Gmail vs .Mac mail

--
Michael
----------------------------------------------------------------
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

cuz I find it funny

Postini is not a server side anti-spam filter. Postini's service works with the changing of the domain's MX records sending the message though Postini's data center's.

Postini works in near real time and does not use a store & forward method for filtering for spam, viruses and 4 levels of threats such as email bombs, direct harvest attacks, virus outbreaks and spam attacks.

Postini uses multiple levels of filtering with end user control and a message quarantine for those messages suspected as potential spam.

On 11/19/07, Frank Muto <frank.mutosecureemailplus.com> wrote:
I have not used Postini per se but I've looked over their offerings and from that and your description it is a server side filter. While it may not be run on a particular local mail server it is definitely run on Postini servers and prevents hazardous or annoying mail from getting to their clients. From their website:

http://www.postini.com/postini_solutions/index.php

"Mitigate risk. Ensure no unacceptable content flows into your company through email, IM, or web browsers."

This, by definition, is server side filtering. Now they may not have a way of letting through false positives, which is the "store & forward" part of your argument. If so then I have to agree with Dmitri Borovoy in that it's a very silly thing. There will always be cases where some email will get caught even though it is benign and, from experience, it will be some "super important get it or die critical email" that the customer will need and want ASAP and bitch loudly when the don't receive it. If  you are talking about an RBL (real time black list) that will refuse even accepting email from known spam mail servers well yes, it doesn't store the email, it just denies receiving the message. That is really no different than any other system that uses an RBL. I think the allure of Postini is that they handle all the grunt work of configuration and maintenance of the spam/virus/trojan filters and RBL lists.

I may be mis-understanding what Postini does so please correct me, but it seems very server side, just their servers.

--
Michael
----------------------------------------------------------------
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

cuz I find it funny

On 19-Nov-2007, at 10:33, Michael Krzyzek wrote:
> And there is a way. As I stated most, if not all, server side spam
> filters have a web interface to recover false positives and they
> periodically sen


I'd much rather be able to look at a mailbox, spend maybe 10 seconds
scanning it, then select all and delete, than be forced to use some
web-face to scan though emails.

Either way you have to deal with the email at some point to make sure
you don't have any misfiled emails. This is faster in an email client
than in a web page.

LewisGmail wrote:
> On 19-Nov-2007, at 10:33, Michael Krzyzek wrote:
>> And there is a way. As I stated most, if not all, server side spam
>> filters have a web interface to recover false positives and they
>> periodically sen
>
>
> I'd much rather be able to look at a mailbox, spend maybe 10 seconds
> scanning it, then select all and delete, than be forced to use some
> web-face to scan though emails.
>
> Either way you have to deal with the email at some point to make sure
> you don't have any misfiled emails. This is faster in an email client
> than in a web page.
>
>

I agree. I would much prefer scanning through all my spam from within a
designated mailbox.

Dmitri

That is certainly a valid option. For me though I prefer getting it stopped at the server. Look at it from my perspective, I've had the same email account for over 12 years. I get more span on average than any 3 people I know combined. In the two and a half years I've been using server filtering I've had maybe 20 emails miss-marked as spam and 11 of those where in the first week of using the system and all of them in the first month. Over the first year of use I did some rough calculations and it turned out that between 85-93% of the spam messages I received were getting stopped at the server per month. These are messages I never have to download and don't have to store, even temporarily. Messages I don't have to look through when looking at my client spam folder. At this point I'm probably talking in the tens of gigabytes here. If it takes me an extra couple of minutes to look at the server list a week, well that is a price I am more than happy to pay. At this point, even if the server did stop a legitimate message, that message had to have tripped a serious number of flags to get caught. In that case the person who sent it either has a dodgy mail server or needs some serious training in formating an email. 

> That is certainly a valid option. For me though I prefer getting it stopped at the server. Look at it from my perspective, I've had the same email account for over 12 years. I get more span on average than any 3 people I know combined. In the two and a half years I've been using server filtering I've had maybe 20 emails miss-marked as spam and 11 of those where in the first week of using the system and all of them in the first month. Over the first year of use I did some rough calculations and it turned out that between 85-93% of the spam messages I received were getting stopped at the server per month. These are messages I never have to download and don't have to store, even temporarily. Messages I don't have to look through when looking at my client spam folder. At this point I'm probably talking in the tens of gigabytes here. If it takes me an extra couple of minutes to look at the server list a week, well that is a price I am more than happy to pay. At this point, even
 if the server did stop a legitimate message, that message had to have tripped a serious number of flags to get caught. In that case the person who sent it either has a dodgy mail server or needs some serious training in formating an email.
>
> Is this something everyone will want? Obviously no, but it definitely serves a good purpose, one I would not willing give up.

That is a valid point, especially if you get a serious amount of SPAM.
I guess "SPAM volume" would be the deciding factor here.

On 28-Nov-07, at 9:33 AM, Dmitri Borovoy wrote:

>> That is certainly a valid option. For me though I prefer getting
>> it stopped at the server. ...

