Editor's note: Basically, this discussion is only here for historical record. Our SpamAssassin, greylisting and blocklisting policies mean GreenNet users now have very little problem with spam. For information correct as at 2009, see:
I am just receiving too many Spams, Porno sites, people wanting account details while offering to share millions of dollars and people trying to sell, all of these unsolicited and obviously able to come through the GreenNet portal. The rubbish flooding into my mailbox is just too much for me to cope with. What does GreenNet do against spam?
GreenNet provides a unique anti-spam service geared to NGOs, the voluntary sector, charities and activists.
Comments
Re: I get so much SPAM
we are aware of the growing problem of unwanted commercial email (UCE). At the same time the percentage of UCE has reached a point which is almost higher than that of non-UCE email. For a stats graph have a look at this web site. Therefore, we have taken quite a few measures to reduce the amount of UCE that our members receive:
1) we blacklist sender address on an hourly basis - based on the spam assassin results. Certainly quantity doesn't imply quality, but this table currently lists some 1235 entries of sender addresses which we don't accept.
2) we also blacklist sender servers which are being abused by spammers. This table currently contains 1209 entries and gets updated on a per case basis.
3) we cooperate with other ISPs to minimise UCE - this includes forwarding UCE to abuse addresses and SpamCop.
4) We are also participating in the blackhole abuse system.
5) we set up spamassassin which should allow our users to easily seperate UCE from their 'normal' email - instructions on how to do this can be found here.
6) we encourage our users to help reducing spam. Forwarding email to SpamCop at the moment seems to be a good thing to do. (since the above was written (2003), GreenNet has implemented a far more comprehensive anti-spam policy. In fact, although there are various commercial solutions out there, we are not aware of any ISP that currently does more to keep spam out. - 2005) Post Edited (03-07-03 13:29)
Re: I get so much SPAM
Hi
I am one of those sad people who sign up for email updates on a number of topics related to various aspects of my work. Because of the way they are put together, the emails are identified as spam, so I can't easily set up a filter. It looks as though Spamcop.net might be worth a go. (The Telephone Preference Service has stopped the tele sales calls I used to get.)
Re: I get so much SPAM
The current criteria used by SpamAssassin are now very effective in distinguishing requested from unsolicited commercial emails. Thank you!
Re: I get so much SPAM
Have a look at the header of one of your Emails.
Does it contain "X-Spam-Level"? If so, you can put a filter in your email incoming filters for the spamlevel, eg, start with X-Spam-Level: xxxxx (and put more x'es if its not tight enough or less).
Full answer below...
How do I enable spam filtering?
When an email is scanned by spamassassin, a number of textual additions are made to the email's "headers", that is, information that's generally not displayed to the user:
The X-Spam-Status header is set; it contains the email's "score", the minimum threshold required to be flagged as spam, and whether or not the email was flagged as spam.
The X-Spam-Flag header is set; it contains either "YES" or "NO" as it's value.
The X-Spam-Level header is set; it contains a string with a number of "x"s equivalent to the score of the email, rounded down. If an email scores 10.7 points, it will be a string of 10 "x"s.
The X-Spam-Checker-Version, X-Spam-Prev-Content-Type, and X-Spam-Prev-Content-Transfer-Encoding headers, which are more informational than useful.
If the email is detected as spam (5.0 points or greater), the X-Spam-Report header is added; this contains a full breakdown of the spam score of the email, and brief explanations of each rule.
With these explanations under our belts, on with the actual filtering process:
In procmail and squirrelmail (if you use your own email client, you're on your own), you can filter emails into a separate folder based on the X-Spam-Status header:
(in procmail)
:0:
* ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
$MAILDIR/spam
(in squirrelmail)
Match: Header
Contains: X-Spam-Status: Yes
or on the X-Spam-Flag header, according to the following expression:
(in procmail)
:0:
* ^X-Spam-Flag: YES
$MAILDIR/spam
(in squirrelmail)
Match: Header
Contains: X-Spam-Flag: YES
These will all accept the default system-wide spam scoring default, which is 5.0; if 5.0 is too low (or too high!) for your tastes, you can increase it and still filter out the worst of incoming spam, by matching against a number of "x"s in this header - for instance, 10:
(in procmail)
:0:
* ^X-Spam-Level: xxxxxxxxxx
$MAILDIR/spam
(in squirrelmail)
Match: Header
Contains: X-Spam-Level: xxxxxxxxxx
http://mathaba.net
Re: I get so much SPAM
Hi there!
I don't know whether you are lucky or not. no-one sends me much of anything!
I never get any of this SPAM
I wonder where they have got your address from??
Julia
Re: I get so much SPAM
Actually, there is much automatic "robot" software that combs the web, moving through all the links, and looking in source code for "mailto:" - in other words, now you have posted here on the Green Net forum, your email shows in the source as mailto:dewdrop@gn.apc.org?subject=I get so much SPAM behind your name Julia Holliday - so you may soon be unlucky :) - this is why I don't include my email in these forum postings.
Those robot softwares are used by unscrupolous advertisers, who then "SPAM" you with lots of unsolicited commercial email (UCE).
Re: I get so much SPAM
Dear mathaba
I was interested to read your message. As you have probably gathered I am new to this internet game. I didn't realise that these robot softwares existed, a bit like those random dialling machines that are use to sell you double glazing etc.
I shall be anon from now on!!
Julia
Re: I get so much SPAM
Hi all
An irritating variant of spam is arriving in my mailbox. I get lots of the usual sort, but recently I've been getting replies from people I don't know whose
email server has rejected and is returning msgs to me because a virus is attached. In other words, my greennet addr has been used in a spam with virus exercise.
Why use forged names that recipients don't know? The usual trick of mailing from someone's address book has the advantage that recipients may be fooled into opening the item. Perhaps someone has got hold of (or written) one or more viruses, and is just mailing them out to addresses on a list. Possibly the reason for doing it this way is that the viruses do not have the capability to use the address book to propagate themselves? Perhaps there's an advantage in using forged but real addresses because whatever server is being used then doesn't get a lot of bounced mails, which might cause other problems for the sender. Perhaps just creating mayhem is the pleasure?
I reported this to Michael Moritz of GreenNet Support, who gave me a helpful answer, and pointed me to this forum
http://phorum.greennet.org.uk/read.php?f=4&i=5&t=5#reply_5
for some useful info and the SpamCop service.
I thought it might be worth mentioning here to see if the virus problem is more widespread.
Regards
Bob Hare
Re: I get so much SPAM
Dear Bob
(I thought I post my reply to your question here so other people can read it too.)
the message you attached looks very much as if it came from someone who
has been infected by a virus and has you in his address book. If you know
people with freeserve addresses it might be probably be one of them (it's
a freeserve dialup login).
We do still have members' lists:
[url]http://www.gn.apc.org/Issues/index.html[/url]
But i think this cannot be misused to obtain email addresses since it 'just'
contains links to members' web sites.
Hope this helps.
Re: I get so much SPAM
Hi,
I have been testing Mozilla's E-mail program for the last months. It is brilliant. Starting from version 1.3 it also detects spam and deletes it automatically (if you want it to). It can also be 'trained' to detect spam more accurately.
I found the interface to the spam filtering quite intuitive - if you are looking for documentation try this [url=http://email.about.com/cs/mozillaantispam/]article series[/url]
If you want to get Mozilla click on the button below
[url=http://www.mozilla.org/][img]http://www.gn.apc.org/support/images/mozilla-ban5a.jpg[/img][/url]