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Ask Slashdot: How Effective Is Your ISP's Spam Filter?

An anonymous reader writes with the question in the title: does your ISP do a decent job culling spam? The reason I'm asking is that my ISP is Verizon and the Verizon spam filter is next to useless. It only blocks 15% of spam while also blocking 5% of legitimate emails. I've tried calling Verizon support a couple of times and the experience is about as pleasant and productive as banging my head on a wall. At this point I think my best move is to change ISP, but before I go around changing my email address at probably dozens of web sites I'd like to be sure that a new ISP would actually be better.

269 comments

  1. Why use ISP email? by Strider- · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uhmmm, why are you using your ISP's email in the first place? It's far better to use a third party email provider, so that you can switch ISPs at will without having to change your email address.

    --
    ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    1. Re:Why use ISP email? by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Informative

      THIS

      There's no reason to use the email provided to you by your ISP. It's just another way to keep you locked into their services. Once upon a time, before web mail, and easily available domain names and hosting services, it made more sense to just use whatever your ISP gave you. But there is absolutely no reason to use it now, and it can actually cause a lot of problems as the OP has pointed out. Personally, I wouldn't recommend using a 3rd party Email provider at all. I would just buy my own domain name and figure out my own hosting solution for the email. Even if you just forward the email to GMail (This is what I do), you own the email address, and you don't have to worry about what happens when you want to switch the interfrace, and end up having to change your email address in the process. Many sites use your email address as your login, assuming that nobody would ever want to change their email address. Sure, GMail may be nice now, but they've shut down services in the path. I ended up switching email addresses a couple times when email services decided to close up, or just start offering really bad service. I don't ever want to have to switch email addresses again.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Some years back, I used a small, local ISP. I once got an email from them including an attachment (.exe). Being on a linux box, I opened it, to find it was malware (and the message was SPAM -- someone had cracked their servers).

      Do not use an ISP's email and don't even correspond with them. Pay them for their bits and be done with them.

    3. Re:Why use ISP email? by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Absolutely. The two important questions here are why use an ISP's email and why use Verizon? While it would be wrong to talk someone out of dumping Verizon for any reason, no matter who you use for an ISP it is nice to have a better email service and not be dependent on your ISP for email. As this post indicates, you are hesitating to dump your ISP because of the hassle of changing an email address that all of your contacts already have. If you were using a third party email then you could change your ISP provider whenever needed without having to change anything with email.

      And in addition to getting a real email account that is free of any ISP, I could also suggest that you use a free forwarding service such as spamgourmet.com. That will let you give out a unique email address to every commercial contact that insists on an email address and even to each of your friends. When spam hits you can just close down the targeted forwarding service addresses rather than abandoning the entire main address, and you can easily see which organization that you gave an email address to is sharing or leaking your information to Russian Porn Spammers and pill pushers. Knowing who leaked your email can be surprising and extremely helpful.

      Even giving a unique email address to each friend is a good idea. That way if one of them clicks on something stupid ad exposed their entire address book to spammers, the spammers only get an address that you can disable, not your real email address. And if you decide that you want to change email providers, you are free to do so without the hassle of notifying everyone about the email change, you just need to update your record at the forwarding service.

      --
      I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    4. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had my ISP email address for over nearly two decades. After moving, I had to update it in many places. Fortunately, I had already started to migrate away a long time ago.

      But, the biggest problem is that the email address may be linked to purchased contents, such as from the Apple store. That system offers superficial flexibility in that you can add or change email addresses. But for the already bought content, that's not gonna help, even though it seems like it should work. An indirect and unintended form of lock-in.

      I've settled on my long-term hotmail address to be used for content purchases and password recovery. Gmail would be good too, and I would have said Yahoo a few years ago but who can tell where they are gonna be in 5-10 years..

    5. Re:Why use ISP email? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I highly doubt gmail is going anywhere soon. Next to search, it's their most profitable business. It would almost be like saying "Google search may not be around much longer."

    6. Re:Why use ISP email? by Shaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Getting a malware attachment by email has NOTHING AT ALL to do with their server. If someone had hacked their server and was doing it, then fine... but the two issues do not go hand in hand in any way.

      --
      ...Steve
    7. Re:Why use ISP email? by Shaman · · Score: 1

      I think it all depends on whether you are the kind of person that requires human technical support or not. A lot of people do.

      --
      ...Steve
    8. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you sure the email was from your ISP? Much of the problem with email is that, the way it is designed to work, it's difficult to know the true source of any message in your inbox.

    9. Re:Why use ISP email? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think the OP is suggesting gmail is going anywhere soon. I think he is suggesting that they may not be round in the (not soon) future.

      There was a time when AOL wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe they still aren't, but that claim is straining credulity. At the very least, being stuck with an AOL email address in 2015 is not an ideal situation to be in. Is it really so hard to imagine that one might not want to be stuck with a gmail email address in 2035?

    10. Re:Why use ISP email? by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

      I don't think the OP is suggesting gmail is going anywhere soon. I think he is suggesting that they may not be round in the (not soon) future.

      There was a time when AOL wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe they still aren't, but that claim is straining credulity. At the very least, being stuck with an AOL email address in 2015 is not an ideal situation to be in. Is it really so hard to imagine that one might not want to be stuck with a gmail email address in 2035?

      Since when is google an ISP?

      And oh yes we should use wild unreasonable predictions of the future to guide our present actions!!! What a great idea!!! Maybe we should dig our graves now to avoid inconveniencing our heirs.

    11. Re:Why use ISP email? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      WebCrawler may not be around much longer.
      AltaVista may not be around much longer.
      GeoCities may not be around much longer.
      Myspace may not be around much longer.

      No company or service is eternal. Gmail will cease to exists one day, the question is "when?"

    12. Re:Why use ISP email? by mysidia · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Depends on the ISP, don't you think? I work for an ISP that sells e-mail as a separate service. If you're in the service area of a suitable provider, then you can buy e-mail service without subscribing to any network connection service, anyways, so it doesn't matter if you switch ISPs.

      We're not "giving e-mail service away"; we are not Gmail. If you want a free/gratis mail service with all their disadvantages (and advantages) such as larger attachments and more theoretically allowed disk space with the disadvantages of lack of professional on-call management and no phone number to call which a competent human will answer, or no option for hands-on assistance from a human being if something major goes wrong with your service or account, or you get stuck, then go over there to one of the major search engines for free webmail by all means.

      E-mail is a complex application which is totally separate from network connectivity and requires application-specific management for reliable operation. Why should the two services ever be treated as if they were part of the same? They're totally different services.

      If reliable e-mail access and delivery is of the umpost importance to you, then you should self-host, or use a paid account with an ISP or hosting provider. Because it's definitely a better idea than using a free Hotmail account.

      There is also a totally different set of skills and experience required from professionals implementing and maintaining e-mail systems, from maintaining a network.

      There's no reason you should not be able to switch ISPs but keep your e-mail and DNS hosting, if you want.

      Of course you still have to pay the hosting bill to some provider, and it's probably somewhere between $120 and $150 per mailbox. If you purchased your own domain name and hosted e-mail under that domain, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to take e-mail service to any willing host.

    13. Re:Why use ISP email? by houghi · · Score: 1

      I do not get why not more people have their own domain, especialy people here that have enough knowledge on doing what is needed.

      That way you don't become dependent on anybody.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    14. Re:Why use ISP email? by MrL0G1C · · Score: 1

      You don't even have to host the email, I got a domain for a small company and let 1&1 look after the email for peanuts - without all of the maintenance drag. If 1&1 go down then there are multiple options for continuing the email.

      --
      Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    15. Re:Why use ISP email? by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A cheap VPS plus a domain name would also be more than adequate for hosting your own email, or even a low power ARM based machine running at home on the end of your DSL assuming you have a static ip and an ISP that doesn't filter SMTP traffic.

      As for spam filtering, a filter that's dedicted to you will usually be more effective too as it can learn about the email *You* typically receive... A lot of spam is sent around in languages like russian and chinese, but if you can't read these languages then chances are you will never receive any legitimate email written in these languages... A major email provider cannot block entire languages because they might have customers who speak those languages, but a mail server dedicated to one person can easily and reasonably do so.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    16. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No need to hack a server to spoof the "from" address in an e-mail.

    17. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You haven't heard of "Inbox" I guess:

      http://www.computerworld.com/article/2838775/why-google-wants-to-replace-gmail.html

      http://www.techrepublic.com/article/is-google-inbox-a-worthy-replacement-for-gmail/

    18. Re:Why use ISP email? by David_Hart · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't think the OP is suggesting gmail is going anywhere soon. I think he is suggesting that they may not be round in the (not soon) future.

      There was a time when AOL wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe they still aren't, but that claim is straining credulity. At the very least, being stuck with an AOL email address in 2015 is not an ideal situation to be in. Is it really so hard to imagine that one might not want to be stuck with a gmail email address in 2035?

      I pay for my own domain and external hosting. It has Spam Assassin on it and gets about 40% of the spam. I have GMail configured to pull in my email from that account. GMail's spam filter gets the other 59% of spam. I set up Gmail to send as my personal email address instead of my gmail address. This way I have my own domain and I get to take advantage of Gmail's spam filter.

      The one thing that sucks about the set-up is that Gmail has a randomized timer that polls external accounts based on some algorithm and it can sometimes take 30 minutes for email to show up. To get around this I set up both accounts on most of my devices so that I can check my email server if the message isn't in Gmail.

    19. Re:Why use ISP email? by kheldan · · Score: 2

      I would just buy my own domain name and figure out my own hosting solution for the email

      Sounds like a great way to make sure you get your mail blocked all over the place because they don't recognize the domain name. Also hosted where exactly? Pay someone to do it? Or run it out of your house (which requires internet connectivity that allows you to run a server)? Sounds expensive, most people are not going to be willing to pay all the extra money just for email.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    20. Re:Why use ISP email? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Totally...the only time I ever used an ISP email was because AT&T's cunsumer self-service DSL forced me to. Now that I'm on Business DSL, I've never used them. This person should go buy a domain, and then spend $5-$20 a year to have their own email addresses!

      Personally, I'm looking forward to my work changing domains. We're loosing the hp.com and going to hpe.com...right now I have a VERY common four letter word @hp.com, which also happens to be the old email of some Director of HR...so I get tons of "spam" like HR conferences across the planet, staffing companies sending me their marketing crap, and some VERY EXPENSIVE Hong Kong tailors...the ones who have a "sale price" of $800 on a suit.

    21. Re:Why use ISP email? by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Since when is google an ISP?

      Since when do we not think about the longevity and potential disruption from service terminations for companies other than ISPs?

      It is entirely possible, and rather likely I think, that gmail will see changes, even if in just the TOS, that people decide they do not like and thus have reason to leave.

      And oh yes we should use wild unreasonable predictions of the future to guide our present actions!!! What a great idea!!! Maybe we should dig our graves now to avoid inconveniencing our heirs.

      "Planning ahead" is something that mature adults tend to do. They tend to buy life insurance to deal with "wild unreasonable predictions" about the future and to care for their family. They put money in the bank to deal with the future.

      And many of them do, indeed, purchase cemetery plots ahead of time so that the people who will do the digging (rarely the heirs, by the way) have someplace to do the digging and the heirs aren't burdened with finding someplace to plant Mom or Dad on short notice.

    22. Re:Why use ISP email? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      maybe they where ALSO the cracker, since they KNEW the servers where owned? lol. In college a friend of mine kept crashing his own computer writing "viruses"...

    23. Re:Why use ISP email? by oobayly · · Score: 1

      There's every need if the mail originated from the ISP. The OP said nothing about from address - the hops recorded in the headers may have been an indication. They're something I regularly check when I get spam sent to an account where the address is rarely used.