One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
regularly 8) . I have done this several times by force of
circumstance and can report my astonishment, and relief, over how
long it takes for the demons of spam to catch up with me again.

George

At 4:10 AM -0800 11/29/07, George Wade wrote:
>One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
>regularly 8) . I have done this several times by force of
>circumstance and can report my astonishment, and relief, over how
>long it takes for the demons of spam to catch up with me again.

The flip side is that you have also left behind anybody you wanted
email from, unless you inform them all of your new address (and they
remember the change). How many will you forget? How many will
forget your address change? How many know you only by email and thus
can't call you to get the new address?

For example, a local organization with which I work maintains a list
of members for the purpose of sending monthly newsletters and such.
It is surprising how many members forget to notify us of changes in
email address, even though they paid for the privilege of receiving
the newsletter by email. The same organization has even bigger
losses on its list of volunteers.

I still get messages from legitimate (but forgetful) senders sent to
addresses that I stopped using for outbound email five or even ten
years ago. They run into an old message or an old piece of paper and
find the old address, even after repeated reminders. Sure, I could
cut down some spam by closing those accounts, but occasionally it is
somebody I really want to hear from.

I hate the effects that spam has had on the email system, well beyond
the increased load and annoyance of receiving bulk unsolicited
messages. This (people changing addresses to avoid spam for a while)
is just one example.

Mark

On 11/29/2007 06:10 AM, "George Wade" <georgewadeshaw.ca> wrote:

>>> That is certainly a valid option. For me though I prefer getting
>>> it stopped at the server. ...
>
> One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
> regularly 8) . I have done this several times by force of
> circumstance and can report my astonishment, and relief, over how
> long it takes for the demons of spam to catch up with me again.

That's a rather poor option if you rely on that email address.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On 29/11/07 13:10, "George Wade" <georgewadeshaw.ca> wrote:

> One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
> regularly 8) . I have done this several times by force of
> circumstance and can report my astonishment, and relief, over how
> long it takes for the demons of spam to catch up with me again.

When you're subscribed to countless mailing lists, forums and whatnots,
that's not an option. A few years ago, after a change of ISP, thus email
address, where it had been such a pain (I spent hours doing that) to update
addresses everywhere, I decided to grab my own domain name, and now use that
to be independent of any ISP (or Web mail account for that matter). And
let's not forget friends and family who insist on writing to an old address
months after the change, sigh... Stability is worth a few dollars a year and
some more spam.

As for the spam, I used to get about 50 a day, most caught by the Gmail
filter, with a few false positives. This number has been suddenly divided by
a factor of three a few weeks ago (a welcome relief), and I still wonder how
come... And not a single false positive either! Maybe this Postini thing
discussed on the list earlier?

-Thomas

On Nov 29, 2007, at 4:10 AM, George Wade wrote:

> On 28-Nov-07, at 9:33 AM, Dmitri Borovoy wrote:
>
>>> That is certainly a valid option. For me though I prefer getting
>>> it stopped at the server. ...
>
> One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
> regularly 8) . I have done this several times by force of
> circumstance and can report my astonishment, and relief, over how
> long it takes for the demons of spam to catch up with me again.


And also, use multiple addresses, one of which is reserved for use to
and from real people. At the very least, one throw-away address for
use in registering things; I go farther and create a unique address
for every registration, so I can track leakage, turn off leaked
addresses (they are remarkably rare), and stop doing business with
companies when that is indicated.

The unique addresses also help with "phishing": it doesn't matter how
real the XXX bank message looks if it doesn't come to an address I
gave XXX bank.

   --John

On Nov 29, 2007 4:10 AM, George Wade <georgewadeshaw.ca> wrote:
> On 28-Nov-07, at 9:33 AM, Dmitri Borovoy wrote:
> One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
> regularly 8) .

I'm curious to know how you manage to do this. Isn't it like changing
your phone number or street address on a regular basis?

Most people have a fixed e-mail address so they can give it to their
friends, family members, organizations, etc.

--
Ryoichi Morita

On Nov 29, 2007, at 11:14 AM, Thomas Perrier wrote:

> As for the spam, I used to get about 50 a day, most caught by the
> Gmail
> filter, with a few false positives. This number has been suddenly
> divided by
> a factor of three a few weeks ago (a welcome relief), and I still
> wonder how
> come... And not a single false positive either! Maybe this Postini
> thing
> discussed on the list earlier?

It's normal for an individual's spam rate to wax and wane but
according to this article, Google thinks there's a small downward
trend in spam attempts.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/11/google_spam

It would be interesting to see a comparison between spam sent
directly to gmail.com addresses, domains hosted through Google Apps
(so spammers wouldn't see a Gmail address but their software could
find that the domain had mail hosted by Google), and other addresses
that individuals forward to their gmail accounts. Maybe the reduction
is due to some spammers skipping gmail.com addresses because of
their filter's reputation.

There is a system called "Notify everyone in your address book:"  there being a chance that one, at least, of those addresses will be a spambot. Computing and Internetting need some solid, evolutionary, redesigning.

