Topic awaiting preservation: hardcore spam problem - need help

hi inmates
i have a mailbox on my server, where several adresses (ie spam ÄT thespacebetweenus, note ÄT thespacebetweenus, etc.) are being redirected to
the problem is that - for unknown reasons - my mailbox is overflooded with spammails. sure, i wanted to make some filters like - if TO includes this, then move mail into spam folder. but the problem is that the TO fields are being changed by these fuggin spambots
currently i have the razor spam filter running, but i am not satisfied with it. especially when it doesnt identify mails like:
sex, viagra, pharmacy XXX etc.

any help & tips would be VERY much appreciated. thanks in advance

B | T | E | P | L

well, I'd assume this email account is a POP3 enabled account? So you can use a mail client to retrieve your mail from the server? Why not, then, just get Thunderbird and use it's wonderfully intelligent spam filter. A little bit of training nad some careful checking for the first couple of weeks of use and it'll get things pretty much spot on.

Oh, and then there's the othre obvious one... just don't sign up to shit, especially those porn emails... they'll git yer in a world o' trouble with spam... and your parents


Justice 4 Pat Richard

a) turn off 'catch all'
b) short e-mail addresses are your downfall. I get spam on never published three letter addresses.
c) Your own server? Use an open relay list.

afaik, you use thunderbird?
why not use the built in bayesin filter?

razor sux btw. DH is discontinuing it now. they offer spamassasin now.



(Edited by GRUMBLE on 02-05-2005 14:49)

I have been using MailWasher for about six months and I think I'm starting to see a decrease in the amount of spam I get.

MailWasher downloads the headers of the messages from my mail box and allows me to look at the first few lines of any message. It also will delete any message I tell it to from the server without having to download it into Thunderbird. And I can mark messages to be bounced so the sender will receive a bounce message for my address

I quickly read through the first few lines of all the emails I get to make sure I'm not missing a message from someone I do want to hear from. For example, every so often someone from the Asylum that I have never gotten an e-mail from before will send me an e-mail and if I just let the filter take care of the e-mail, these would be dumped without my ever seeing them.

Letting the Bayesian filter handle the e-mail and trying to scan it with Thunderbird was taking too much of my time. I find I can do it more quickly with MailWasher which uses several tools including friends/black lists, user filters, Bayesian filters and spam databases to identify mail as spam. After using Thunderbird's Bayesian filter for about nine months, I turned it off.

MailWasher has spam reporting mechanisms built it to it. By just click a check box, I can send a copy of any spam message to SpamCop. Spam cop analyzes the headers of an e-mail and traces its path back to the source and allows you to send messages to the administrators of the sites where the spam originates. I think that judicious use of SpamCop and a paid service called FirsAlert! is the reason I am starting to see a decrease in the spam in my mail box.

It is not a huge decrease. I have gone from receiving 150-200 spam a day in August of last year to 100-125 a right now. I am hoping it is not just a seasonal dip and that the trend line will continue downward.

Take a look at MailWasher. You may find that it will help you with your spam.



.

-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.


(Edited by hyperbole on 02-05-2005 18:14)

does your email server have a black list option? the one we use at work does via the hosting company. it just black lists everything from a given host and doesn't come throught at all.

is this *your* server? If so, what are you running, i.e. Windows, Linux, FreeBSD?

there are some good free programs for linux mail servers to catch spam. I think one is called Spam Assasian.

Later,

C:\

quote:

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CPrompt said:

there are some good free programs for linux mail servers to catch spam. I think one is called Spam Assasian.

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SpamAssassin rocks! And you don't necessarily have to set up your own rulesets. I've loaded several from SpamAssassin Rules Emporium and one or two spams out of 300-500 a day sneak through. False positives are very low too.