[PPRAANet] RE: PPARES: E-mail screener

Thu, 30 Jan 2003 06:43:31 -0700

I'm assuming that this is a kind of "anti-spam" program the ISPs are
offering?  If so, I use something called "Mail Washer".

The program sits on your machine and you have to do a little work at first,
like plugging in the addresses of the bozos sending you spam mail, just to
start.

You can either "blacklist" them, or build special filters that will allow
you to catch, say, all the "Free Offer" or "Make Money Fast" junk coming in.

Once you start it, the program will go out and check your pop3 server and
give you a list of mail you can review.  You can then click check marks to
delete it, bounce it, or black list it - OR click "friends" and that address
will not be messed with in the future.

When all is said and done, you click "Process Mail" and the SPAMMERS get a
BOUNCED copy of your mail, making it appear as if your email address is "no
longer valid".

I have been using it for about 3 weeks now, and the spam mail has gone from
almost 1000 per week, to about 2-3 per day.  The filters are working (I was
getting 3-6 of those stupid Nigerian letters a day, asking me to "help with
a money transfer scheme") and the program is catching ALL of them now.

The best part is, I STILL get to see what's coming in the mail box BEFORE I
open my mail program, and determine if I want to see the stuff AT my mail
box.

LASTLY, you finish up with "Mail Washer" then you click a "Email program"
button, and it brings up your normal email program and then downloads the
mail you wanted to keep.

(I don't have my email program download automatically any more, I allow Mail
Washer to examine everything FIRST then manually click the "get new mail"
button on my Outlook program).

Hope this helps.

Rick Donaldson, N0NJY

PS - I'm using Earthlink at home.  Earthlink offers the SAME TYPE of service
as AT&T, but it is NOT catching the majority of the spammers.  But, between
Earthlink and MailWasher, I'm catching it ALL now and can fight back a bit.
(Getting my name removed from lists is a BONUS to bouncing the mail back at
them).

-----Original Message-----
From: Benedict B. Cruise [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 5:31 PM
To: ARES reflector; PPRAA reflector
Subject: PPARES: E-mail screener

My Internet provider is ATT Worldnet.  So my comments refer only to that IP.
    ATT Worldnet recently offered an e-mail screener to help filter out
spam.  I have been doing some testing of this screener and find that it is
working very well.  I was concerned about receiving the ARRL.Net e-mail
forwarding.  It comes through and is not screened.  In addition the various
reflectors are also coming through the screen.

    30 to 50 spam messages are being screened and not showing up in my
in-box.  I still have some spam slipping through  but over all the screen is
working fine.

    I understand that other popular IPs offer the same service and are
getting good results

73s   N0LNW,  Ben

_______________________________________________
PPARES mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/ppares