Stop the Spam!

[pllobell]

I moved my company to BlueHost for one main reason: we used to get 18 e-mail addresses for $36/mo... not even enough for upper management, let alone sales people, technicians, etc. BlueHost offers me 2500 for about $7/mo.

Here's my problem: There's no way to block spam. Sure BH offers Spam Assassian, but in my oppinion, it does nothing useful. Most of my employees use Horde Web Mail to access their e-mail, so rules in Outlook is not possible.

Maybe a solution such as PureMessage? It holds the e-mails marked as spam and notifies you with a daily list. If you want you can chose to release e-mails which aren't actually spam

This is the email I get once a day:


The following messages were quarantined by PureMessage because they appear to be spam. To request that a message be automatically released from the quarantine and delivered to you, click on the message's ID and send the request. To release all messages in the list, you can simply reply to this message.

ID Time Probability From Subject
[#ws5V-1] 05:48 82% "libdmrlg" [PMX:####] Fw: <subject removed>




The Management
PureMessage Admin <postmaster@****.***>

--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.3/254 - Release Date: 2/8/2006


Does anyone have any solutions to stop the mass inflow of spam serverside?

Thanks!

PJ Llobell

[jdh]

This would probably be better off in the general forum, since it's not really a scripting or coding question per se... But at any rate.....

I've actually had quite a bit of success with SpamAssassin, although you're right that it's certainly not 100%. Further, the control options are somewhat limited, in that you're restricted to either having the spam go into an IMAP "spam" folder, or redirecting ALL spam to a common spam-mailbox.

Method #1 results in spam still being downloaded, or having to be reviewed/deleted by the end-user (in the case of webmail), and Method #2 results in the user never seeing the spam and the admin having to deal with cleaning up the spam queue.

I've had some success with other third-party solutions that you filter your mail through (ie, point your MX record at them), such as Postini and MXlogic, but of course these are an additional monthly service, and are frequently directed at the larger organizations.

Ideally, it would be nice to see Bluehost partner with one of these organizations and offer some form of bundled package or service offering.

[pllobell]

Thanks for the quick reply. I switched to Bluehost to save money on my e-mail, so I'd really like to try to stay away from adding the services of another company, but if BH can't/won't come up with a real solution I may have to.

I recomend BH completely, save this one shortfall.


PJ


ADMIN: Move this to the General cat. if it should be there.

[Dave]

pllobell, I thought that if you enable Spam assassin it will cause all mail marked as spam to be delivered to a separate mail box called 'spam'. So the messages will not reach your inbox right?

I found this FAQ here:

http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

[Taresa]

I'm glad someone else said it. I do get a few things coming through spamassassin as well. Chalking it up to user error (:rolleyes: ), I just let it go. If there's something better out there, I might use my Bluehost email rather than Gmail.

[jdh]

pllobell, I thought that if you enable Spam assassin it will cause all mail marked as spam to be delivered to a separate mail box called 'spam'. So the messages will not reach your inbox right?
Well, specifically the Spam Assassin configuration by default will redirect spam to an IMAP mailbox, or folder called SPAM... They refer to this as a "mailbox" but it's more akin to what most would call an IMAP folder, parallel to your inbox. If a user is syncing all of their IMAP folders, then the spam folder will be downloaded along with the INBOX (and any other folder).

There is an "Enable Spambox" feature in the cpanel that will direct all spam trapped by spamassassin to a spam@<yourdomain.com> account for quarantine. In this case, the end user will never see the spam, and the admin will have to go in regularly and sort through it.

By default, the "enable spambox" button is not available in the cpanel, but there is a way to enable it with a specific URL, or you can contact Bluehost support to enable it for you. As I understand it, their main reason for not allowing this feature to be easily enabled is that the spambox would grow to a very large size if the customer isn't aware of it and/or doesn't check it regularly (mine for instance grew to over 15,000 messages in about two months).

[lesc]

I'd like to encourage Bluehost (again!) to implement open-relay database checking. About 90% of the spam I get comes from known open-relays. Bluehost could quite easily check the source IPs of all incoming email against one or more of the available databases (sorbs, ordb, etc.) and simply refuse mail originating from listed IP addresses.

Legitimate email senders whose addresses were inadvertently listed would receive an error message and would readily be able to get their address de-listed (or get their ISP to get it delisted). This has happened to me only twice over the past several years (with dynamic IPs from an ISP that did not have appropriate outgoing mail controls itself). In one cases, just re-connecting and getting a fresh IP address solved the problem; in the other the ISP needed to be alerted to a spamming customer and get a block of addresse de-listed.