    24. Re:Why use ISP email? by Drakonblayde · · Score: 2

      For the technically savvy, sure. For the average everday user, this option is right out.

      This is what I used to. Unfortunately, keeping my spam filters up to date ended up being a pretty major chore. Even with blocking everything but english, I still spent more time than I wanted training the filters what was spam and wasn't.

      So I started to think about how to fix this. Then I realized that my gmail account rarely, rarely gets spam.

      So I setup Google Apps for Work and moved my domain email hosting over to that. It's worth the 5 bucks a month.

      And I fully agree, anyone using their ISP's email service is a bad nerd. Not being able to take it with you, or having crap like the Comcast fiasco's where they give your email address to someone else accidentally is just shooting yourself in the foot.

      Me? I want the control over my email addresses, but I'm perfectly happy to outsource the filtering chore to Google since they're really good at it

    25. Re:Why use ISP email? by DrVxD · · Score: 1

      Strider's entirely correct here...although I don't think this actually counts as "Insightful", more a "statement of the bleedin' obvious"

      --
      Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
    26. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 1

      The from: was correct. The .exe was a known trojan, and SPAM was the vector; IIRC it was an early form of SQL injection using a known MS bug. The admin I spoke to on the phone first didn't even know his site had been compromised. Me: "Did xxxx send me a trojan in an email?" Them: "I don't know, let me check..."; later conversations with management indicated this spam trojan was sent to all their active customers.

    27. Re:Why use ISP email? by Drakonblayde · · Score: 1

      And actually, I should say this -

      By switching over to Google Apps, I actually saved money. I was paying Linode 10 bucks a month for a VPS. I pay Google 8.33 a month for 2 users (me and my wife), so I ended up saving money and time with the change over. It was a no brainer

    28. Re:Why use ISP email? by Jamu · · Score: 1

      I have my own domains, but they're forwarded to my ISP's email service. Result is the same. I can switch ISPs without changing my email address. Although I would have to change the forwarding. As for my ISP's spam filter: It's overzealous, so I turned it off. It should be off unless BT have decided to turn it on again behind my back.

      For those that are interested: I use disposable email addresses and I don't get enough spam to need a spam filter. When I do get spam, the unsubscribe links work. The only exception to this was due to a compromised gaming website. The email I'd used for their forum started to receive spam. So it was a simple case of deleting that email address. The email was site-unique. Of course the time spent managing my email addresses might well exceed the time I would otherwise have spent shifting through spam...

      --
      Who ordered that?
    29. Re:Why use ISP email? by mi · · Score: 1

      why are you using your ISP's email in the first place

      For some of us there is no choice. Although I host my own mail on my own server, RCN, for example, blocks outgoing e-mail (port 25), so I must relay through their servers.

      And they are so zealous, the FreeBSD's daily (well, nightly rather) reports are regularly misclassified as "spam". After enough of such emails get "detected" for an account, RCN prevents any further e-mails until I call tech-support and go through the idiotic suggestions, that I "run an anti-virus software on my PC". Happens about twice a year...

      Trying to email a miscategorized e-mail to RCN techs does not work either — obviously, and for the same reason. I once succeeded in getting a "supervisor" to download an example from my web-server and she even opened a ticket internally... Well, it is still open and the problem still exists.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    30. Re:Why use ISP email? by nyet · · Score: 1

      Been doing it for 15 years. Never had a problem.

    31. Re:Why use ISP email? by nyet · · Score: 1

      especialy people here that have enough knowledge on doing what is needed.

      The ./ demographic has shifted drastically over the last 10 years.

    32. Re:Why use ISP email? by nyet · · Score: 1

      RCN, for example, blocks outgoing e-mail (port 25)

      Use submission, or a different port.

    33. Re:Why use ISP email? by mi · · Score: 1

      Use submission, or a different port.

      I don't think, you understood the conundrum I described. Using a port different from 25 for delivering mail works only with cooperating servers. I can, for example, do it to exchange mail between servers under my own control.

      But this does not help send outgoing e-mail to the rest of the world — one must relay through RCN's own servers. Which are, unfortunately, subtly misconfigured...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    34. Re:Why use ISP email? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure why you inferred that I thought google was an ISP.

      I don't think the prediction that gmail may not be your preferred email service for all eternity counts as being "wild unreasonable".

      Making good decisions based on good predictions of the future is part of what makes us successful as individuals and as a species. It's called investing.

    35. Re:Why use ISP email? by Vuojo · · Score: 2

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      tl;dr
      Use port 587.

    36. Re:Why use ISP email? by SirSlud · · Score: 1

      That is exactly my email situation to a T. The biggest inconvenience is one every few weeks I might have to dip into SA's junkbox and whitelist a sender, but I'm almost happy to do that in light of getting next to no spam by the time email reaches my google inbox.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    37. Re:Why use ISP email? by SirSlud · · Score: 1

      Inbox is the client, not the service. The "gmail" in "replacing gmail" is only referring to the client.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    38. Re:Why use ISP email? by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      One of the reasons I use Gmail is I can forward my ISP mail to the Gmail account and if need be Google allows me to respond to an email using my ISP account (once you validate the account by replying to an email sent to it by Gmail).. So I get a great spam filter, lots of storage, and access from anywhere if I so choose. I don't see them going anywhere, as the are handling email for enterprise customers as well as 500 million users. They may shut down some day, but I expect email itself to evolve long before that happens...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    39. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Gmail can also handle your domain email. If Gmail bites the dust, your email address won't.

    40. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you just use Google's own mail servers rather than a convoluted multiple point of failure system you're using now?

    41. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And why use your email provider's spam filter? I've disabled all server side spam filters. Thunderbird does it much better if you train it a little bit.

    42. Re:Why use ISP email? by nyet · · Score: 1

      That's terrible.

      Set up a MTA at another hosting service as a relay?

    43. Re:Why use ISP email? by mi · · Score: 1

      That's terrible.

      It is. Hence my raising awareness here in the hope, someone working for the RCN will read it and get sufficiently ashamed for the healing to begin...

      Set up a MTA at another hosting service as a relay?

      Well, yes, but that'd cost extra money... And not trivial money, because cheapo hosting providers have been abused by spammers long enough for their entire netblocks to now be blacklisted.

      Last I spoke to them, RCN were willing to lift the port-25 restriction for me, but I'd need to get a static IP from them first — not a cheap option either...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    44. Re:Why use ISP email? by Simulant · · Score: 1

      This. A thousand times, this.

    45. Re:Why use ISP email? by megabulk3000 · · Score: 2

      I’d been routing all my personal domain email through GMail for years to take advantage of their excellent spam filters, but it turns out that GMail was occasionally rejecting some of this mail for looking spammy and somehow I was never getting notified that this was happening! Like, it wasn't going into GMail's Spam folder: it just was never being sent to me at all. Browsing my inbox on my personal domain's webmail revealed a bunch of emails I'd just never received. This had been going on for years before I realized the problem. To the sender, it looked like I was just blowing them off, dropping the conversation. From my point of view, they'd just never responded. This is *bad*.

      I no longer route my personal domain email through GMail.

    46. Re:Why use ISP email? by amber_of_luxor · · Score: 1

      On average, 10% of the email in my Gmail Spam filter is legitimate email.
      Were things slightly different, then at least 70% of the email in the GMail spam folder would be legally defined as "legitimate email", and I'd have to keep them.
      And were I a government employee, 100% of the email in that folder would have to be retained, due to public record laws.

      --
      Wind Beneath Thy Wings
    47. Re:Why use ISP email? by kheldan · · Score: 1

      But how much more is it costing you per month?

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    48. Re:Why use ISP email? by misosoup7 · · Score: 1

      But then that's like saying why are we using iPhones or Android devices, they might go away in the future. Just because in 2035 you wouldn't want to use the services/product doesn't mean you should avoid them now. Anyway, Gmail is part of Google's Apps for Work platform, so it will be supported long after we stop caring about it because there will be companies paying for it.

    49. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work at a company that sells email accounts as a service, hosted on our own servers. It's almost pure profit.

      Also, speaking as someone who can (and does) run an email server with satisfactory spam filtering, I STILL prefer Gmail for all my own stuff. Their web interface is second to none, they've got a great mobile app (even if I'm not too crazy about material design), and their spam filter is the best I've ever seen. Even for domains that I bought after Google Apps stopped being free, I just route their email through one of my servers straight to Gmail and I let them deal with spam filtering.

    50. Re:Why use ISP email? by slaker · · Score: 1

      Gmail as a mobile app is something I actually find quite problematic, since it has a lot of really terrible defaults. Users can't turn off threaded messaging and have to take positive action to reply inline, for example. I'd far rather use K9 or Kaiten mail on Android, if only because I don't have to put up with Google's backward default settings.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    51. Re:Why use ISP email? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Email is different, in the sense that there is a cost in time and effort with getting all your contacts to update your email address.

      There are lots of people still with AOL email addresses because switching email addresses is simply too costly to do.

      I don't have any problem using android and apple smart phones. What if one of these fancy new phones came with a stipulation that you *must* continue to use the phone for 5 years, unless you do 100 hours of community service?

      I would be very unlikely to use such a phone.

      I don't communicate with very many people via email. I don't have a problem switching email addresses. I think it would be about 1 hour of work for me to do so. I accept this cost.

      If I had a business with thousands of customers, I may not be willing to pay the cost of switching email addresses, and would therefore take the necessary steps to protect myself from such a cost.

      As one of the OPs stated, you can forward your messages to a gmail account if you like their service, without having a public facing gmail address.

    52. Re:Why use ISP email? by slaker · · Score: 1

      Every ISP I've seen that blocked port 25 did allow traffic to third party servers on 465 and 587. Why are you so hung up on sending via unsecured SMTP?

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    53. Re:Why use ISP email? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I have seen the term ISP used for a number of things - the primary one (that I think of) is the one to connect me to the internet. However, service providers on the internet share the same title in some uses. Additionally, Google also offers fiber connectivity in some areas making them an ISP in both senses of the word.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    54. Re:Why use ISP email? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      And this...

      I have something silly like 15 email addresses that I can have from my ISP (I have three phone lines, all with DSL though I, oddly, do not have one single landline telephone number) and I never actually use any of them. I can call and ask for any number of emails and they will just give them to me, or so I am led to believe. I have never tested this theory.

      They wanted me to have an email address with them to use to communicate with me. I pointed out that any such email address would potentially be unreachable if I had an issue that required me to connect with them. I never did set up an email address with them and I do not intend to do so in the future. I actually have no contact email address on file as far as they are concerned. They have asked for one a few times, I have politely declined to give them one. If I want to contact them I can do so.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    55. Re:Why use ISP email? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      You can do it with a dynamic IP address if you want to use one of the many free domain name/IP address updating services. It is a little more difficult to configure and usually involves running a small client on your end but it can be done. This is obviously not the route I recommend but it is possible. I do find it odd that my ISP does not advertise that they give out static IP addresses by default. I have had the same IP address for years. I have another line (two actually) and have called to have one of them swapped out for a different one. That was more effort than it was when I called an ISP (in a different location) to order a static IP address.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    56. Re:Why use ISP email? by jhecht · · Score: 1

      The best spam filter is one you control. GMail's spam filter sucks because you can't turn it off, and if you don't get "enough" spam, it will snag newsletters or other legit mail. I've been trying to train it, but it doesn't learn. I'd rather have spam filters I can turn off, like Verizon's. I run all the spam through my email client's filters, which I train to minimize false positives. That means I see some spam, but that's my choice, not Google's.

