[ARES] ISP spam filters

[Robert Tyler]

John, 
I am a webhost of many sites, and we make the Box Trapper software available 
to all of our customers, because it comes as a standard option in the Cpanel 
management program.  If someone turns it on for their website or their 
personal Email account, it is a selection the individual decided to put into 
place. NOT the ISP.  The ISP makes these items available if someone wants to 
use them, but does not force anyone to use them.

The way to resolve this problem is to continue to send emails to the folks 
with those accounts. They will either eventually add you to their list or 
complain to you that they no longer get your emails, and you can tell them 
why.

Never, Never, Never, reply to the "you have been blocked messages", because it 
opens you up to get spammed by the same folks that were spamming the person 
you originally emailed.   There are some glitches in the email system that 
allow this. They will be a topic for discussion at some of the 2006 upcoming 
IT conferences.
Until all of the glitches are resolved in the less than perfect Internet world 
follow my three F's  to happy Internet Emailing..
Filter all of the Spam you can.
Forgive all those that block your emails in the name of Spam protection for 
themselves.
and Forget about the rest.

As long as we have an Internet we will have Spammers, Hackers and Viruses.
If you spend all of your life worrying with the problems that others cause, 
you will never have time to do the work in life you are supposed to do.

 Please do not take this as a lecture or a scolding, just as more information 
to help better your life.

73
Robert Tyler KF4VBR
ASM Information Technology ARRL-GA
General Manager NativeGeorgian.com





On Sunday 04 December 2005 11:57 am, John Kraus KC4ZGQ wrote:
> 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