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Open thread: Favorite spam blocker service?
Merlin Mann | May 21 2006
I've been relatively fortunate with filtering spam over the past couple years (knock on wood). But despite a kickass three-tiered system that includes the world-beating server-side Sieve, plus Mail.app's pretty good client filtering, it's inevitable that even my best-loved private email addresses would find their way into the wrong hands (it's why I recently created "ThanksNo.com" -- an experiment in social re-engineering that you are free to use as well). So, now that the spelling-impaired Lords of The Dark Side have such renewed interest in my investment options and genital proportions, I'm considering joining a service like Spam Arrest or the apparently deceased Knowspam. I mostly plan to run this on the addresses I use for strictly personal stuff, so I'm satisfied I can start with a "whitelist" to ensure I don't generate loops or dead ends for the "good" senders. But, you tell me... Apart from running smart filters on your server and in your mail client, what's the best way to protect a mydomain.com-type email address from becoming compromised and punked-out? What are the dangers and cons of using a challenge/response service like Spam Arrest? Apart from abandoning it wholesale, what's the most effective and non-annoying way to rehabilitate a compromised address? 57 Comments
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 I was an early user...Submitted by Ramin (not verified) on May 26, 2006 - 10:09am.
I was an early user of Knowspam until they expired then switched to SpamArrest. Here are a few observations:
Then again, these are infrequent enough activities not to be too painful. You can avoid the mailing list problem by signing up for a digest version and authorizing the digest sender address. The slow confirmation message you can't do anything about. I usually just go ahead and add the whole domain to the authorized sender list (which is how the 1-2 messages sneak through). The shopping problem requires checking the spam trap every once in a while and searching for the product you ordered. If you do a lot of online shopping, this may cause annoyance. I generally buy from a few well-known vendors so it's not that bad. The best thing about server-side filters is that most of them let you point your outgoing SMTP server at them, so outbound email addresses automatically get added to the authorized list. If you're shopping around for server-side spam filters, this is a must have feature. The biggest problem with using server-side filtering is if you are running a business and have generic open email addresses like 'info@domain.com.' You have to balance inconveniencing potential clients against the flood of crap that will inevitably come through. I've opted for closing things down. I figure if someone is that irritable and goes elsewhere because they are politely asked to respond to an email challenge, it' probably best if we don't work together ;-) » POSTED IN:
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