[Merged] NTL Email Issues

[mnw21cam]

Originally Posted by Graham

In which case I'm in the same minority.

Me too, but for a different reason:

In all the instances so far when I have let someone else manage my spam filtering, it has been really bad. With my own spam filters, I get zero false positives, and hardly any false negatives.

[Toreador]

Filtering by content is one thing, and shouldn't be done by the ISP - apart from virus-containing attachments that could easily be blocked, either by bouncing the email or removing the attachment. Filtering by origin is a different matter and is what other ISPs seem to do.

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Graham

In which case I'm in the same minority.

Due to the nature of my business (if you don't know, follow the www link below!) I can't filter out (or have someone else filter out) messages that contain reference to, shall we say, "bodily parts" because it could be a spam offering to enlarge them or it could be a legitimate customer enquiry.

I appreciate, of course, that it's not the same for everyone, but such systems should not be applied by default.

I like those catalogues. You can spend many an hour, often with a friend or partner, trying to work out which bit of the body goes in/over/through each item :pp You must get some strange emails

Originally Posted by Simcut

rubbish, NTL get everything else wrong :\

Thank you for that enlightening contribution

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by mnw21cam

Me too, but for a different reason:

In all the instances so far when I have let someone else manage my spam filtering, it has been really bad. With my own spam filters, I get zero false positives, and hardly any false negatives.

Originally Posted by Toreador

Filtering by content is one thing, and shouldn't be done by the ISP - apart from virus-containing attachments that could easily be blocked, either by bouncing the email or removing the attachment. Filtering by origin is a different matter and is what other ISPs seem to do.

The brightmail / demon setup works like this... Brightmail have set up a few thousand email accounts globally. These accounts have never been revealed on the internet. If a mail goes to one of these accounts, by default it must be spam, as mail has never been solicited to these accounts. This is then parsed to establish a pattern and that is added to the demon filters.

If you send a mail to them, it is manually reviewed to ensure it is not solicited before being added to the system.

It works brilliantly, and misses about 10% making my mail far more managable.

Grahams line of business would be irrelivant for the above reasons.

[mnw21cam]

Originally Posted by Toreador

Filtering by content is one thing, and shouldn't be done by the ISP - apart from virus-containing attachments that could easily be blocked, either by bouncing the email or removing the attachment. Filtering by origin is a different matter and is what other ISPs seem to do.

There is agreement in quite a few circles that the behaviour of bouncing emails with viruses, or stripping bad attachments and sending through the rest of the email is a bad thing. In fact, some viruses explicitly use the behaviour of some "virus scanners" that bounce the emails to deliver their payload to their intended victim, by sending the email to a non-existent address from the target address. For some reason, the bounce often includes the virus attachment, and bypasses some scanners.

[ntl customer]

The "'452 Filesystem error - message not accepted'" seems to be something to do with the hard disks getting full.

Perhaps it is time for ntl to replace the pentium 1 boxes with 500Mb HDD's

[Toreador]

Originally Posted by mnw21cam

There is agreement in quite a few circles that the behaviour of bouncing emails with viruses, or stripping bad attachments and sending through the rest of the email is a bad thing.

Bouncing I can understand. But what's the problem with removing the virus-bearing attachments?

[threadbare]

Originally Posted by Toreador

Filtering by content is one thing, and shouldn't be done by the ISP - apart from virus-containing attachments that could easily be blocked, either by bouncing the email or removing the attachment. Filtering by origin is a different matter and is what other ISPs seem to do.

ntl fliter by using spamhaus

[Neil]

Perhaps this is the answer?

Let's face it-if ntl haven't sorted out their email issues in the time they have been occuring (over a year), then they're never going to get it fixed.

[threadbare]

Originally Posted by Neil

Perhaps this is the answer?

Let's face it-if ntl haven't sorted out their email issues in the time they have been occuring (over a year), then they're never going to get it fixed.

cant get that site - corporate firewall - whatis it?

dont forget the mail platform still hasn't been migrated to openwave yet - this is supposed to take place in june sometime

Originally Posted by threadbare

ntl fliter by using spamhaus

Do you actually have any links that you can post that provide evidence that NTL perform any spam filtering? I see no evidence at all that there has been a reduction in the amount of spam hitting my inbox. Spampal flags 99% of the spam correctly, so if I can do it reliably at my end then why is there no indication that NTL can do it at there's.

I should set Spampal temporarily to only use the Spamhaus blacklists. If it is still classifying mails as spam it will indicate that the senders are on the Spamhaus lists, and if I receive any of those mails it would strongly suggest that the claim that NTL are performing spam filtering is incorrect.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by threadbare

cant get that site - corporate firewall - whatis it?

dont forget the mail platform still hasn't been migrated to openwave yet - this is supposed to take place in june sometime

So you'd describe it as 'coming soon'...?

[Neil]

Originally Posted by threadbare

cant get that site - corporate firewall - whatis it?

It's Lycos's 1 gig mail offering @ £3.49 per month.

Your own domain name
- 1000 More MB of space!
- 50 Multiple mail boxes on your domain
- 30 Free SMS per month
- Enhanced spam & virus protection
- No banners / pop-ups

Originally Posted by threadbare

dont forget the mail platform still hasn't been migrated to openwave yet - this is supposed to take place in june sometime

Hmmm-Coming Soon is it!?

[Edit]-Beaten to it by Russ!

[threadbare]

Originally Posted by Russ D

So you'd describe it as 'coming soon'...?

now then some ground rules - just cos I have come out that I do work for ntl - do not take what I say as gospel - i know most of u don't anyway

it is scheduled to take place - it does have a date but I am not willing to provide it as I dont want to get anyone's hopes up, as u all know schedules slip

so yes it is comming soon

@ dr wadd I can't provide any evidence at all but i know from my own inbox that spam has been reduced.