Obsene Subject Lines

[Hologram]

The number of spam emails with obsene words in the subject line is increasing. Today I got one called "Damn just saw my wife getiing ******". I've replaced the rude word but use your imagination.

Does NTL do any filtering of such emails? It isn't difficult to write a bit of code to scan the subject line and delete the email if appropriate.

I realise that this wont stop the general spam problem but it would stop my kids seeing the subject line if they get to the pc before me.

NTL sell themselves as being family friendly, i.e. NTL HOME so surely they have some responsibility here.

[badnbusy]

As long as they dont FORCE all email to go through a spam filter, then thats fine.

Spam filtering is never 100% accurate, and some valid emails would be lost. So as long as they give the customer the choice to have their email go thru it or not, i agree there should be the option. (Some of us prefer our own spam filters - customised to suit ourselves )

But then again, with the email servers already falling over almost every day, i dont think their servers would be able to handle another task!

[vwman]

I am receiving 20+ e-mails a day with virus attatchments to e-mail accounts such as allusers@ntlworld.com etc surely something can be done by NTL - my norton antivirus is working overtime trying to cope!!

[Russ]

I get the impression that this is like blaming the Highways department of your local council if someone drives a dangerous old banger around the streets...

[Alanmelon]

What if we know someone with a bit of keyboard Tourette's? If ntl were to block swearwords, none of their mail would ever get through.

[Rik]

Surely the users of the PC have to take some responsibility here as well????

There are lots and lots of tools available to do all the things mentioned in this thread......

A quick google search will bring them up

[vwman]

I think NTL is worst than other ISP's tho as my Virgin net receives hardly any spam and virtually no viruses??

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by vwman

I think NTL is worst than other ISP's tho as my Virgin net receives hardly any spam and virtually no viruses??

Aren't virgin net accounts run on NTL networks?

[Derek]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

Aren't virgin net accounts run on NTL networks?

I think so. I think the reason Ntl seem to get more than other ISP's is down to it's size and it's seen as a juicy target for spammers.

I've used other large ISP's such as BTOpenworld in the past and have always found the larger, better known companies seem to get hit with more spam than the smaller, more obscure ISP's.

Originally Posted by ianathuth

Aren't virgin net accounts run on NTL networks?

Yes, Virgin uses NTL's network as a virtual ISP - but they run their own mail servers which do have anti-spam software on them. I get far less via my Virgin account than by my NTL account.

Originally Posted by Pem

Yes, Virgin uses NTL's network as a virtual ISP - but they run their own mail servers which do have anti-spam software on them. I get far less via my Virgin account than by my NTL account.

How do you set up a Virgin account Pem?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by badnbusy

As long as they dont FORCE all email to go through a spam filter, then thats fine.

Spam filtering is never 100% accurate, and some valid emails would be lost. So as long as they give the customer the choice to have their email go thru it or not, i agree there should be the option. (Some of us prefer our own spam filters - customised to suit ourselves )

But then again, with the email servers already falling over almost every day, i dont think their servers would be able to handle another task!

What if they just label it somehow (our mail servers at work just add {Spam?} to the subject line)? If you want it deleted, it is easy to add a rule to most email programs that will filter it.

Originally Posted by Nidge

How do you set up a Virgin account Pem?

Well I've had mine about eight years but I assume you still just signup for the PAYG service.

[Flubflow]

The spam filtering on my email with i-websolutions hosting account is superb. It detects spam extremely well and adds "{spam?}" to the subject line so even in crappy email clients like outlook express you can filter those out (delete from server) if you wish.
I have email accounts with other ISPs that use similar spam filtering but they only put extra headers in spam emails rather than in the subject line which means you can't filter it out with Outlook Express but you probably could with other email clients.

NTL on the otherhand do sweet FA to reduce the spam problem. It is particularly distressing when the spam is complete filth and especially when it winds up in the email account of a minor. The technology is there to massively reduce the problem and it is realtively cheap to do it so why aren't NTL using it?

Originally Posted by Hologram

...Does NTL do any filtering of such emails? It isn't difficult to write a bit of code to scan the subject line and delete the email if appropriate...

If you use Outlook Express you could do that yourself by using 'message rules'.

You put in the words you want filtered & then chose what to do with the email (delete from server, highlight it in colour, move to specific folder etc.).