    57. Re:Why use ISP email? by ruir · · Score: 1

      Dont let facts get on the way of a nice tale, and do not burst the buble of the poster that the email protocol in use in the last 50 years was not designed with many reliability questions in mind, and the sender is easily faked.

    58. Re:Why use ISP email? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I never implied anyone was or was not an ISP by anything I said as far as I can tell.

    59. Re:Why use ISP email? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Do you train it? GMail will learn. It's basically flawless for me.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    60. Re:Why use ISP email? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I was giving you additional information - not really arguing with you. Some folks use the term ISP to mean services such as Google. I am not sure what implied I was arguing or not in agreement with you.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    61. Re:Why use ISP email? by Nyder · · Score: 1

      THIS

      ...Personally, I wouldn't recommend using a 3rd party Email provider at all. I would just buy my own domain name and figure out my own hosting solution for the email. Even if you just forward the email to GMail (This is what I do), ...

      If you don't recommend a 3rd party email service, why are you forwarding your emails to Gmail? Seems to defeat the purpose of not using 3rd party emails services.

      --
      Be seeing you...
    62. Re:Why use ISP email? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      I would just buy my own domain name and figure out my own hosting solution for the email

      Sounds like a great way to make sure you get your mail blocked all over the place because they don't recognize the domain name.

      Huh? That just doesn't make sense. No-one blocks mail because they've never seen that domain before, or everyone should have to be on the few domains everyone knows, like gmail.com.

      I currently own almost ten domains, running four web site of which three maintained and the fourth well I basically never took it down, the domain is one that I owned for over a decade. No problems with mails getting lost for "unknown domain" or so, it all seems to go through just fine.

      All is running on a cloud server, costing me $2750 a year (divide by 7.8 for US$). Web sites, e-mail, MySQL database, and a few more services. Good deal.

    63. Re:Why use ISP email? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Spamgourmet sounds like fun until they shut down.

      Do you pay them anything? If not, how do they pay for that service? It'd suck were they to shut down and suddenly no-one had any option to reach you by e-mail.

    64. Re:Why use ISP email? by mi · · Score: 1

      Every ISP I've seen that blocked port 25 did allow traffic to third party servers on 465 and 587.

      Which "third party" servers do you recommend I use? Yours? For your proposal to be usable, I'd need to pay for a separate outgoing e-mail service — which RCN is supposed to provide already. And they do — except it is subtly broken...

      Why are you so hung up on sending via unsecured SMTP?

      What does "unsecured" have to do with this?

      I've already explained the problem — twice — in this thread. If it still remains unclear to you, then you aren't fit to discuss it, frankly... Run along.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    65. Re:Why use ISP email? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Sorry I confused you with the person who said "Since when is google an ISP?" to me.

    66. Re:Why use ISP email? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      Think of the alternative: Do you really want to maintain your own DNS and/or server that has to run 24/7 for 15 years?

    67. Re:Why use ISP email? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I think I pay $30 per year to have a company do that for me. And if I don't like that company, I can switch companies and keep the same domain and email addresses.

    68. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I highly doubt gmail is going anywhere soon.

      It is "going" to unsolicited advertising overload. That alone is enough to make it valueless. Search us heading in the same direction.

      And if you think such advertising doesn't massively devalue those things then I've got a bridge to sell you.

    69. Re:Why use ISP email? by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      It's so I can switch the interface without having to switch my email address. GMail is just the interface I use to read my email. Sure, GMail might be around forever, but they may decide to change their interface in a way I don't like, or somebody else might come out with a new interface that I like using more. I used to use Yahoo Mail, and even though they still exist, I'm glad I'm not stuck with them because I wanted to keep an email address.

      I don't use email very much for personal communication, but many sites use it as your actual user account name, and make it difficult to change. Your email address is basically your online SSN. Technically, it's possible to get a new one, but doing so is a huge time sink and will cause all kinds of unforeseen consequences.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    70. Re:Why use ISP email? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I do the same thing myself from time to time.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    71. Re:Why use ISP email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not so sure. At some point in time, years ago, I started noticing that the people I know who were using third party email providers (and who usually used the same argument for it as you do) actually changed third party email providers more often than they changed ISPs. They have settled down, it seems, but people who use their ISP's email hardly ever seem to change ISPs. Unless you do change ISPs regularly it hardly matters which commercial entity's domain you attach to your address. And if you do it probably makes more sense to register your own domain.

    72. Re:Why use ISP email? by kheldan · · Score: 1

      Most people are not going to be willing to pay $350 a year extra for email or have to go through all the trouble of setting up and managing all that. Us techies don't count here, I'm talking about 99% of everyone. That's why it's really a dumb idea.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    73. Re:Why use ISP email? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      It's not a dumb idea, it's just a solution that's not for the masses. I know that. My comment was mainly targeted at the idea that unfamiliar domain name means mails get deleted.

    74. Re: Why use ISP email? by PapaSurf · · Score: 1

      Google has been an ISP since FebruaryÂ10, 2010; 5 years ago

    75. Re:Why use ISP email? by idfubar · · Score: 0

      Uhmmm, why are you using your ISP's email in the first place?

      Depends on how/when you look at it... but (along the way, say around 2003-2005) some ISPs got really strict with standard mail configurations (which they called "open relays' and decided that, rather than fighting the good fight which is concomitant with their privilege of being a service provider they would simply marginalize their own customers (who, in most cases, really didn't have a choice between ISPs). As such, the impetus to run one's own mail server, in some cases, got (unwillingly) sacrificed.

      It's far better to use a third party email provider, so that you can switch ISPs at will without having to change your email address.

      In theory yes, but (in practice) depends on the third-party provider. It should be noted (as none of the replies happened to mention it) that, due the availability and perceived need for SPAM filtering software (around 2003-2005) many providers implemented filtrations with little (if any) control of said filtering being offered to their customers; given the high cost of false positives (in just about every way) it behooves one to check with a third-party provider about whether filtering can be turned off before finding out the hard way that whitelisting (and, indeed a capacity to peruse filtered messages to recover false positives) is reserved by the third-party provider.

      --

      Rishi Chopra
      www.rishichopra.org
    76. Re:Why use ISP email? by idfubar · · Score: 0

      And in addition to getting a real email account that is free of any ISP, I could also suggest that you use a free forwarding service such as spamgourmet.com.

      It's a great suggestion (especially in light of the fact that there are *very* few providers who will allow one to both establish an unlimited number of forwarding accounts on one's domain & turn off automatic filtering to allow for manual filtering and reduction of false positives. One can even implement it to a certain extent with Gmail using the '+' character feature which is built-in to the service (http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more-from-your.html)...

      --

      Rishi Chopra
      www.rishichopra.org
  2. Did you mean to submit this to SlashDot? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >> my ISP is Verizon and the Verizon spam filter

    Not too many people 'round here are dumb enough to use their ISP as their email provider. Fix that problem first. (Closes ticket.)

    1. Re:Did you mean to submit this to SlashDot? by Shortguy881 · · Score: 2

      Have you tried turning it off and on again?

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    2. Re:Did you mean to submit this to SlashDot? by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

      Also try reformatting your hard drive.

      --
      I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  3. Rule #1 by Diss+Champ · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't tie your email account to your ISP. Decide how you are going to get your email independently, then your ISP is just the pipe.

    Two benefits:
    - You can change your pipe without causing problems- your email address doesn't change
    - You have a lot more options for email providers than most people have options for ISPs.

    1. Re:Rule #1 by thedonger · · Score: 1

      Rule #2: ?

      Rule #3: Profit.

      --
      Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
  4. Spam filter? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    I didn't even know my ISP had a spam filter. I have spam filters on my accounts and the junk folder fills up constantly. In fact, my ISP is one of the worst spam offenders, sending me constant offers for great deals if I just sign up for their cable TV and other "special deals".

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Spam filter? by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      The last time I used an ISP email, it surely didn't have a spam filter. Or, if it did, it filtered everything but the spam.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  5. You don't have to use their email by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Even if they had the world's most perfect spam filter, there's some very strong reasons to not use the same provider for both internet access and email.

  6. No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't fool yourself on this one.

    You can set up a filter that removes (what you consider to be) an acceptable TP:FP ratio, but it won't be effective for long. The Spammers are constantly adjusting their tactics to get around filters. Eventually the noise will take over and you will either lose an unacceptable amount of non-spam email or you will receive an unacceptable amount of spam email.

    You cannot win with filters, period.

    The truth of the matter - that a lot of people seem to either not be aware of or not be concerned with - is that spam is an economic problem. Spammers don't send out spam to piss you off, they send it out to make money. No amount of filtering or criminal prosecution will change that; in fact it generally just increases the total volume of spam that traverses the internet continuously. We all pay for this spam to be transmitted, stored, processed, downloaded, etc, even if we never buy any spamvertised product. We pay for it in that it increases the consumption of internet bandwidth, it increases the consumption of storage at ISPs, and has other downstream impacts as well

    If you want to make a difference on spam, you need to go after the only thing spammers care about - money. The most effective tactics ever used against spam have been the ones that prevented spammers from getting paid, nothing else - not even the sum total of all the filters ever installed worldwide - has had an impact even remotely near it.

    Stop thinking about filters an start thinking about solutions.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re: No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly, this id a job for vampires.

    2. Re:No filter is truly effective by blue9steel · · Score: 2

      You cannot win with filters, period.

      If by "win" you mean perfection then no of course not. If on the other hand you mean "making it useable by get rid of the majority of the junk" then yeah filtering works fine.

    3. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to make a difference on spam, you need to go after the only thing spammers care about - money. The most effective tactics ever used against spam have been the ones that prevented spammers from getting paid, nothing else

      Sending them to PMITA prison would also be effective. As would feeding them into a woodchipper.

    4. Re:No filter is truly effective by PNutts · · Score: 1

      Spammers don't send out spam to piss you off, they send it out to make money. No amount of filtering or criminal prosecution will change that; in fact it generally just increases the total volume of spam that traverses the internet continuously.

      If you want to make a difference on spam, you need to go after the only thing spammers care about - money. The most effective tactics ever used against spam have been the ones that prevented spammers from getting paid, nothing else - not even the sum total of all the filters ever installed worldwide - has had an impact even remotely near it.

      Stop thinking about filters an start thinking about solutions.

      Since you dismissed the two (IMHO) best ways to keep spammers away from the money, let's hear your solutions instead of lecturing and challenging others.

    5. Re:No filter is truly effective by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

      They may be about money, but let us be clear that they aren't legitimate companies making money, they are about fraud.

      Today, most spam is malware or scams. It's not like 10 years ago when it was businesses paying for "direct mailing." Looking at several people's spam filters, most of it purports to come from Walmart, Amazon, iTunes, Overstock.com, ... These are legit companies who are not sending me free $50 gift coupons every day. The rest are offering stock tips, "adult" services, diplomas, antivirus, or prescription medication.

    6. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      If you want to make a difference on spam, you need to go after the only thing spammers care about - money. The most effective tactics ever used against spam have been the ones that prevented spammers from getting paid, nothing else

      Sending them to PMITA prison would also be effective.

      Wrong. That has been tried before. In fact one of the world's all-time top spammers is sitting in a prison in Russia (Leo Kuvayev, aka "BadCow", aka "Alex Rodrigez") (on kiddie porn and child abuse, not spamming, charges) right now and it did not move the needle on spam volume.

      As would feeding them into a woodchipper.

      Don't be stupid. Just because it makes you feel better doesn't mean it helps the problem. I'm surprised you posted AC, though, as murdering spammers is generally a very popular proposal here on slashdot.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    7. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Since you dismissed the two (IMHO) best ways to keep spammers away from the money, let's hear your solutions instead of lecturing and challenging others.

