Monday, March 20, 2006
Anti-Spam Frustration
It seems like some of my emails to people are getting blocked by their anti-spam software (I *think*), and some people's emails to me are getting similarly blocked. In some cases blocked and unseen, though in one case a friend (whom I'd emailed in the past just fine) found my email in his junk mail folder.
Yet I still get a whole bunch of spammy crap in all my mailboxes every day. So spam is getting through, and legitimate email is getting blocked somewhere up the line.
Are we going to end up with email becoming a useless form of communication, because the spammers have effectively crippled it?
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:53 PM (Permalink)
Comments:
Links to this post:
<< Home
Our support@ gets spammed like crazy. But ever since we switched over to SpamBayes, it's been catching 99% of it. (And, just as importantly, it hasn't given us any false positives as yet.)
I'm thinking of closing off the support@ account and going for web-based customer service.
I'm thinking of closing off the support@ account and going for web-based customer service.
I'm not sure what's going on.
My filter system is setup to automatically move spam to the Junk folder but it's always been fairly intelligent about what it trashes. I'm also apparently one of the lucky ones who still receive 3-5 emails per day so I always sift through the Junk folder just to be sure nothing useful was deleted.
If you'd like to try emailing me again, you can try [chaigler at gmail dot com].
My filter system is setup to automatically move spam to the Junk folder but it's always been fairly intelligent about what it trashes. I'm also apparently one of the lucky ones who still receive 3-5 emails per day so I always sift through the Junk folder just to be sure nothing useful was deleted.
If you'd like to try emailing me again, you can try [chaigler at gmail dot com].
I think one key factor is whether the individual mailbox owner has total control over the filter. Some ISPs try to "help" by prefiltering mail for you, which means you can never go check what's been filtered out, you can't set your own rules and threshholds, etc.
# posted by 
: March 21, 2006 1:00 PM
: March 21, 2006 1:00 PM
I think I'm being bit by that last one. I finally moved some of my mailing lists away from my hotmail account because certain PEOPLE on the mailing list (not the mailing list itself) were never touching even the junk mail folder of my account - they were getting bounced somewhere above me.
I have a friend who suddenly ceased emailing me one day. I didn't know what happened until, on a whim, I emailed him from an alternate account. I asked him to check his junk mail filter, and sure enough there were a couple of my emails sitting there. So it WAS working for a while, and then I guess someone upgraded their company spam filter or something.
The problem is now not only that email is getting polluted by SPAM, but that the 'cure' is causing it to become horribly unreliable. And the spammers keep figuring out dodges to go around the filters. It seems like it's going to be a losing battle unless we go to a pure safelist model somehow, or unless we find a way to catch and prosecute overseas spammers (not to mention domestic, but we're making progress on that front).
Chris - I'll send you another email tonight from an alternate account.
Post a Comment
I have a friend who suddenly ceased emailing me one day. I didn't know what happened until, on a whim, I emailed him from an alternate account. I asked him to check his junk mail filter, and sure enough there were a couple of my emails sitting there. So it WAS working for a while, and then I guess someone upgraded their company spam filter or something.
The problem is now not only that email is getting polluted by SPAM, but that the 'cure' is causing it to become horribly unreliable. And the spammers keep figuring out dodges to go around the filters. It seems like it's going to be a losing battle unless we go to a pure safelist model somehow, or unless we find a way to catch and prosecute overseas spammers (not to mention domestic, but we're making progress on that front).
Chris - I'll send you another email tonight from an alternate account.
Links to this post:
<< Home
