[ARES] ISP spam filters

[John Kraus KC4ZGQ]

Recently I have received email from people who have ISP based spam filters 
that require that I respond to a challenge message in order to be added to 
a "safe list".  I have the same capability on my web hosting email accounts 
but have chosen not to enable it because it is considered rude by many and 
is no more effective than the sophisticated Bayesian filters. Instead I use 
<http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/>Spam 
<http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/>Assassin and normally get less than 5 
spams a day from all of my accounts (>10 of them).  Since 
<http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/>Spam 
<http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/>Assassin is open source I see little 
reason these ISP's could not implement it.

In the past on two occasions I have responded to these and within a week I 
had to abandon the account due to the volume of spam that began flowing 
into my account.

Currently Earthlink is the worst offender and was the one that I replied to 
that resulted in more than 1000 spams in one week into an account that had 
never gotten more than one or two before my reply.  This began the day 
after I replied to one of the challenge requests from Earthlink.

I will no longer respond to these requests.  I expect that when I respond 
to an email that was sent to me that my response will reach the sender.  It 
is the senders responsibility to ensure that they have not blocked my 
response. I normally reply within 2 days unless I am out of town.   So if 
you have sent me a message and have not seen a reply you need to check your 
ISP's spam settings and your junk mail folders.

One solution is to use one of the online free email services that don't use 
this type of spam filter.  Or use the option that automatically adds anyone 
in your address book to your personal safe list.


73 de John Kraus KC4ZGQ
Georgia DEC for Digital Communications
DIGITAL_COMMS_GA at COX.NET

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