Email Spam Program - SpamAssassin
Posted on Mar 20, 2003
Yourhost.com has added a new feature which runs in conjunction with our new Linux based email system. This new program is called SpamAssassin, and that's just what it does.
You may have noticed that some of your mail is coming in now with "(suspected-spam):" prepended to the subject. No, this isn't the spammers telling you that they're spamming you, this is our watchdog spotting them as they come in and alerting you as to their true nature.
How does SpamAssassin work?:
Spam has a relatively unique look/feel to it, a lot of commonalities exist between them. Some of them use an unusual amount of caps, an unusual amount of HTML, an unusual amount of spaces in the topic, the list goes on and on and on. SpamAssassin recognizes these patterns, and assigns a point value to each of them. SpamAssassin then adds up the points accumulated throughout the email. If the point value for an email is higher than the point threshold that we've specified to be considered spam, it will prepend "(suspected-spam):" to the the subject line. Due to its unique set of rules, there's a surprisingly high rate of actual spam being recognized, and an incredibly low rate of legitimate emails being marked falsely positive. What's this mean to you? This means that it makes it easy for you to not receive spam without having to worry about blocking legitimate email! (however, SOME false positives are still possible, keep that in mind.)
How do I use it?
Using SpamAssassin to filter your email is just as easy as setting up one quick rule (and maybe a folder depending on how you would like to filter) which I'll explain after mentioning one prerequisite in the next paragraph.
Which Mail Server am I On? Can I use this?
You must be on our new Linux based mail server to use SpamAssassin to filter your email. In order to determine which mail server you're on, go to http://mail.(yourdomain).com. If, after loading this page, you are looking at a blue and white screen with a YourHost.com logo on the left hand side, you are on our Windows mail server. If you're looking at a white and light blue page with a "Powered by YourHost.com" logo at the bottom of the screen, you're at the right place! We are constantly moving domains over to this new mail server. If you are located on the Windows mail server, and would like to be moved up in our mail server move queue, send us an email at support@yourhost.com and let us know. Read further for instructions on eliminating spam!
Return to YourHost.com News |
