The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Fighting the Spam Battle Dennis Parsons |
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Dennis Parsons describes the latest service offered to members in the fight against Spam. With virus protection already installed and operating successfully this initiative puts the Melb PC members Internet service up near the top of the list. |
By now most Internet members would have seen the subject line of some of their
e-mail marked with ??Spam??, indicating that the SpamAssassin filter on Melb
PC's mail server had assessed the e-mail as spam. This was being done on a
generic "one size fits all" basis with no facility to bypass it or for the
individual user to change settings. Whilst not necessarily the perfect answer,
as an interim measure to help members reduce the amount of spam they have to
deal with, it was a good start.
It is now possible to log in using your username and password via a Web page
interface, and alter your particular SpamAssassin settings. If you're happy with
the way things have been with the generic settings then there is no need to log
in. You will continue receiving the same service.
The Internet team has put in a lot of effort to offer this enhanced service. Not
only did they have to ensure that SpamAssassin would work correctly and then
develop the Web interface, they also had to ensure that the mail servers would
cope with the extra workload. Previously an e-mail with multiple @melbpc
recipients was processed by SpamAssassin just once. With individual settings in
place messages will now be processed once for each @melbpc recipient, imposing a
considerable load on the servers.
There are three separate areas involved in your individual settings. The
statistics area provides a breakdown of your mail stats - mail received, mail
marked as spam and spam deleted (that is, if you select the delete option). The
black list and white list area allows you to list senders whose e-mail is
treated definitely as spam or definitely not spam respectively.
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The main area enables you to "tweak" SpamAssassin. You can turn it on or off,
alter the score at which your e-mail is considered spam and marked with
??Spam??, and set the score at which the spam is automatically and irretrievably
deleted from the server. This last feature is off by default and can only be enabled by you logging in. If used cautiously it is quite safe and will save most users quite a bit of time and effort by removing the worst of the spam before it is downloaded. No mail whatsoever will be deleted by SpamAssassin until you turn on this feature (See Figure 1 at right). |
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guide to which value you should use for automatic deletion: |
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Figure 1. SpamAssassin settings guide |
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Beware when Making Changes
Changing to a lower value for Spam identification will give you different
results. Always check the results first and avoid automatic deletion until you
are satisfied your chosen level is correct.
Visit the following Web pages to find out more:
Configuring individual settings:
http://member.melbpc.org.au/~parsonsd/filtering/spamass.html.
(This page includes a link to the SpamAssassin settings)
Viewing your mail stats:
http://member.melbpc.org.au/~parsonsd/filtering/mailstats.html.
Please address any questions or comments you may have to the newsgroup
melbpc.connectivity.
Few other ISPs offer users this level of flexibility in fighting spam. Together
with the virus filtering of mail carried out by Melb PC's mail server it is a
valuable contribution to our group's Internet service. What's more, these
enhancements are provided at no extra cost.
Reprinted from the March 2004 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