      I dismissed filters, and filters only, because they are ineffective. I endorse interrupting the flow of money to the spammers. There are multiple ways to do this, one particularly good way is to go through the credit card industry to flag the transactions and have them refuse payment - this was used effectively by a group at Georgia Tech several years ago and caused a couple smaller spamming operations to shrivel up promptly.

      Other approaches can include going after the registrars (hence my slashdot username) who are often on the take. Some registrars are particularly well known as being spammer-friendly, if you can prevent the registrars from selling the spamvertised domains then again the spammers won't get paid as no business will get to the spamvertised company.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    8. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your post advocates a

      ( ) technical (X) legislative (X) market-based (X) vigilante

      approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

      ( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
      (X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
      (X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
      ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
      ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
      ( ) Users of email will not put up with it
      (X) Microsoft will not put up with it
      (X) The police will not put up with it
      ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
      (X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
      ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
      ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
      ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

      Specifically, your plan fails to account for

      ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
      ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
      (X) Open relays in foreign countries
      ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
      (X) Asshats
      (X) Jurisdictional problems
      ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
      ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
      ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
      ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
      ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
      ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
      ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
      (X) Extreme profitability of spam
      ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
      (X) Technically illiterate politicians
      (X) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
      ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
      ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
      ( ) Outlook

      and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

      (X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
      been shown practical
      ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
      ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
      ( ) Blacklists suck
      ( ) Whitelists suck
      ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
      ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
      ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
      ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
      ( ) Sending email should be free
      (X) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
      ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
      (X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
      ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
      ( ) I don't want the government reading my email
      (X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

      Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

      (X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
      ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
      ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
      house down!

    9. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      They may be about money, but let us be clear that they aren't legitimate companies making money, they are about fraud.

      That depends on how you define "legitimate companies". I agree that they are generally not legitimate - particularly by first-world standards - but they are often established operations with leaders and business plans. They consider themselves to be legitimate, even if they are involved in activities that they know are illegal in some places.

      Looking at several people's spam filters, most of it purports to come from Walmart, Amazon, iTunes, Overstock.com, ... These are legit companies who are not sending me free $50 gift coupons every day

      They are still spamvertising for someone. The spammers are still getting paid by whoever their spam directs people to. It doesn't matter if the target site is selling something or just collecting personal data for mailing lists, the goal and end result for the spammer are the same.

      The rest are offering stock tips, "adult" services, diplomas, antivirus, or prescription medication.

      Which is still spam. It works the same way. Even if the viagra is a blue sugar pill from China, the company selling it is still paying a spammer to bring them business.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    10. Re:No filter is truly effective by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      While the Office Space and Fargo methods would probably work, I think Hanover Fiste of Heavy Metal has the right idea:

      Spammers are nothing but low-down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous perverted worms! Hanging's too good for them. Burning's too good for them! They should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive!

    11. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your post advocates a
      ( ) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante

      approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

      ( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
      ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
      (x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
      ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
      ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
      ( ) Users of email will not put up with it
      ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
      ( ) The police will not put up with it
      ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
      ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
      ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
      ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
      (x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

      Specifically, your plan fails to account for

      ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
      ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
      ( ) Open relays in foreign countries
      ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
      (x) Asshats
      (x) Jurisdictional problems
      ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
      ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
      ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
      ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
      ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
      ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
      ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
      ( ) Extreme profitability of spam
      ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
      ( ) Technically illiterate politicians
      (x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
      (x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
      ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
      ( ) Outlook

      and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

      ( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
      ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
      ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
      ( ) Blacklists suck
      ( ) Whitelists suck
      ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
      (x) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
      ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
      ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
      ( ) Sending email should be free
      ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
      ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
      ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
      ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
      ( ) I don't want the government reading my email
      (x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

      Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

      (x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
      ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
      ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

    12. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      If you can effectively filter spam, then you *have* prevented them from getting paid (via spam). The fact that we used to be completely inundated with spam, and now it is relatively rare to get spam with a good filter, is a good sign that spammers are losing this battle.

      It seems that in 2015 it is far more profitable to sell products through means other than spam (e.g. google advertisements, etc).

    13. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      If you can effectively filter spam, then you *have* prevented them from getting paid (via spam).

      The main problem with that notion is that the people most likely to pay for a filter are the ones least likely to buy anything as a result of spam anyways. Hence you are not preventing the spammers from reaching their customers.

      The fact that we used to be completely inundated with spam, and now it is relatively rare to get spam with a good filter

      You are ignoring the volume of spam that traverses the internet at any given moment in time. The volume is UP, not down. Just because a lot of it doesn't reach human eyes doesn't mean there is less of it. In fact, ISPs and email providers are inundated with spam traffic more now than ever before.

      is a good sign that spammers are losing this battle.

      If they were "losing this battle", why would they respond by sending more? A lot of people don't realize that the people losing the battle - at least any time that someone thinks a filter is an effective solution - are the users and not the spammers. The spammers are gradually driving down the TP and FN rates on the implemented filters and making them less useful. ISPs and email providers who are sold on the foolish gamble of using filters are left with no choice but to counter with more investment of time and hardware. Eventually the walls will come crashing down unless someone actually counters the situation for what it really is.

      It seems that in 2015 it is far more profitable to sell products through means other than spam (e.g. google advertisements, etc).

      You can send a lot of spam for a lot less money than the cost of a single google advertisement. That won't change any time soon, and it fits the model of the spamvertised operations much better as well; they don't want to become amazon they just want to pull in some quick money.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    14. Re:No filter is truly effective by nyet · · Score: 1

      I agree with you that the fundamental problem is economics and the fact that there is incentive to spam.. however, I've had the same email address for 15 years and have had good luck with rbls, razor/pyzor, and spamassassin.

    15. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Impressive. Two AC replies with the standard form, and they both show that they don't have a clue what I am talking about. Was the second one supposed to be a correction for the first (as it is a slightly less awful interpretation of what I wrote)?

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    16. Re:No filter is truly effective by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Spammers will find other ways to host their sites, like compromised boxes...
      Also even if you pull boxes and domains after abuse complaints have been made, its usually too late because any victims have already fallen for the spam.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    17. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using multiple emails is pretty effective.

      Use one email for bank and bills. Modify any settings so they send you as little as possible. Spam will either never show up, or rarely show up. Doesn't matter if it's filtered or not - there's so little of it, that you won't mind deleting it manually if you have to.

      Use an email for random shit you sign up for online. This will likely be drowned in spam. But it won't matter, because you won't want to read anything it receives anyways.

      Use another email for accounts you care about(games, apps, services you like, etc). There will be minimal to moderate spam, depending on the things you use it for. Most spam filters get the bulk of the spam to my account that's set up like this. I peruse the junk folder periodically just to see if there are false positives, but there never is. And the 'spam' that I get in my inbox is usually advertisements from the companies I like about products I like..."Hey, we're going to have a booth at E3...come see us!" While I could probably call such emails junk, I'm not particularly offended by their existence.

      If the spam ever starts to look differently than what I've described above, then bail on that account. Switch the most important accounts out of that email to a new one and start anew. Scorch the earth. Seriously. Email accounts are free. No need to tie yourself to a single one of them.

    18. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Also even if you pull boxes and domains after abuse complaints have been made, its usually too late because any victims have already fallen for the spam.

      Which is why - as I said before - you interrupt the flow of money instead. There is a lag between the sucker entering their CC info on a crappy website and hitting "buy' and the spammers receiving their compensation for bringing suckers to the spamvertised domain. In fact, there are at least three transactions along the way:

      • Authorization from the victim's bank
      • Reception of victim's funds by the spamvertised domain's financial institution
      • Transmission of funds from spamvertised group to the spammer

      Any one of those are spots where the flow of money can be interrupted. Generally the second step is the most accessible, as shown by other research groups, and very effective at driving the spammers away. A similar flow of money can be tracked between the spammer, the spamvertised domain, and the registrar who registered said spamvertised domain (who is often in on the take for more than just registration fees). It is not uncommon for the hosting service (generally not the same as the registrar in the case of spamvertised domains) to also get a cut of the action.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    19. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      The main problem with that notion is that the people most likely to pay for a filter are the ones least likely to buy anything as a result of spam anyways. Hence you are not preventing the spammers from reaching their customers.

      Filters are ubiquitous. You get them whether you explicitly pay for them or not. They are like cup holders in cars.

      You are ignoring the volume of spam that traverses the internet at any given moment in time. The volume is UP, not down. Just because a lot of it doesn't reach human eyes doesn't mean there is less of it.

      The fact that the amount of spam sent is higher, but the amount reaching its destination is vastly lower, is evidence of the effectiveness of filtering.

      In fact, ISPs and email providers are inundated with spam traffic more now than ever before.

      When humans are inundated with spam, it means that humans must spend their own valuable time sifting through it. When email servers are inundated with spam, it means that incredibly fast machines are using advanced algorithms to sift through it automatically. It's not free, but it's almost free, and certainly much cheaper than the time that it saves humans.

      If they were "losing this battle", why would they respond by sending more?

      The same technology that has made spam filtering possible, as also lowered the costs of sending spam. If sending spam is cheaper, then you can send more of it for the same amount of money. That's why more is being sent. But a spam message sent today is far less effective than a spam message sent 20 years ago.

      A lot of people don't realize that the people losing the battle - at least any time that someone thinks a filter is an effective solution - are the users and not the spammers. The spammers are gradually driving down the TP and FN rates on the implemented filters and making them less useful.

      You say that, but the reality of my inbox and junk mail folder tells a different story.

      ISPs and email providers who are sold on the foolish gamble of using filters are left with no choice but to counter with more investment of time and hardware. Eventually the walls will come crashing down unless someone actually counters the situation for what it really is.

      ... or filtering continues to outpace the filter countermeasures.

      You can send a lot of spam for a lot less money than the cost of a single google advertisement. That won't change any time soon, and it fits the model of the spamvertised operations much better as well; they don't want to become amazon they just want to pull in some quick money.

      Sending a spam is not the same as getting someone to read it (thanks to effective filtering).

      You seem to think that filters need to be 100% effective to be "effective". This is obviously not true. In fact I would also like better solutions to spam (like estamps, proof of work, etc), but filtering has gotten so damn good, that there seems to be no demand for a replacement to something that works good enough.

    20. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Filters are ubiquitous. You get them whether you explicitly pay for them or not. They are like cup holders in cars.

      That still does not make them free. Someone has to pay for them. They have very real costs.

      The fact that the amount of spam sent is higher, but the amount reaching its destination is vastly lower, is evidence of the effectiveness of filtering.

      No, it is not. At least, not if you measure effectiveness in terms of actual costs (to the public) and actual benefits (to the spammers and their cohorts). If filters were truly effective, then spammers would give up. Indeed, they - the spammers - realize that they are actually winning this war as the cost of filtering - both in dollars invested as well as in ever-increasing FP and ever-decreasing FN rates - is going up.

      Indeed, no reasonable person could look at this and conclude that filtering is a useful long-term strategy or even a relevant strategy to continue working on past a few years ago in history.

      When email servers are inundated with spam, it means that incredibly fast machines are using advanced algorithms to sift through it automatically. It's not free, but it's almost free, and certainly much cheaper than the time that it saves humans.

      That still has a nonzero cost and requires investment of capital and human time. Just because it goes in to training machines to do the sorting doesn't mean it will work right every time, and as the volume shifts towards more spam the FP rate inevitably goes up.

      But a spam message sent today is far less effective than a spam message sent 20 years ago.

      Again, if that were the case, then we would see less spam as total % of internet traffic than we saw 20 years ago. Unfortunately the reality is exactly the opposite.

      The spammers are gradually driving down the TP and FN rates on the implemented filters and making them less useful.

