Spam Solutions?

[Steve Machol]

The spam to my email addresses is starting to get way out of hand. What are your solutions for your spam problems? Ideally what I would like is to setup a filter that would require everyone to either be on my accepted list, or to click on a link and enter a code to activate their email address to add their email address to this list (similar to what SpamArrest.com does.)

I have my own server so I do have the option of doing this on a server-wide basis.

Any ideas or suggestions? What works for you? Are there any PC-based programs that can do something like this?

[Princess Nikida]

I just got the new Norton Internet Security 2004. This is seemingly one of the features, but when trying to mark an e-mail as not spam, it broke my Outlook Express and I haven't been able to get it to work again. Rebooting my computer would probably fix it, but I am in the middle of a few posts, so that will have to wait...

BUT, once that minor issue is resolved via a new update, you might want to look into it. Just a "slight" problem...

Program works great for popups and as a firewall, which is what I mainly use it for. I don't get a lot of spam at my main / personal account, as I only give out my main account on occasion. I typically give out my hotmail account, which has its own spam thing...

I guess it would depend on if you want a server solution or a local PC solution and what mail program you are using (of course applicable to your first choice).

[merk]

Is your server running any sort of SPEWS or similar blacklistings at the moment?

I might be worth taking a look at implementing some sort of blacklist usage of known relays.

I saw that someone i emailed had a system where the email was only delivered if it was "confirmed" by a link, sort of like what vBulletin achieves, id be interested in knowing how to do this too if anyone knows

[welo]

http://www.mailwasher.net has something that might help .

[ManagerJosh]

I would also not format your email in anyway that looks like [email protected]. Not even text with no mailto: would solve it.

I would recommend formating your email like youremail at yourdomain dot com

So far I haven't gotten any spam from using that format.

[BillaBongUSA]

Or you could have an @ symbol that's actually an image...

[Joe]

I use cloudmark, and love it. Worth a check, its not server side.

[Chaotic Reality]

spam assassin does an 'ok' job, but i still get spam, not a huge amount though.

J.

[Martz]

spam assassin does an 'ok' job, but i still get spam, not a huge amount though.

J.

Well, I spent a lot of time working on anti spam solutions this year. If you have access to a linux box, which I'm sure you do Steve, then check out the this tutorial on spam gateways. It is written for OpenBSD, but I've followed this guide and tweaked a few things, and managed to get it all working on Suse 8.2 and Debian woody.

The basics of it is:

• Setup postfix on one of your dedicated servers
• Install Amavisd which is a great framework for adding multiple AV scanners and spam checking engines with ease.
• Install some perl modules, Spam Assassin being one of them which uses basic rule checking for mail and awards points for each mail. If it gets more than X points it gets quarentined/deleted/marked as spam.
• Install DCC and Razor; both of which will dramatically increase catching on "known spam" by using checksums from spam databases.
• Install Clam-AV (and a proprietary one, I use F-Secure for linux mail gateways)
• Install drac (pop-before-smtp) daemon so your server doesn't openly relay.
• [Optional] setup mailboxes for local delivery (pop3).

I've implemented this in 2 places:
The first is on a new webserver which handles about 15 different private domain names. http://neptune.choicehotels.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailgraph.cgi
Catches about 95% of spam, no false negatives so far. This receives mail for each of the domains and delviers it to local mailboxes for pop3 pickup.

The second is a smart relay server for a corporate e-mail system. http://mail.choicehotels.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailgraph.cgi
This receives mail for 4 domains, checks it for nasties, and then passes it through to Microsoft Exchange Server. This way it protects the potentially vunerable Exchange server as it isn't directly on the net, and it also means that we don't have to spend more £££ on licensing a Front End Exchange server in our DMZ. We can use a linux alternative there for free!

Conclusion
So tripple spam checked, double AV checked - with all but 1 piece of the software being released under the GPL The good thing is, that once you have got to this stage, you can add as many domains (and virtual) to your e-mail/anitspam/antivirus system as you want with minimal effort, and no reconfiguration to the whole thing. Quick edit of the domain you want to relay for, reload postfix and thats it Dependant on your hardware there is no reason not too be handling 1000's of e-mail per minute

Give it a try, good fun (GEEK!), and rewarding to see working and from it's effects.

[Alex Older]

try http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird

[merk]

Are you aware of any of these solutions for qmail by any chance Martz?

[bahbah]

I use Spam Assassin on Postfix - and clamAV scanning every email too.

[Dean C]

Mailwasher is quite good You know I get less spam on my hotmail thesedays since they introduced their new system than I do in my website's email :rollseyes:

[DWZ]

I use cloudmark, and love it. Worth a check, its not server side.

Yep, SpamNet is great... I get around 150+ spam emails a day, SpamNet only misses around 2 a day.

http://www.cloudmark.com/products/spamnet/

[Wayne Luke]

The only way I have been able to control SPAM is to use a completely unique POP3 email address for every mailing list that I am on. If I start getting a lot of SPAM on any of those addresses, then I abandon the list and delete the email address permanently. Currently, I am on 62 mailing lists and Yahoo Groups and get about 300 spam messages a month out of an average of 15,000 emails a month.

My main ISP email address isn't on any of them and only given to friends and family. I get 2 SPAM messages a week on it.