[lesc]

By the way, for a quick idea of how much spam open relay database checking will eliminate try MailWasher (I have no affiliation). Whitelist everyone in your address book, and then under Spam Tools, turn on spam database checking and set it to automatically flag matches for deletion. Generally I find I only have to deal a few strays after that. No fussing around with rule configuration.

It shouldn't be necessary, but unless and until Bluehost starts doing this at the system level it's the best solution I've found.

[chutney]

You might take a look at Blue Frog (http://www.bluesecurity.com). Sort of an add on spam filter that sends nasty notes on your behalf to the FBI, FTC, and Interpol. Less spam for everyone over the long haul. Haven't tried it with Bluehost mail, but it works great with Gmail.

And if y'all use Firefox, you can install a Greasemonkey script that automates it all.

Oh, and Gmail has an invite-only beta for using Gmail as your webmail client for your own domains. Could check into that too. (I got an invite, but haven't had a chance to try it out yet, so I can't tell you how it works.)

[ket1]

I second Chutney's recomendation for firefox. Once you try it, you'll never go back.


ket1

[P00r]

To enable the spambox

Goto filemanager and chose create a file in the root (not of your site but the root of your main folder) and leave it empty and press save!

create .spamassassinboxenable
The verify it is now enabled, warning, this create a spambox that need to be emptied on a regular basis. (bluehost doesn't disable it for nothing...)

so you are on your own here... :)

P00r

www.msgdrop.com



Well, specifically the Spam Assassin configuration by default will redirect spam to an IMAP mailbox, or folder called SPAM... They refer to this as a "mailbox" but it's more akin to what most would call an IMAP folder, parallel to your inbox. If a user is syncing all of their IMAP folders, then the spam folder will be downloaded along with the INBOX (and any other folder).

There is an "Enable Spambox" feature in the cpanel that will direct all spam trapped by spamassassin to a spam@<yourdomain.com> account for quarantine. In this case, the end user will never see the spam, and the admin will have to go in regularly and sort through it.

By default, the "enable spambox" button is not available in the cpanel, but there is a way to enable it with a specific URL, or you can contact Bluehost support to enable it for you. As I understand it, their main reason for not allowing this feature to be easily enabled is that the spambox would grow to a very large size if the customer isn't aware of it and/or doesn't check it regularly (mine for instance grew to over 15,000 messages in about two months).

[P00r]

If you trust spamassasin you can also create a filter to discard the junk mail

Go to filter section

To filter all mail that SpamAssasin has marked as spam, just choose "SpamAssassin Spam Header", "begins with", and then enter "Yes" in the box.

Work fine for me, reduce the spam from maybe 20 msg to 1 !

Again your mileage may be different.

P00r
www.msgdrop.com





To enable the spambox

Goto filemanager and chose create a file in the root (not of your site but the root of your main folder) and leave it empty and press save!

create .spamassassinboxenable
The verify it is now enabled, warning, this create a spambox that need to be emptied on a regular basis. (bluehost doesn't disable it for nothing...)

so you are on your own here... :)

P00r

www.msgdrop.com

[ABCDiamond]

If you trust spamassasin you can also create a filter to discard the junk mail

Go to filter section

To filter all mail that SpamAssasin has marked as spam, just choose "SpamAssassin Spam Header", "begins with", and then enter "Yes" in the box.

Work fine for me, reduce the spam from maybe 20 msg to 1 !

Again your mileage may be different.

P00r
www.msgdrop.comThanks for that. I switched to bluehost yesterday, and began to get all that spam again.

I had forgotten how I had configured my last host, and your post just reminded me. That's exactly what I did before, and it worked well. So I have just set it up again on here. ;)

I used spam box originally on my last host, and I can understand why bluehost don't enable it automatically, I soon turned it off again :D

[ggevalt]

I would offer another solution that has worked very well for me.... Use Thunderbird, the free, open-source mail alternative from the folks who developed Firefox and connect to BlueHost accounts via POP set-ups.
Thunderbird has some excellent features to block spam, or junk, as it calls it. As I've said, I've found this extremely workable solution.
FYI, I set up a special junk folder and examine it from time to time to make sure e-mail I wanted hasn't made it into the junk basket. And a few needed e-mails have ended up in the junk basket. But it takes but a moment to spin through the junk e-mails to look for good stuff compared to the alternative.
Here's the url to check out thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
geoff

[gevensen]

I simply use spam assasin set to 2.2 and then set my account level filtering with keywords as I get new spam

I go into the message body and look for key phrases I dont want to hear or shouldnt see in my regular email.

Sometimes I go for a week or longer w/o new spam