[Gllug] OSS Spam filtering, virus scanning email solutions

[John G Walker]

On Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:46:03 +0000 Matthew Thompson
<matt.thompson at actuality.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Got a bit of a puzzle - we already have plenty of anti virus and anti 
> spam in place on our company's email system but it seems that our use
> of the Spamhaus SBL+XBL feed is annoying some journalists who insist
> on using dodgy russian ISPs.
> 
> I've been asked to provide a method that we can use to provide thises 
> punters with the ability to email us unhindered and I think that a 
> standalone OSS solution is likely to be what I need.
> 
> But I can't find any applications that will reject emails until the
> user confirms their identity. Anyone got any pointers - or better
> still examples of other ways I can acheive this?
> 
> M at t :o)

You don't just have to use dodgy ISPs to get on a blacklist from
Spamhaus, Spamcop or the like. These guys also blacklist people they
don't approve of (eg wrong politics). I continuously had problems with
them until I changed the terms and conditions of my subscribers to
say that it was the subscriber's responsibility to ensure that emails
sent to them would get through. In other words, if emails I sent to
them got blocked they forfeited their subscription. The incidence of
rejected emails suddenly fell dramatically.

I don't see this approach working for your journalists. The problem is
one of your own making. If you let other people decide what you can or
can't receive then IMHO you're asking for trouble (which you seem to
have got).

Incidentally, if I receive one of those emails asking me to confirm my
identity, I mark it as spam and trash it, since I have absolutely no
control over what happens to my address. It could be just another form
of phishing, for all I know,

-- 
 All the best,
 John
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