Spam Filtering on SEDS.org

[SEDShead]

This post concerns individuals who have email addresses at SEDS.org, or who moderate email lists hosted by SEDS.org.

As you are all aware, the ratio of welcome email versus unsolicited email in your inbox has steadily risen as time goes on. Many of you probably have your own filters to deal with frequent offenders, others probably have a fast finger on the delete key.

Now to the point of this message - should SEDS attempt to filter SPAM at the system level, before it makes it to your INBOX? This will certainly have the effect of reducing SPAM, but will no doubt cause a small percentage of "legitimate" emails to be bounced back to their sender. In particular, I'm considering using the services described at: http://spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/297.html

SEDS itself was recently listed in this database, due to a security hole, and the quickness with which we were "blacklisted" impressed me as to the efficiency and effectiveness of this system. Those who are attempting to sending email from a "black listed" host are given an error message instructing them how to get off the black list, so legitimate email can eventually get through if the spam-reducing steps are taken. It is possible to override blacklisting for some hosts, if we find a problem for which there is a reasonable explanation.

I'm planning on enacting this new SPAM barrier in one week. If you would like to place your vote for or against the spam filtering, drop in at the SEDS forms and place your vote in the poll above.

Thanks.

-Chris Lewicki
A maintainer of SEDS.org

[smiley]

1st post! :D

I voted yes, sounds like a good idea, with some questions: will it include all the other filters (SpamAssassin?) that you are using?

If so, does anyone check periodically to see if legitimate mail is blocked, or is it not worth the effort?

I feel that any filters that semantic analyzing to determine if a message is spam, that should be left to the end user.
(And I don't know if we have or will have any of those in place).

Actually, I probably should have voted "don't care" because I'm trying to get people to use my new email address, and have been successful enough that all I get from my @seds address is mostly a trickle of spam, handled with procmail, and a few lists I haven't unsub'd from.

So, a qualifed "yeah sure" from me. :p

[SEDShead]

I've been running this "SPAM Filter" on my own machine for a while, and have encountered some problems -- for example, a "legitimate" AOL user was unable to mail me for several days while his default mailer (one of the many AOL mailhosts) was included in the SPAM Cop database. I had assumed that big-name ISP's like this were excluded from the database, but apparently not. I don't know how this would relate to yahoo, hotmail, or other email hosts.

A work-around would be to specifically allow AOL.com and other big-name ISPs, as we find that mail isn't getting through from them...

[bryce]

Originally posted by SEDShead

Now to the point of this message - should SEDS attempt to filter SPAM at the system level, before it makes it to your INBOX?

Most of my mail *is* SPAM...

Block away!

- bryce
"Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends."
- Joseph Campbell 1904-1987

[Kirsten]

I tried voting twice and it doesn't seem to have worked, but I am undecided tending toward a no. Most of my family has AOL or Hotmail e-mail addresses, and obviously I don't want to miss out on the family gossip :-)

I am only getting about 10-20 spam e-mails per day which translates into about 2 seconds worth of deleting. It's not as though it is a huge problem for me personally, but maybe it is a big problem overall. Is someone getting hundreds of spams everyday? Is the spam using up a lot of space on the system? How big of a problem is this really?

Kirsten

[SEDShead]

Busy week last week, but I finally got the spam blocking online tonight. I'm already seeing blocked email, and it looks like it should have been blocked.

Per Kirsten's concern, I'm specifically NOT blocking mail from aol.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com and msn.com.

If you find that other "legitimate" ISPs are being blocked, we can add them to the "whitelist" to not block no mater what spamcop says.

I would appreciate hearing if people see a noticible reduction in spam.