Spam Hammer: Anyone using it?

[cbphoto]

I got the message from Bluehost about Spam Hammer and am intrigued. Postini doesn't do squat for me and so I'm wondering if anyone here has implemented Spam Hammer.

If so, does anyone have a verdict?

[Homer]

Yes I do, and I'm overjoyed BlueHost have finally implemented this highly effective anti-spam technique.

It isn't obvious from the original mailshot, nor from the CPanel description, but this is actually a technique known as greylisting.

I campaigned for BlueHost to implement this last year, and first suggested it on this forum two years ago.

It's taken two years, but now BlueHost finally has an anti-spam tool that actually works.

See, customer feedback does work ... sometimes

Hallelujah!

[nambi]

And it seems to work, but I had one user telling me he is not getting E-mails form a particular person, therefore I have just turned it off for their specific E-mail address. I'm still testing it, I think it's working good but time will tell if too many E-mails are being caught then I will have to turn it off.

I wish there were a log off all the E-mails discarded to see if some of my good ones are being discarded and for what reason.

[hcripe]

I am using it on our domain and it is working GREAT!

I can't believe I haven't gotten any spam since enabling it on all of our email accounts.

I have had several people send test emails to prove that good email is getting through, and everything it working well. I am still getting the legitimate newsletters and other email that I was getting before, so I don't think it has completely rejected any legitimate email.

Thanks, Bluehost, for implementing this feature.

Howard

[kitmos]

When I read about SPAM HAMMER I was excited that there would be an alternative to Postini which doesn’t work at all for me but sadly I see absolutely no improvement in the number of spams coming thru. Still getting tons of ED ads, Pfizer ads etc. If anything I think my spam has increased somewhat. I’m also concerned if good mail is being trapped and there is no (apparent) way to check this?

[Homer]

I had one user telling me he is not getting E-mails form a particular person

This should only happen with MTAs which are not RFC compliant. He should ask the sender to follow this up with his service provider.

[Homer]

Still getting tons of ED ads, Pfizer ads etc.

They didn't somehow get whitelisted by spamassasin, did they?

Double check your settings in CPanel, and that the right mailbox is being protected. Also, greylisting won't work on forwarders, since the last MTA in the chain is localhost (your BlueHost box), so check the To: field to make sure this stuff isn't sneaking in through an alias. If it is, then you'll need to convert the forwarder to a real mailbox, then protect it with Spam Hammer.

If set up properly, greylisting should kill nearly all spam stone dead, so this level of failure looks suspiciously like a config problem at your end.

[redsox9]

When I read about SPAM HAMMER I was excited that there would be an alternative to Postini which doesn’t work at all for me but sadly I see absolutely no improvement in the number of spams coming thru. Still getting tons of ED ads, Pfizer ads etc. If anything I think my spam has increased somewhat. I’m also concerned if good mail is being trapped and there is no (apparent) way to check this?

Initially, I only checked off email addresses. When I enabled domains, the spam all but disappeared AND I am still receiving emails from "whitelisted" senders. Check your settings; that might be the difference.

[kitmos]

I checked off all my email addresses and my domain name last week when I signed up for it the first day.
However I didn’t think to disable to spam assassin so have just done that so I’ll see if that helps.


@Homer
you said: “Double check your settings in CPanel, and that the right mailbox is being protected. Also, greylisting won't work on forwarders, since the last MTA in the chain is localhost (your BlueHost box), so check the To: field to make sure this stuff isn't sneaking in through an alias. If it is, then you'll need to convert the forwarder to a real mailbox, then protect it with Spam Hammer.“

I’m not sure what MTA means? I don’t use a forwarder.

Thanks,

Kit

[redsox9]

MTA is an acronym for message transfer agent. It is a computer process or software agent that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another, in single hop application-level transactions.

The point is that a forward does not pass through an MTA, so it does not get checked for spam like a standard mailbox would. However, since you do not use forwarders, that should not be the issue.