      You say that, but the reality of my inbox and junk mail folder tells a different story.

      How often do you check the junk mail filter on your inbox?

      ... or filtering continues to outpace the filter countermeasures.

      I'm sorry but you are utterly delirious if you think that countermeasures from spammers come after the changes in filters - it is exactly the opposite. If the filters were ever ahead then spammers would come to a screeching halt. Instead the spammers are well aware of what they are doing to the filter results as they continue to change the structure of their messages. The spammers are well aware that they are not far from pushing up the noise to the point where filters fail completely.

      but filtering has gotten so damn good, that there seems to be no demand for a replacement to something that works good enough.

      Your faith is misplaced.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    21. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't have the power or even knowledge to stop registrars from giving spammers domains. I could try sending them angry mails, but I don't think you can fight spammers by spamming.

      I'm not able to stop the money flow from victims to spammers either. I wouldn't even know where to start? Maybe send an angry mail to my own bank as a start? But than I'm again fighting spam with spam. I could maybe go to some random bank and explain to the attendant how their bank is sending money to evil spammers. But I don't really think they would appreciate my rant.

        The only thing I can do to keep my mailbox clean is to use spam filters. 98% of the mail that is directed at my mail is spam. Most is blocked by my email providor and by my own rules. Without those filters my mail box would be completed useless. I personally don't send mails anymore, but I still get mails from people and customers that are important enough to not be ignored. Not using spam filters would bury those few important mails under hundreds, maybe thousands of spam messages.

      Spammers never get money from me, that is the only money flow I can stop. Disabling filters like you suggest wouldn't stop the spamming. You seem to imply that the less you filter, the less they will spam. But that doesn't compute for me. My old company did also spam back in the nineties - early 2000's. They didn't think it was annoying or illegal. On a sudden time their domain was blocked by most email providors because it was blacklisted on most spam filters. It costed them quite a lot of effort and money to get their domain off the blacklist. And when they got their domain back, they never spammed again. This small anecdote shows that spam filters do work. They do work against 'legitimate spammers', the small business who didn't even know they were doing something annoying and illegal. And they also block most of the spam from illegal sources.

    22. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      That still does not make them free. Someone has to pay for them. They have very real costs.

      Yes someone had to use resources to develop them, however the costs are not proportional to the number of people using them. The more people that the filters benefit, the higher the utility/cost ratio becomes.

      If filters were truly effective, then spammers would give up.

      Like I said, you seem to be conflating "effective" with "100% effective". Some spammers will likely continue to use spam, if there is any utility at all to doing so. If there is a continually smaller ratio of spammers to people using email, then effectively spammers are in the process of giving up, which will continue until the last spam message ever is sent.

      Indeed, they - the spammers - realize that they are actually winning this war as the cost of filtering - both in dollars invested as well as in ever-increasing FP and ever-decreasing FN rates - is going up.

      The spammers don't get the money spent on filtering technologies. Spammers don't win the war by causing filtering technology to get better. Spammers win the war by getting more messages to get through the spam filters with fewer resources (which they are failing)

      Indeed, no reasonable person could look at this and conclude that filtering is a useful long-term strategy or even a relevant strategy to continue working on past a few years ago in history.

      once again you seem to be confusing the terms. Does something need to be a perfect solution to be useful? Are cars not useful because they sometimes break down?

      That still has a nonzero cost and requires investment of capital and human time. Just because it goes in to training machines to do the sorting doesn't mean it will work right every time, and as the volume shifts towards more spam the FP rate inevitably goes up.

      Everything has a nonzero cost. I don't think having truly zero cost is a useful benchmark, due to the fact that nothing can have a truly 0 cost.

      Again, if that were the case, then we would see less spam as total % of internet traffic than we saw 20 years ago. Unfortunately the reality is exactly the opposite.

      Citation please. I find it very hard to believe that in the age of 4K streaming video, spam email messages are a higher percentage of total internet traffic.

      How often do you check the junk mail filter on your inbox?

      Maybe twice a year, if I have reason to believe something may have been miscategorized as spam. I can only think of a single time I actually found anything important in the spam folder.

      I'm sorry but you are utterly delirious if you think that countermeasures from spammers come after the changes in filters - it is exactly the opposite. If the filters were ever ahead then spammers would come to a screeching halt. Instead the spammers are well aware of what they are doing to the filter results as they continue to change the structure of their messages. The spammers are well aware that they are not far from pushing up the noise to the point where filters fail completely.

      Spam *has* come to a screeching halt. It went from being an incredibly problem to not even being a nuisance.

      This is like saying "If Usain Bolt is such a great runner, why are there still other runners?". I think you have impractical expectations for what counts as "useful" and "effective".

      Your faith is misplaced.

      I don't have faith in anything. I am convinced by results. I didn't expect filters to get so good. I was proven wrong. They have.

    23. Re:No filter is truly effective by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Additionally they are using faulty logic. One of the reasons there is an increase in UCE/SPAM is because of the effectiveness of filters. They need to send out more mail to reach the same number of people.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    24. Re:No filter is truly effective by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Spam is seemingly defined as email I do not like that I signed up for (without reading the terms of service) when I wanted some product or service and stuff I am too lazy to opt-out of.

      I am sure we can all agree that it should be expressly opt-in. However, email from things like the above are not spam. They are just unwanted emails.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    25. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      That still does not make them free. Someone has to pay for them. They have very real costs.

      The more people that the filters benefit, the higher the utility/cost ratio becomes.

      That is debatable, at best. The more people who are using filters, the more CPU time and storage space is consumed by the filtering processes. Meanwhile, global spam volume continues to increase, which only further increases that resource consumption.

      If filters were truly effective, then spammers would give up.

      Like I said, you seem to be conflating "effective" with "100% effective".

      No, I am pointing out that filters don't actually help the long term problem at all. You then react by shoving your fingers in your ears and pretending otherwise.

      Some spammers will likely continue to use spam, if there is any utility at all to doing so. If there is a continually smaller ratio of spammers to people using email, then effectively spammers are in the process of giving up, which will continue until the last spam message ever is sent.

      First of all, filters will never bring about an end to spam. I've stated exactly why that is more than once in this discussion. Second, it is well documented that the global volume of spam year-to-year is still up, not down. Spammers are not getting close to giving up by any sane metric.

      The spammers don't get the money spent on filtering technologies.

      Considering there is spam sent to advertise shoddy anti-spam software, you are simply not correct in that statement. While the lion's share does not go to the spammers, some of it does.

      Spammers don't win the war by causing filtering technology to get better.

      If you think it's getting better you aren't paying attention. It is actually getting worse on many important metrics.

      Spammers win the war by getting more messages to get through the spam filters with fewer resources (which they are failing)

      That is an oversimplification. I already described how and why they are winning. Are you reading what I am writing?

      Does something need to be a perfect solution to be useful?

      No, but it needs to make the situation - particularly the long-term situation - better. Filters cannot do that.

      Are cars not useful because they sometimes break down?

      Cars make the long-term situation better. Spam filters do not. Period.

      Again, if that were the case, then we would see less spam as total % of internet traffic than we saw 20 years ago. Unfortunately the reality is exactly the opposite.

      Citation please. I find it very hard to believe that in the age of 4K streaming video, spam email messages are a higher percentage of total internet traffic.

      It has been discussed on the front page of this very site. If you can't search for it yourself I'm not going to do it for you.

      How often do you check the junk mail filter on your inbox?

      Maybe twice a year, if I have reason to believe something may have been miscategorized as spam. I can only think of a single time I actually found anything important in the spam folder.

      And how long are messages retained in your junk mail folder? I've heard some online services with auto-filtering only retain messages in junk for a month, which means the majority of what goes in there you never see. This also means you have absolutely no idea what your FP rate is.

      Spam *has* come to a screeching halt.

      Not. Even. Remotely. Close. To. Reality.
      ,br> Again, spam volume is up. Just because you don't see it in your inbox doesn

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    26. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      That is debatable, at best. The more people who are using filters, the more CPU time and storage space is consumed by the filtering processes. Meanwhile, global spam volume continues to increase, which only further increases that resource consumption.

      CPU time and disk space continue to get exponentially cheaper. Furthermore, disk space is freed up by effective filtering.

      No, I am pointing out that filters don't actually help the long term problem at all. You then react by shoving your fingers in your ears and pretending otherwise.

      No I am saying the long term problem you are describing doesn't actually appear to exist. Of all the seemingly intractable problems our society is facing, one of the few that actually seems solved is spam filtering.

      First of all, filters will never bring about an end to spam. I've stated exactly why that is more than once in this discussion. Second, it is well documented that the global volume of spam year-to-year is still up, not down. Spammers are not getting close to giving up by any sane metric.

      I don't consider "an end to spam" to be a realistic goal. I consider "reducing the amount of spam I see to a very low level" to be perfectly acceptable. I don;t care about the volume of spam that is sent. I only care about how much I actually have to see, which is negligible.

      Considering there is spam sent to advertise shoddy anti-spam software, you are simply not correct in that statement. While the lion's share does not go to the spammers, some of it does.

      I don't actually get any of this spam.

      If you think it's getting better you aren't paying attention. It is actually getting worse on many important metrics.

      And what metrics are those?

      It has been discussed on the front page of this very site. If you can't search for it yourself I'm not going to do it for you.

      I'm not interested in what I can find. I am interested in the particular evidence that you find convincing.

      That is an oversimplification. I already described how and why they are winning. Are you reading what I am writing?

      Yes, and I described why I reject the validity of your metrics, and suggested better metrics.

      No, but it needs to make the situation - particularly the long-term situation - better. Filters cannot do that.

      Filters quite clearly make things better now. I don;t think your claim that things will be much worse in the future is supported. It certainly isn't convincing to me.

      And how long are messages retained in your junk mail folder? I've heard some online services with auto-filtering only retain messages in junk for a month, which means the majority of what goes in there you never see. This also means you have absolutely no idea what your FP rate is.

      It's probably a month. I have lived through a time of no filters, and a time of bad filters. Now I have just come to finally enjoy good filtering. If I am constantly checking my junk mail folder, then I am suffering much of the downside of spam (wasting my time sifting through junk email).

      The whole point of spam filtering is that you don't have to sift through junk mail unless you have a good reason to believe you've actually lost something.

      Not. Even. Remotely. Close. To. Reality. ,br> Again, spam volume is up. Just because you don't see it in your inbox doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Furthermore you are paying to deal with it.

      As I said. I think "spam volume" is a bad metric. I think measuring the actual spam that gets through per capita is a better metric. And it's pretty obvious that that is *way* down, given the fact that I rarely see any spam, and have only missed one email I was expecting in the last 2 years or so.

    27. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      The more people who are using filters, the more CPU time and storage space is consumed by the filtering processes. Meanwhile, global spam volume continues to increase, which only further increases that resource consumption.

      CPU time and disk space continue to get exponentially cheaper.

      Disk space in particular is most certainly not getting "exponentially cheaper". It was before, but we are no longer in that phase of the price chart. It is certainly getting cheaper, but it is certainly not getting exponentially cheaper - particularly as we reach the limits of storage density for extant hardware.

      Furthermore, the storage required is not only the spam itself - which email hosts and ISPs often end up storing in vast duplication - but also for the algorithms and matching databases for the filters. While the algorithms of course are not enormous they do continue to grow and will effectively never shrink; the databases are already large and growing.

      No, I am pointing out that filters don't actually help the long term problem at all. You then react by shoving your fingers in your ears and pretending otherwise.

      No I am saying the long term problem you are describing doesn't actually appear to exist. Of all the seemingly intractable problems our society is facing, one of the few that actually seems solved is spam filtering.