On Nov 29, 2007, at 4:10 AM, George Wade wrote:

> On 28-Nov-07, at 9:33 AM, Dmitri Borovoy wrote:
>
>>> That is certainly a valid option. For me though I prefer getting
>>> it stopped at the server. ...
>
> One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
> regularly 8) . I have done this several times by force of
> circumstance and can report my astonishment, and relief, over how
> long it takes for the demons of spam to catch up with me again.

These days, one needs more than one address. (I use a unique address
for every registration, but one need not (and some cannot) go that
far. That way I can isolate leakage, and change only what needs to be
changed. (jwbaxterlists is not my mac.com account, for instance, but
an alias used for...lists)

The address one wants trusted friends to use shouldn't be visible on
the web. (try a Google search for you email address--it can be very
depressing.)

   --John

On 29-Nov-2007, at 09:14, Mark R. Williamson wrote:
> The flip side is that you have also left behind anybody you wanted
> email from, unless you inform them all of your new address (and they
> remember the change). How many will you forget? How many will
> forget your address change? How many know you only by email and thus
> can't call you to get the new address?


I got an email this year from someone who found me because my domain
name is the same as my username was on my university account back in
1987. I've only had the kreme.com domain since 1995, but they had no
trouble finding me once they eliminated 'krispy' from their google
search.

I have no intention of changing my primary email address, though I've
created and abandoned many others over the years, precisely because
sometimes I want to be found. I also don't like the idea of giving in
to the spammer scum. I run SpamAssassin and some procmail filters and
find this quite workable. Just about the only spam I ever see is on
my mac.com account and the one business account I have that has much
less stringent filtering (and deletes no mail, regardless of score).

At 2007-11-29 08:14 -0800 Thomas Perrier wrote:

>As for the spam, I used to get about 50 a day, most caught by the Gmail
>filter, with a few false positives. This number has been suddenly divided by
>a factor of three a few weeks ago (a welcome relief), and I still wonder how
>come... And not a single false positive either! Maybe this Postini thing
>discussed on the list earlier?

Thomas - I don't think it's that. I have aa Google Mail address,
which I use for this list because my main e-mail address was
blacklisted a while back, but I don't seem to receive any spam via
that (relatively new) address.

My main e-mail address, which I've had for nearly 10 years now, is
the one whoch gets the spam. That has fallen slowly from the peak of
about 400 per day about a year ago to fewer than 100 per day now. I
noticed some gradual reduction in spam level over the course of the
year, but, like you, perceived pretty much a step reduction about a
month ago. I'd put it down to my ISP being a bit more pro-active - I
haven't changed my own server-side filters (which only skim off those
with the most obvious subject lines) for several months.

I'm using Eudora 6.0.2 with SpamSieve 2.6.4 to handle the spam.

Whatever caused the reduced spam level, I'm pleased!

regards

Rowland
--
| Rowland Carson ... that's Rowland with a 'w' ...
| <rowlandcarsongooglemail.com> http://home.clara.net/rowil/

Lucius Kwok <lucius.kwokgmail.com> wrote:

> Gmail blows the pants off of Mac.com email. It's got server-side spam
> filtering, mail fetching, IMAP, and lots of other features which make
> it work really great with my iPhone. I've asked friends what they do
> with spam and most seem resigned to spending a few minutes each day
> just deleting spam. My Gmail account just got the IMAP feature
> enabled today, so I've been testing it for a few hours already.

I wish it worked so well for me :-( It won't successfully sync the first
time for me. The sync just hangs and never times out. I can't quit Mail
with the sync never timing out so I have to force quit. When I relaunch
Mail it crashes every single time unless I delete the partially synced
Gmail account. Forcing a mailbox rebuild does not help. I'm using Apple
Mail under 10.5.1 on a brand new 24" iMac.

Regards,
 Jamie Kahn Genet

George Wade georgewade-at-shaw.ca |TidBITS/1.0-Allow| wrote:
> On 28-Nov-07, at 9:33 AM, Dmitri Borovoy wrote:
>
>>> That is certainly a valid option. For me though I prefer getting
>>> it stopped at the server. ...
>
> One of the very best spam filters is: to change your email address
> regularly 8) . I have done this several times by force of
> circumstance and can report my astonishment, and relief, over how
> long it takes for the demons of spam to catch up with me again.

I've had excellent results using an alias service, SneakEmail

        <http://www.sneakemail.com>

You set up an account with your real email address and when you need an email
address, you
create one at the website (I create one for almost everything). Your email goes
first to
their server and is redirected to your real email address. I almost always
create one
specifically for each use so in the rare cases when I do get spam, I have a
pretty good
idea where it came from. In that case I just delete the spammed address from the
website
and that's the end of it. A little extra work, but much easier than creating a
new mailbox
with my ISP or a new Yahoo, etc. email address. Within the last two years I've had
probably less than 10 spam emails without any filtering.

It's free for 10 MB monthy bandwidth, $2.00/month for 250 MB monthly bandwidth.

Ed Holloman