Re: [CH] RE Mailwasher

Scott Peterson (scottp4@mindspring.com)
Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:11:19 -0700 

At 05:02 PM 9/15/2004, Byron wrote:

>I use mailwasher,   my 5 year attempt with using IE/OE methods increased 
>my spam from 80 the day I signed on the a new server to over 600.  ( plus 
>several $100 with other spam blockers)

Right.  I'm sure that posting messages in insecure locations, registering 
products, accepting cookies,  filling out web forms, participating in chats 
or mail lists, getting messages from friends (with long CC lists) and 
viruses harvesting address books  had nothing to do with it.


>Reporting to spam cop or spamhaus amounts to a waste of $$,
>Reporting the UCE@FTC.GOV  is almost as useless.

Spamcop is a good way to report spam.  UCE@ftc.gov is obsolete, but it has 
led to prosecutions of a number of large spam operations.   The new address 
is Spam@uce.gov
Unfortunately the amount of spam you are getting is rising almost 
expnoentially.

Once your addesss is known to one, you can be assured it's on a CD 
somewhere and being sold repeatedly.   I have one address that I have not 
used since 1990.  I still see reports that spammers are attempting to email 
their junk to it.

>After using Mailwasher my spam went from over 600 a day to about 12 that 
>gets auto deleted, black listed and bounced.

I can certainly believe that from deleted or blacklisted, but not from 
bounced.  As I said, the spammer will never see those bounces so it's 
impossible for it to have any effect. Even Bolton admits that.  Also, to 
reiterate, if you use the bounce feature, you are really forwarding your 
email to POSTMASTER@TELLINK.NET.  I'm sure he thanks you for it.

>At least between Mozilla and  Mailwasher 99.99% of my computer time is 
>mine, not spammers.

I can say the same thing and I use neither of those programs.  My only 
reason for speaking up was  to point out the abusive issues of the Bounce 
feature and try to persuade you not to use it.  Other than that, if you're 
happy with the program, fine. There are equally effective filters that work 
without having to be involved all the time, some of the are even free. 
Eudora, which I use, has a built in Baysean filter that identifies spam and 
segregates it without my involvement.

If I wanted a browser based mail system, I'd probably be looking at 
Opera.  It looks like it has a lot more flexibility.

>Another thing I like about Mailwasher over Mozilla,  Is I can delete a 
>message at server.  If I recieve a message from someone I don't know with 
>a big attachment I can delete at server.  That doesn't work with IE.

Do you think that's a unique feature of Mailwasher?  It works fine with 
Eudora too.   I have a permanent filter in place to limit large  downloads 
and allow me to delete them or download them....my choice.  And I can do it 
within Eudora without having to fool around in another program.  In fact, 
lots of email programs will do that, including current versions of Outlook 
and Outlook Express.

Personally I don't have the time to look at my mail twice and that's a 
major flaw in the Mailwasher approach.   But that's my opinion, for you, if 
it works and you're happy with it, enjoy it.

>If you don't like Neil Boltons methods, then maybe you can pay Billy Gate$ 
>the 1/2 billion $ to block open relays in his server programs.
>Thats where 99% of this crap is coming from.

Bolton/Mailwasher is not doing anything to reduce the spam problem.  He 
simply provides a filter so you don't see it. The only time spam is reduced 
is when it's blocked before you receive it.

Open relays are a much smaller piece of the pie these days. They're far too 
easy to blacklist.  According to the most recent stats I've seen, most spam 
is either from countries like China that simply ignore all complaints or 
from  trojan "owned" machines or open proxies.  What is true is that most 
of the latter two are Windows based systems.

>2/3rds of my spams are from MSN.COM  or Hotmail.com

So unlikely  that I'd be willing to put money down that this is not 
true.  You may receive a lot of spam with a forged from or reply-to address 
at MSN or Hotmail, but if you check the email headers it almost certainly 
did not come from there.  It's almost impossible to send any significant 
amount of spam from an MSN or Hotmail account because the accounts are 
rate-limited. You can only send a small number of emails per hour.

                         Regards,

                                           Scott Peterson

--
The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance.
It's know'n so many things that ain't so.
                                      -- Josh Billings.

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