      When you're ready to pull your fingers out of your ears, let me know. Denying that the problem exists will never help anyone to solve it, I'm glad you are not employed in a group that aims to solve this problem. Are you by chance a marketing guy for a company who sells spam filtering software? Your blind faith in it suggests that may be the case.

      First of all, filters will never bring about an end to spam. I've stated exactly why that is more than once in this discussion. Second, it is well documented that the global volume of spam year-to-year is still up, not down. Spammers are not getting close to giving up by any sane metric.

      I don't consider "an end to spam" to be a realistic goal

      Well, you are certainly using the right tool if you don't care about ever ending spam. Indeed, filters are great if you only want to temporarily resolve the situation for yourself and you don't give a shit about what happens a few years out.

      That said, your statement seems to be somewhat contradictory to what you said before

      effectively spammers are in the process of giving up, which will continue until the last spam message ever is sent.

      Which was another apparent demonstration of your blind faith in filters.

      If you think it's getting better you aren't paying attention. It is actually getting worse on many important metrics.

      And what metrics are those?

      Amongst others, the one I have mentioned multiple times in this thread - global spam volume, which continues to rise. But keep shoving your fingers in your ears and pretend that your faith will deliver you to a better solution by nothing but its own existence. That at least leaves those of us who actually care about the problem more ability to do something since people like you who don't care about it won't be in the way.

      It has been discussed on the front page of this very site. If you can't search for it yourself I'm not going to do it for you.

      I'm not interested in what I can find. I am interested in the particular evidence that you find convincing.

      That is a really lame justification for your ignorance and laziness. I know you're new here, but you should be aware of at least how to find older front page articles before you go and dive in to a discussion that you are t

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    28. Re:No filter is truly effective by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      My basic two-stage filtering takes care of most crap, the rest can be dealt with by hand. I could tighten SpamAssassin but then I may start getting false positives which is worse.

      1) Greylisting. This takes care of almost 90% of spam at the door: from 350-400 spams a day I went down to about 40-50 spams a day. All mail sent through properly managed servers (i.e. servers that retry delivery as requested by the greylisting software) arrive, albeit with a slight delay the first time around.

      2) SpamAssassin. Picks up about 90% of the spam that still comes through; mostly failing on spam with large attachments. Greylisting's delay allows for more of the spam domains to be in the RBLs by the time the mail arrives on my system for even better filtering.

    29. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      The fact that you don't understand the things I am saying doesn't make them incorrect. Simply repeating your ridiculous illogical arguments doesn't make them correct. It's like you are trying to explain that airplanes don't really exist to someone who flies on them everyday. It just makes you look foolish.

    30. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      The fact that you don't understand the things I am saying doesn't make them incorrect.

      I understand fully what you are saying. You gave me a statement of your faith regarding spam filters.

      I even conceded that faith is not inherently a bad thing, however your understanding of the matter is clouded by your faith.

      Simply repeating your ridiculous illogical arguments doesn't make them correct.

      There is nothing ridiculous or illogical about my arguments. If you reached that conclusion it is most likely because you did not read or comprehend them. As stated earlier, your faith in filters has clouded your judgement and impaired your ability to be rational on the matter.

      I am the one who is making an argument that is backed up by facts here. You are making an argument that is backed up by your own faith.

      It's like you are trying to explain that airplanes don't really exist to someone who flies on them everyday. It just makes you look foolish.

      Considering how you fell flat on your face trying to discuss statistics in your previous post - in an attempt to defend your faith in response to fact-based arguments - the fool here is unquestionably you.

      At the end of the day though, if you want to use filters, I don't care what you decide to do for yourself. Just don't pretend that they are anything close to a long-term solution or that they can make a positive change in response to the worldwide spam problem. Your filters have huge costs to all users of email worldwide and indeed all users of the internet regardless of how, where, or if they use email. Your faith-driven intentional blindness does not help this.

      Doubling down, ignoring the facts of the matter, and calling me "foolish" does not, either.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    31. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Airplanes don't really exist. There is absolutely no evidence that they exist. There are numerous scientific studies showing that the things that people commonly see rolling around at airports don't actually fly. They merely roll around and people are fooled into thinking that they are going to far off places.

      If you are too lazy to google the evidence showing that airplanes aren't real, then I am not going to help you.

      You have already proven your blind faith to the false belief that airplanes are real by claiming to have been on one that went to another city.

      I have presented very logical and reasonable arguments, while your arguments fall flat on their face

      You are the one who looks foolish.

    32. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      You attempt at humor isn't any better than your attempt at an argument. If you have a day job, don't quit it hoping for a career in comedy - or computer science. It's too bad you walked away from an opportunity to actually learn something, hopefully you are on a career path where that won't come back to hurt you later in life.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    33. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My Dutch ISP XS4ALL has had excellent spam filtering for many years. I get few false negatives, and false positives are nearly absent, I wouldn't be surprised if it happens no more than once per year or so. For the false negatives I have a bogofilter plugin in my email client, which is configured to whitelist addresses in my address book en to learn whitelisted mails as HAM. I configured both the ISP's and the local filter to not delete emails, they are all delivered into a local folder (and as I check the contents before emptying I know for a fact that I have this few false positives). The combination of these filters approaches perfection, and most of the work by far is done by the ISP's filters.

    34. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the more common argument is, we're all actually locked up in the mental ward, high of Thorazine, making all this up. The nurses are laughing at us. damn_registrars is chasing the dog around the room, trying to pee on it, thinking he's conversing with a coyote, and skies swirl... paisley....

      The easiest way to deal with spam is to white-list your damn inbox and deal with old business first. You can have your secretary search for false positives in the spam box while she's doing her nails and chattering on Twitter.

    35. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      It wasn't intended to be humorous, but I'm not surprised that you have again failed to grasp what I am saying. My day job *is* computer science, and I am well compensated for the skills I provide.

      It's too bad you walked away from an opportunity to actually learn something

      Now that's fucking hilarious.

      What was I supposed to learn? How to use English words improperly? How to lack reading comprehension? How to make arguments based on flawed premises? How to draw the wrong conclusions from facts that aren't even relevant?

    36. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      My day job *is* computer science, and I am well compensated for the skills I provide.

      Considering the outright statistical failure that you demonstrated a few comments ago, I very highly doubt that - unless you are just punching buttons on a POS all day and calling it "computer science" to make yourself feel better. You haven't exactly been demonstrating the personality traits of people who tend to retain jobs for long either.

      What was I supposed to learn?

      You could have learned the causative agents of spam, and the consequences of not dealing with it properly. You could have learned how to use statistics properly, and the dangers of not knowing statistics. You could have learned the important trends of spam that certain people are willingly ignorant towards and the consequences of that ignorance.

      How to use English words improperly? How to lack reading comprehension? How to make arguments based on flawed premises? How to draw the wrong conclusions from facts that aren't even relevant?

      You demonstrated those skills well in your posts in this discussion already.

      In fact it is hard to find even a single fact that you used in your entire rant here. You are so far behind the curve on this problem that you might not even be ready to read a dummies book on the topic as it would assume more prior knowledge than you have demonstrated so far.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    37. Re:No filter is truly effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      maybe you think about what you're talking about, if two ACs show you where you're wrong.

    38. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I know you really want it to be true that I am not a proficient software engineer, but like your other beliefs, it simply doesn't match reality.

      There is nothing I can do to prove to you that I am proficient at computer science, so I'm not going to try.

      I don't care if you believe it or not. I still go home with my paycheck and you go home with your paycheck from working as some low level IT guy, or at the local movie theater.

    39. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      There is nothing I can do to prove to you that I am proficient at computer science, so I'm not going to try.

      You have demonstrated yourself to not understand statistics or logic. You have also shown that you don't understand how to use search engines effectively. It is therefore a huge stretch to expect you to be a competent computer science professional.

      Furthermore you claimed to be doing that for "10 years", yet you have had a slashdot account for less than 3. While indeed neither requires the other it is highly unlikely that a computer science "professional" would have only found this site after working for 7 years (by which point this site was already well into its decline).

      In other words, there is plenty of evidence here against you being a computer science professional, and none whatsoever here in favor of it.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    40. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      You are unqualified to decide what is being demonstrated by anything.

      I graduated with a BS in computer science in june 2004, and I have been working ever since. I staring at my "10 years of service" award on the wall of my office right now. It's about to be 11 years in august.

      Your assertion that when I created a slashdot account is evidence for how long I have been a software engineer is ridiculous, and illustrative of your general lack of analytical abilities.

      Shouldn't you be cleaning up some popcorn?

    41. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Oooh, so clever you insults are. Your claims of your own accomplishments however don't hold water as nobody would graduate from a reputable school with a BS in computer science without a working understanding of logic or statistics. You very plainly demonstrated that you don't understand either, hence I am being entirely too generous to label your claim of educational credentials as merely questionable.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    42. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      UCLA was a reputable school last time I checked.

    43. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      UCLA was a reputable school last time I checked.

      A reputable school which you clearly did not earn a BS in CSci from. How can I be sure? Their undergraduate CSci major requires

      Mathematics 170A, or Statistics 100A

      Looking a little further we see that Math 170A is Probability Theory. If you had completed even one semester of statistics or probability you would not have committed that epic statistical failure that you so proudly displayed a few comments ago.

      Care to try selling us on a different lie instead?

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    44. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      It's hilarious to me that your whole argument hinges on the fact that I am not a software engineer and that I didn't graduate with a CS degree from UCLA.

      I actually got A's in both probability and statistics.

      Not only that but I actually am working on a project which I started based on what I learned in CS112 (I'll let you look that up) hwich was taught by Sanadidi when I took it. I was fascinated with Markov chains and as you probably don't know, that relies heavily on a strong probability background.

      Your belief that I am bad at statistics probably stems from your inability to comprehend english and your tendancy to draw incorrect conclusions.

      I am actually still in touch with Scott Parker who was actually the department chair at the time and my academic advisor.

      It's too bad you didn't just try to pretend that UCLA is a shit school. By taking the position that I must not have graduated from UCLA, you are implicitly acknowledging that it is a good school.

      You are fucking pathetic.

    45. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Why do you feel the need to try to make up for your failings by lying about your past? You would have been much better off just admitting your giant statistical failure from a few comments ago and moving on. Now you are making up more nonsense and cursing at me to try to seal the deal.

      Listen kid, you are way out of your league here. Digging in your heels won't help your situation. We get that you are too emotionally fragile to admit to being wrong. If you want to just walk away at this point and lick your wounds that is fine, the probability of anyone else seeing you throwing a fit and lying like crazy this deep in this thread is exceptionally low. It is clear you have decided some time ago that you don't want to learn anything from this discussion.

      Congrats though on suddenly deciding to use google to try to support your argument - even though it is not in any way attached to the discussion. Maybe some day you will use it to acquire knowledge that is important to the topic of this discussion.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    46. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I know no one will see this. I'm not doing this for other people. Other people can see my other comments in other threads, and it will be obvious to them that I am a software engineer. I am doing this because I want to see how long you want to continue to look like an idiot.

      I have provided plenty of evidence that I am who I say I am. I can provide even more, and you will never find a discrepancy. It probably will continue not to convince you, because of your bizarrely desperate need for me not to be a software engineer.

      Why is it so important to you that I am not a software engineer? Why is it so important to you that I didn't graduate from a good school with a CS degree? Do you fail to get into college? Are you struggling with remedial CS classes in your local community college?

      I could easily prove that I am very knowledgeable about computer science to someone else who is knowledgeable. I can answer questions that aren't simply a matter of googling. But it doesn't matter, because you wouldn't be able to ask the right questions or understand the answers.

