Obsene Subject Lines

[Flubflow]

Originally Posted by XFS03

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.).

That's the problem. Unless you can regularly import an updated library of filthy words (and all their obfuscated or "sound-a-like" variants) then you are waging a pointless battle. With OE you can't import such a thing and each filtered item has to be input manually. These message rules in OE were never intended to deal with the vast devious spam we get and you can never predict the lengths the spammers will go to in order to get a filthy word across in the subject line or message. I have built up a huge word filter in OE over the last few years and yet I still get the damn spam. I get less than if I had no filters but I still get them.
It's difficult enough explaining to non-technical people how to use OE in the most basic way nevermind things like message rules or 3rd party apps like Mail Washer etc.

[Hologram]

Flubflow, That sums up the reason why NTL should do something very well. Thanks. I'm all for personal choice so I don't see a problem with switching the filter on or off.

[Theodoric]

Originally Posted by 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!!

I can understand why some people might object to enforced Spam filtering by ntl - the impossibility of definitively defining spam and therefore the risk of some legitimate mail being lost. However, I am totally at a loss as to why ntl cannot do virus checking of messages; surely no-one, but no-one, expects to receive legitimate messages with hidden viruses in them; if ever there was a case of totally black and totally white, this must be it. When it reached this stage for me (virus infested spam), I decided that enough was enough and changed my user name; a serious hassle, but livable with in my case.

EDIT And yes, I realise that you need to do something yourself (actulayy, in the case of ntl, you have no choice about this). The virsuses were detected by my Norton AV, but it all left me feeling very uneasy wondering when Norton would fail. I'd have felt much happier without constant Norton AV warnings.

[iadom]

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??

Ntl is no better or worse in this respect,
My Zen dial up account receives 75% more spam than my Ntl BB account, however this is no doubt due to the fact that it has had the same e-mail address for over 8 years, I just use mailwasher on the Zen account.

[darkone338]

http://www.spampal.org.uk will let you setup your OWN filtering rules and insert whatever keyword you want into the subject line so as you can delete/filter to a different folder as you should so wish...

As someone posted before, dont let NTL filter your email, they cant deliver normal email properly, never mind having to correctly identify spam.

[nate]

Virgin.net have recently aquired spam and virus filters (http://www.virgin.net/customers/my_mail/changes.html)

NTL will be releasing theirs soon.
(See google's cache of the Nasdaq press release)

NTL are currently quoting Mid-End July for release, but don't take that as gospel, nothing firm yet.