (Trashcan Hits must always be at least one
number higher than Required Hits). This will eliminate all but the most devious
and clever spammers' junk mail. Will you still receive any spam? Unfortunately
yes. Spammers are always improving their techniques. However, you should
notice a dramatic drop in the amount of spam you receive.
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