      We haven't even tried to validate your credentials. Why not? Because I don't care and I'm sure their shit.

      If you want to keep going, I'll keep going (until I get bored).

    47. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Let's review how you have fallen on your face repeatedly in this discussion, shall we?

      I started by posting a fact-based argument that filters do not improve the overall situation in regards to spam.

      You replied with a faith-based argument that you feel filters are great and will bring about an eventual end to spam.

      I responded by challenging your faith-based argument, and you took it personally. You eventually allowed your end of the discussion to devolve into personal insults and complete lies.

      The plain fact that you take your faith so personally - indeed so personally that you feel justified in insulting me personally when I challenge your faith - suggests that perhaps you went to a different school in Los Angeles. Did you perhaps go to BIOLA instead of UCLA? That could explain your demonstrated lack of knowledge on statistics and logic, as well as how tightly you hold on to your faith.

      The biggest problem with that hypothesis though is why you would feel justified in lying about that. Really, that is not a very Christian thing to do. Furthermore, slashdot has an overwhelming Christian majority in the discussions, so you would be in comfortable company if you were to come out and say that you went to a 4-year bible camp.

      But go ahead, keep insulting me. It is clear that you abandoned the discussion some time ago. We could have discussed the topic of this thread but when your faith was challenged you took it personally instead of actually discussing the matter. Few people ever learn anything by using that tactic.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    48. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Let's review how you have fallen on your face repeatedly in this discussion, shall we?

      Sure

      I started by posting a fact-based argument that filters do not improve the overall situation in regards to spam.

      I think you need to look up what the word "fact" and "improve" really mean. I can;t think of a single thing you said that even resembles something close to a fact. Unsubstantiated claims and opinions don't count.

      I responded by challenging your faith-based argument, and you took it personally. You eventually allowed your end of the discussion to devolve into personal insults and complete lies.

      Despite informing you that I was actually initially quite skeptical of the effectiveness of filters after using many that were ineffective, I was eventually convinced of their effectiveness by using them (i.e. actual empirical evidence of *improved* effectiveness). I'm not sure why you think this is "faith". Maybe you should go look up that word too.

      The plain fact that you take your faith so personally - indeed so personally that you feel justified in insulting me personally when I challenge your faith - suggests that perhaps you went to a different school in Los Angeles. Did you perhaps go to BIOLA instead of UCLA? That could explain your demonstrated lack of knowledge on statistics and logic, as well as how tightly you hold on to your faith.

      I don't take anything on the internet personally. I don;t really know anything about BIOLA, so I am incapable of being offended by this comment. Sorry. It is still nice to see how highly you apparently regard my alma mater.

      The biggest problem with that hypothesis though is why you would feel justified in lying about that. Really, that is not a very Christian thing to do. Furthermore, slashdot has an overwhelming Christian majority in the discussions, so you would be in comfortable company if you were to come out and say that you went to a 4-year bible camp.

      I'll just say I'm an atheist to be clear. I'll just ignore this bizarre attempt to insult me because I don't think it is even coherent enough to challenge.

      But go ahead, keep insulting me. It is clear that you abandoned the discussion some time ago. We could have discussed the topic of this thread but when your faith was challenged you took it personally instead of actually discussing the matter. Few people ever learn anything by using that tactic.

      If *anything* is a fact it is that spam filters have "improved" and are effective (not 100% effective). They have gone from not working at all, to working so well that nearly everyone uses them now.

      I can't even think of a more reasonable statement than this. It takes a real zealot to say things like "Spam filters are not and *never* will be effective."

      I want to treat this situation like the Obama birth certificate fiasco. I provided some pretty reasonable evidence that I am who I claim and let the crazy Donald Trump types commit fully to an untenable position, then make them look foolish when they must grasp at ever more desperate positions to avoid admitting being wrong.

      Do you still want to challenge that I graduated from UCLA with a CS degree in 2004? Do you still want to challenge that I am a software engineer?

      I can just recall things from memory, and you can spend time doing a bunch of research to try to find discrepancies. Sound good?

      You could just go and look at some of my other comments, and it's pretty clear I am a software engineer. Or is it? Maybe you can go try and find some discrepancies in my comment history. There is plenty of information in there to sift through.

      Please don't tell me you are giving up the hunt to prove I am just googling information to lie about where I graduated from. You are so close to finding out the truth. LOL

    49. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      I started by posting a fact-based argument that filters do not improve the overall situation in regards to spam.

      I can;t think of a single thing you said that even resembles something close to a fact. Unsubstantiated claims and opinions don't count.

      Your refusal to accept facts that have been posted on slashdot previously is not my fault. You've shown you can use a search engine enough to fabricate a backstory for yourself, why can't you use it to look up information that pertains to this discussion?

      I responded by challenging your faith-based argument, and you took it personally. You eventually allowed your end of the discussion to devolve into personal insults and complete lies.

      Despite informing you that I was actually initially quite skeptical of the effectiveness of filters after using many that were ineffective, I was eventually convinced of their effectiveness by using them (i.e. actual empirical evidence of *improved* effectiveness). I'm not sure why you think this is "faith".

      It is faith because it is ignoring the enormous body of facts that counters the assumptions that your faith require. You are using faith because there is information out there that is well-known and contrary to your beliefs, but you are choosing to ignore those facts.

      Which again, is your problem and not mine.

      The plain fact that you take your faith so personally - indeed so personally that you feel justified in insulting me personally when I challenge your faith - suggests that perhaps you went to a different school in Los Angeles. Did you perhaps go to BIOLA instead of UCLA? That could explain your demonstrated lack of knowledge on statistics and logic, as well as how tightly you hold on to your faith.

      I don't take anything on the internet personally. I don;t really know anything about BIOLA, so I am incapable of being offended by this comment

      That was not an insult. That was an hypothesis based on the facts that you have provided us - such as the fact that you do not understand even the most basic and fundamental aspects of statistics.

      It is still nice to see how highly you apparently regard my alma mater.

      I have no idea which school you went to. You present a very strong argument that you did not complete a CSci degree at UCLA, however.

      I'll just say I'm an atheist to be clear.

      You need to look up that word. An atheist is someone with no faith. You have clearly demonstrated faith in this argument. Just because it is not faith in an Abrahamic deity does not mean it is not faith.

      If *anything* is a fact it is that spam filters have "improved" and are effective (not 100% effective).

      If you could bother yourself to actually read what I have written here (you have spent plenty of time writing here it appears, yet very little time reading) you would know how far off you are on that statement.

      I can't even think of a more reasonable statement than this. It takes a real zealot to say things like "Spam filters are not and *never* will be effective."

      You should indeed be well versed on zealousness. Unfortunately your faith seems to have completely blinded you to how to identify it.

      Do you still want to challenge that I graduated from UCLA with a CS degree in 2004?

      You have already provided a solid argument that you did not complete a CSci degree at UCLA. I don't need to reinforce it when your own writing makes it clear.

      Do you still want to challenge that I am a software engineer?

      You've made a really solid argument that you are almost certainly not a software engineer, based on several things (including the fact that you feel it necessary to lie

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    50. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Your refusal to accept facts that have been posted on slashdot previously is not my fault. You've shown you can use a search engine enough to fabricate a backstory for yourself, why can't you use it to look up information that pertains to this discussion?

      I am disputing that your claims and opinions are actually facts. I even gave reasons for why I disputed them, which you had no response to.

      It is faith because it is ignoring the enormous body of facts that counters the assumptions that your faith require. You are using faith because there is information out there that is well-known and contrary to your beliefs, but you are choosing to ignore those facts.

      You don't even know what I believe because you apparently can't read.

      Which again, is your problem and not mine.

      I certainly don't care if you can't read. So it's no one's problem.

      You need to look up that word. An atheist is someone with no faith. You have clearly demonstrated faith in this argument. Just because it is not faith in an Abrahamic deity does not mean it is not faith.

      It's actually *not* the definition of an atheist. Maybe you need to look up the word "definition".

      You have already provided a solid argument that you did not complete a CSci degree at UCLA. I don't need to reinforce it when your own writing makes it clear.

      You've made a really solid argument that you are almost certainly not a software engineer, based on several things (including the fact that you feel it necessary to lie about [amongst other things] your educational background).

      I love how you keep digging yourself a hole on this point.

      You already provided me with some doozies just in this discussion. I really don't give a shit what lies you have spouted out in other discussions, I have more interesting things to do than that.

      So you refuse to even look at evidence that is presented to you? And you just assume it must be lies? Sounds like faith to me.

      You've got your story and your sticking to it. Good for you. That kind of blind determination will certainly help you rationalize all the things that don't come out the way you thought they would based on your terrible logic skills.

    51. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Your refusal to accept facts that have been posted on slashdot previously is not my fault. You've shown you can use a search engine enough to fabricate a backstory for yourself, why can't you use it to look up information that pertains to this discussion?

      I am disputing that your claims and opinions are actually facts. I even gave reasons for why I disputed them, which you had no response to.

      Your reasons were rooted only in your faith. I referred you to other articles that were here on slashdot; it is not my fault that you cannot be bothered to read them. But when you claim that they are fantasy you only make yourself look ever more ridiculous.

      It is faith because it is ignoring the enormous body of facts that counters the assumptions that your faith require. You are using faith because there is information out there that is well-known and contrary to your beliefs, but you are choosing to ignore those facts.

      You don't even know what I believe

      You have stated your beliefs - particularly the ones that relate to this topic (which you have since held no qualms against abandoning completely) - very plainly. You wear your faith on your sleeve, son.

      You have already provided a solid argument that you did not complete a CSci degree at UCLA. I don't need to reinforce it when your own writing makes it clear.

      You've made a really solid argument that you are almost certainly not a software engineer, based on several things (including the fact that you feel it necessary to lie about [amongst other things] your educational background).

      I love how you keep digging yourself a hole on this point.

      That is a very strange way to acknowledge someone else delivering an argument based on facts that you provided yourself. But just keep on lying if you feel it somehow makes you look less ridiculous (protip - it doesn't).

      You already provided me with some doozies just in this discussion. I really don't give a shit what lies you have spouted out in other discussions, I have more interesting things to do than that.

      So you refuse to even look at evidence that is presented to you? And you just assume it must be lies? Sounds like faith to me.

      That is one of the more absurd things you have written in this thread - and that is saying a lot. Go back and look at what you just wrote, and what you wrote it in reply to. See how they don't connect? You are providing yet more evidence that you do not have a college degree from a reputable institution. You showed that you don't understand statistics, and now you have shown again that you don't understand logic.

      But go ahead, keep lying about yourself, and keep insulting me. That seems to be working out really, really, well for you so far.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    52. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Hey so I remembered my student ID and actually got a copy of my transcript form the ucla website. It's even got a timestamp of June 15th, 2015 at 11:36 PM (about 15 minutes ago). Do you want to be proven wrong? Or would you rather not see it and live in a world of self delusion?

      I also now have access to my old ucla.edu email address as well. So that's pretty cool.

    53. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sure you did. You completely failed at one of the most fundamental statistical tests and you expect us to believe that you passed stat at UCLA. Nope, does not add up. You also fell on your face in simple matters of logic in this discussion and you expect us to believe that you passed logic at that school as well. Also does not add up.

      You are most likely trying to play chicken, or you have a document that is not your own. You sure as hell did not pass the requisite coursework at UCLA for a CSci degree.

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      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    54. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      So you are saying I logged into UCLA's system and got some else's transcript? A transcript that shows someone else who graduated from UCLA with a BS in computer science on June 18, 2014?

      Not only that, but access to a ucla.edu email account?

      That was convincing enough for my employer, but not for you...

      What do they call it when you believe something so blindly despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? It starts with an F

    55. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      So you are saying I logged into UCLA's system and got some else's transcript?

