Mail servers

[spaldinho]

Hi,

With my lack of access since the 4th, due to the dns outage, I'm dreading logging onto my primary email account.

I get between 50-100 spam emails per day, many are not even to me. I use Mailwasher to delete the bulk of them at the server. There will be hundreds waiting for me when it finally logs in. Its getting to the point where I have given up sifting my email from this deluge. I have taken to creating new accounts to use for everyday use.

Q: Why don't NTL do something about this ? Surely I cannot be the only person receiving this amount of spam ? Just looking at the subject lines of the majority of the emails, NTL could easily strip out most of this dross, releasing resources and protecting bandwidth.

Come on NTL, WAKE UP !

cheers

Spaldinho

[Enterian]

I take your point, but the danger of ISP's filtering spam is that it's great up until the day that is mistakenly identifies an important email as spam and deletes it.

I'd rather endure the hassle of dealing with it myself (or letting mailwasher do it)!

You don't expect your postman to filter your junk snail mail so why expect NTL to filter your e-mail ?

[spaldinho]

Originally Posted by pem

You don't expect your postman to filter your junk snail mail so why expect NTL to filter your e-mail ?

Hi,
Because I pay them £24.99 a month ? </false_hope>

I understand that there is no reason they "should" filter the spam, though if they did, imagine how much bandwidth and resources it would save if they did.

Not only would they be doing everybody a favour, but they would prevent their mail servers from clogging up.

How hard can it be to remove email with "viagra" in the subject header ? And how many people would actually complain ?

cheers

Spaldinho

Originally Posted by spaldinho

How hard can it be to remove email with "viagra" in the subject header ? And how many people would actually complain ?

Well presumably anyone sending e-mails to each other about viagra.

I pay NTL to deliver my e-mail to me, not make judgements about which e-mails *they* think I may want, or not want.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by pem

Well presumably anyone sending e-mails to each other about viagra.

I pay NTL to deliver my e-mail to me, not make judgements about which e-mails *they* think I may want, or not want.

I personally use a yahoo.co.uk address for all my main mail, I pop it from the server using outlook and yahoo are kind enough to check it for viruses and delete what spam they think I don't need. On top of all this I can take it with me easily when I change ISP this week. All this from a FREE service.

Not once have I lost an important e-mail from this account (that I know of), yet Ntl when I used their pop account for something earlier on in the year lost approx 50% of my mail and they don't even provide a spam filter!

[Stuartbe]

I take your point pem.

Maybe NTL could simply mark mail of this nature with a spam flag so that users can simpy ad a rule to block the mail on there mail software.

Originally Posted by stuartbe

I take your point pem.

Maybe NTL could simply mark mail of this nature with a spam flag so that users can simpy ad a rule to block the mail on there mail software.

In a very similar manner to what spam asassin does (which I use) - yes that is a reasonable idea.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by spaldinho

How hard can it be to remove email with "viagra" in the subject header ? And how many people would actually complain ?

Not that hard, but apparently simple things are hard for ntl.

You may be interested in this thread - includes spam filtering.

[Stuartbe]

Hi All

Speaking personaly I dont have a problem with spam. The spam that I do get is quickly dealt with by the spam filter on my kerio mail server.

I believe that most of the problem is self inflicted. People tend to give there email address to anyone at the drop of a hat. I treat my email address like my credit card number and only give it to people I know.

I have a hotmail address that I use for web site reg. on downloads ext. and every month I go into the account and delete the lot.

I have found that a great deal of the spam is caused by spyware running on peoples systems. Gator, cydor ect. These spyware apps often send your email address of to marketing sites.

How many people actualy know about adaware ?????

[Jon M]

I don't think NTL should "filter" for spam at all. It's the sort of server load that would make an already slow delivery even slower.

The simplest and IMHO most effective anti-spam method is to operate a black-list that blocks IP addresses of known spam originators.

This method is far better both for bandwidth and server load. Plus it removes (virtually) any possibility of blocking legitimate mail.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by stuartbe

I believe that most of the problem is self inflicted. People tend to give there email address to anyone at the drop of a hat. I treat my email address like my credit card number and only give it to people I know.

I have a hotmail address that I use for web site reg. on downloads ext. and every month I go into the account and delete the lot.

I have found that a great deal of the spam is caused by spyware running on peoples systems. Gator, cydor ect. These spyware apps often send your email address of to marketing sites.

How many people actualy know about adaware ?????

Well yes you are quite right, but it is also ntl's job to educate their customer's about the potential dangers of spam then. They advertise X number of e-mail addresses, but it doesn't say "with spam included free". People need to be aware that it is a real problem and to treat their e-mail address as you do. Spyware the same as above.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by stuartbe

I believe that most of the problem is self inflicted. People tend to give there email address to anyone at the drop of a hat. I treat my email address like my credit card number and only give it to people I know.

You are right in one respect but unfortunately the spamers also spam certain e-mail providers without even knowing that an address exists. They will just send out millions of e-mails to common.names@Hotmail.com or common.names@NTLWORLD.COM.

Not all of us are lucky enough to run our own e-mail, we have to stick with the mail providers (for most it's their ISP).

Personally I stick with Yahoo for my main address for convenience, but if I end up with a deluge of spam I'll just create another Yahoo account and use that.

People seem to forget that they can change their e-mail address and provider at any time, if you are fed up with spam through your ntlworld account move, pick a decent provider and get on with your life. :p

[Jeff]

I signed up with ntl about 4 months ago and never used the email account,
but decided to have a look recently to see what the service was like.
Crap is the only way to describe it, there in my inbox was 1300 plus emails.
Well, after spending half the night deleting them I set up an email forwarding address and since then not one (yep not one) piece of crap have I recieved.

Originally Posted by dellwear

You are right in one respect but unfortunately the spamers also spam certain e-mail providers without even knowing that an address exists. They will just send out millions of e-mails to common.names@Hotmail.com or common.names@NTLWORLD.COM.

Not all of us are lucky enough to run our own e-mail, we have to stick with the mail providers (for most it's their ISP).

Personally I stick with Yahoo for my main address for convenience, but if I end up with a deluge of spam I'll just create another Yahoo account and use that.

People seem to forget that they can change their e-mail address and provider at any time, if you are fed up with spam through your ntlworld account move, pick a decent provider and get on with your life. :p

Hi dellwear

I have email addys with NTL, Hotmail & I-Web Solutions.

The Hotmail one does get some spam, maybe 2 a week, the I-Web one has been up a couple of months, hasn't been used much & so far is spam free.

I have 2 addys on NTL, one my wife uses (rarely), & mine, although I also pick up her mail if I send/receive before she does (which is most of the time, 'cos she mainly uses Hotmail ). Her addy is getting up to 20 spams a day - I get virtually none

The only difference is that I run Ad-aware & Viruscan & keep them updated, while she has Viruscan, but doesn't update it very often & always forgets to run Ad-Aware Last time I chivvied her to do it she had two minor nasties & loads of tracking cookies.

You are right about moving your addy being a solution, that's ok on Hotmail, Yahoo, etc, but software registrations, Paypal, etc need an ISP provided addy - so I use Mailwasher Pro to keep spam in check on all the accounts, use my NTL addy as my main one and will use my I-Web account only for friends.

Gaz