      No, I would not accuse you of being that clever.

      A transcript that shows someone else who graduated from UCLA with a BS in computer science on June 18, 2014?

      You certainly have not presented a convincing case for you being a CSci graduate from UCLA.

      Not only that, but access to a ucla.edu email account?

      Considering how much you were willing to openly lie earlier in this discussion, I don't see any reason to see that statement as credible either.

      Even if the transcript you claim to have does exist, there would be no way to verify it to be from you - aside from the fact that if it has passing statistics grades it most certainly is not yours. It could very likely be from someone else you know who actually holds such a degree. Even angry liars such as yourself manage to make friends at some points in their life.

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      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    56. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      You have a real knack for grasping onto some small detail, making a non-sensical deduction from it, and then sticking to it regardless of any subsequent evidence.

      Here's a good example (one of many)

      Someone (i.e. me) makes says something that you no doubt inappropriately infer to be a formal statistical claim (and more than likely inferred the wrong claim even if it was appropriate), and from that you deduce that it is impossible that this person could have passed a statistics class from a reputable university over a decade ago.

      Examples of flaws in reasoning and/or bad assumptions:

      1. People knowledgeable on statistics never say unstatistician-like things.

      2. It is impossible for someone bad at statistics to pass a statistics course (even though a D is technically passing)

      3. One's statistical abilities never regress. (e.g. it is impossible to forget things you learned in college).

      A cautious troll would have simply said "It doesn't matter where you graduated from, that doesn't imply you are proficient at anything (for all but not only the above reasons.

      And honestly, that's a pretty reasonable position to hold. I know I certainly wouldn't assume someone knows what they are talking about simply because they graduated from a particular school with a particular degree.

      But sadly, rather than being cautious, you called my "bluff", and took the position that there was no way I could have graduated from UCLA with a CS degree.

      So I counter that I have a transcript showing details completely consistent with the claims I have made. At this point any reasonable person witnessing this (probably none), would accept that I am telling the truth if I could produce such a document.

      Obviously it could be a really good forgery, or I could have hacked into the school computers, or I could have had a friend willing to let me use their transcript to taunt a troll on the internet AND had the foresight to correctly cite all this friend's details (like school, graduation date, major, degree, etc) days in advance, in preparation for the fraudulent transcript, or any number of implausible alternatives.

      Oh and also this "friend of mine" coincidentally has the same name (my name is Brian). Or maybe I chose my screen name to be "Tsuruchi Brian" 3 years ago because I knew the day would come when I would have to impersonate my smart friend to make some random internet troll look stupid.

      I suppose at this point from your point of view, it could all just be an elaborate bluff. Afterall you haven't actually seen the document yet.

      I am curious what your next move is.

      1. Claim UCLA is a shit school and it doesn't matter if I graduated with a CS degree from that school (oops, too late to do this)

      2. Hedge your bets by saying any evidence I produce must be fake just in case I actually have it (which you have apparently tentatively chosen).

      3. Call my bluff. Honestly what are the odds that I masterminded this web of deceit so perfectly? How could some flunky with such terrible statistics skills pull off such a masterful deception?

      4. Admit you were wrong about one or more assumptions you made.

      If you want to switch to from "hedge your bets" to "call my bluff" or :admit you were wrong", I will allow it.

      Otherwise you can just be a pussy and stay in the corner you have painted yourself in.

    57. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      You have a real knack for grasping onto some small detail, making a non-sensical deduction from it, and then sticking to it regardless of any subsequent evidence.

      This is not a small detail. There is nothing minor about false positive rates in statistics. You didn't make a minor error in it either, you completely and utterly screwed up in a way that anyone with even the most basic knowledge of statistics would be embarrassed by. People who drop out of statistics after two weeks of instruction would know more about statistics than you have demonstrated.

      You have no useful knowledge of statistics. If you did, you would not have made such a massive error. If by some fluke you made it but did know even a little about statistics, you would have long ago said something along the lines of "oops, I completely miscalculated FP because XYZ". Instead you tried to lie your way out of it. Eventually you were piling lies on top of lies in the hope of making your situation better.

      you no doubt inappropriately infer to be a formal statistical claim

      I asked you what your FP rate was. You gave me a number and said "FP is .5 per year". You were making a formal statistical claim. I then pointed out that your claim was a total failure of statistics and you tried to lie your way out of it.

      You also demonstrated repeated failures in logic. Pretending that you could somehow complete a CSci degree without understanding statistics or logic is laughable.

      Seriously, kid. Just quit lying, and walk away. You admitted defeat when you resorted to lying heavily and abandoned the topic of discussion completely. I don't want to talk about you, but you made the discussion about yourself entirely. Do you remember we were talking about spam and why spam filters won't ever solve the spam problem?

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    58. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I asked you what your FP rate was. You gave me a number and said "FP is .5 per year".

      This was actually meant to be facetious, because I just stated that I had only lost one real email in the past 2 years. Also if you recall I said that if I am constantly analyzing my FP rate, I am really not enjoying the convenience of spam filters.

      As I said I periodically check, and haven't found a false positive in about 2 years. Is it possible I missed one in there? sure, it's possible. Is it possible I missed a thousand FP's? It's still possible and incredibly unlikely.

      So yes, I don't know that my FP rate is exactly 0.5 per year, but there is pretty good evidence that it is close. This is in contrast to when spam filters were not good, and I was constantly finding legitimate emails in my spam folder after not receiving and expected message in my inbox.

      But this is exactly what I am saying. You took one comment I made (facetiously) , and extrapolated it out to mean that it is impossible I could have graduated from a particular school with a particular degree.

      Do you seriously not see how utterly fucking crazy this is?

      So we can add "People good at statistics never make claims that are not meant to be taken as a formal statistical claim" to the list of false assumptions you have made.

      So have you decided on if you want to switch from your "hedge your bets" position to "calling my bluff" or "admit you were wrong" yet?

      I promise that if you decide to "call my bluff" I will either produce the document or admit I was bluffing.

      Or would you just change the subject?

    59. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      But this is exactly what I am saying. You took one comment I made (facetiously) , and extrapolated it out to mean that it is impossible I could have graduated from a particular school with a particular degree.

      Funny, when you first made that statement you were confident of it. Now after I have pointed out - repeatedly - what a complete statistical failure that statement is, you are trying to pretend it was facetious. Even worse, you are trying to pretend that you actually know something about statistics - in spite of having already demonstrated the contrary.

      Seriously, just quit lying and walk away. You should have done that days ago. You are only making yourself look more ridiculous as you keep making this thread about yourself instead of the topic it was actually started on. If you don't want to talk about the problems inherent to spam filters, go pester someone else. You have made it abundantly clear that you are not knowledgeable on the matter, you can either now go for an about-face and try to learn something relevant to this discussion, or you can just take your lying self elsewhere.

      Your choice, kid.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    60. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I don't have to pretend what I said was facetious in retrospect. It should be pretty apparent to anyone who is not retarded.

      More importantly you seem to be trying desperately to change the subject away from direction where you are starting to become scared you might look really dumb if we keep going down it.

      Fine I can understand that. You made some statements thinking they were pretty safe, but now you've been called out, and you want to just pretend you weren't.

      Am I lying? I claim to have pretty convincing evidence that I am telling the truth. Obviously I could just be lying about that too.

      A bolder man might just call my bluff and win the argument, or maybe even admit he was wrong if I am not bluffing.

      If you want to just be a pussy and walk away from an opportunity to see if I actually have the document I say I do, that's fine.

      My goal was to find out what kind of man you are. "A dumb man", "A pussy", or "A smart man" (if I am bluffing).

      And regardless of what you choose, we will know the answer to that question.

      Honestly this is starting to get boring. I will give you one more opportunity to call my bluff. If you do, I will produce the documents or admit I was bluffing. If not, you can fold, and this conversation is over and you can go on wondering forever. (e.g. like a poker game)

      If you do decide to pussy out and fold, I would like to point out once again what position you are taking.

      Despite producing a transcript, showing my major and degree, from the correct university, in the correct year month and year (June 2004), and with the same name as first name as my screen name, your position is that it must be fake, and you are so sure it's fake you don't even want to see it.

      If this is truly the position you want to take, then I think I have pretty much won this argument, by virtue of the fact that you are ironically believing in something based on faith rather than evidence.

      I admitted that I am not 100% confident in my claimed 0.5 FP rate. I don't recall ever stating that I was 100% confident, but whatever, you seemed to think I was.

      Are you willing to admit that you are not 100% confident that I am who I say I am? Or are you going to maintain 100% confidence while actively trying to avoid an opportunity to see the evidence I claim to have?

      This is your one chance. What's it going to be?

    61. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      I don't have to pretend what I said was facetious in retrospect. It should be pretty apparent to anyone who is not retarded.

      So now you are insulting me for taking your seriously? You gave a direct numeric answer to a question. You were then embarrassed to realize the colossal statistical failure that you made and you felt the need to fabricate a pile of lies to cover it up. Insulting me isn't helping your cause any.

      More importantly you seem to be trying desperately to change the subject away

      Change the subject? No, I have been repeatedly pointing out how far from the subject you have strayed. We were talking about spam filters and you keep going back to lying about yourself instead.

      You made some statements thinking they were pretty safe, but now you've been called out, and you want to just pretend you weren't.

      Called out on what, exactly? You have provided far more evidence in support of my claims about your lack of education than you have in opposition to them.

      And if we were to dare return to the original topic of discussion, we would find there is plenty of evidence on this very site that supports my original argument. It is not my problem if you can't be bothered to read it.

      Despite producing a transcript, showing my major and degree, from the correct university, in the correct year month and year (June 2004), and with the same name as first name as my screen name, your position is that it must be fake, and you are so sure it's fake you don't even want to see it.

      You claim to have it, yet have not shown it. Considering how large UCLA is, the chance of someone graduating in any given year with the first name Brian - particularly in a CSci program - is very very high.

      I called your bluff a long time ago. Your own writing - in particular your logical and statistical failures - supports my claim and not yours.

      And again, none of this is related to the topic of this thread. That you keep trying to drag this discussion back to being about you speaks volumes about you and your own insecurities - particularly when coupled to the giant mountains of lies you have created in this thread.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    62. Re:No filter is truly effective by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      You claim to have it, yet have not shown it. Considering how large UCLA is, the chance of someone graduating in any given year with the first name Brian - particularly in a CSci program - is very very high.

      There probably was a person fitting that description (in this case it was me), but it's not that many people. I think there were like around 50 CS majors graduating on the same day as me. But seriously what are the odds that I am friends with that hypothetical person, and they let me use their transcript for this completely ridiculous purpose?

      As I said, I was either going to show it or admit to bluffing if you were man enough to actually risk admitting being wrong.

      But now we know you're just a pussy, and you folded. So you don't get to know if I was bluffing or not.

      And this conversation is now over.

    63. Re:No filter is truly effective by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      But seriously what are the odds that I am friends with that hypothetical person, and they let me use their transcript for this completely ridiculous purpose?

      Much better than the odds of you passing a statistics course. Similarly, very high are the odds of a serial liar such as yourself having such documentation around to try to "support" you fact-free argument.

      And this conversation is now over.

      So you are a failure and a liar. But you established that several comments ago. Have a nice weekend, kid. Maybe some day you'll learn enough to realize how foolish you made yourself look here.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    64. Re:No filter is truly effective by OdinOdin_ · · Score: 1

      The solution is easy you make it an economic problem of needing the sender to use computing power as a cost.

      When an SMTP client offers a messages (during the dialog and protocol exchange) the server announces a mathematical problem to the sender (that will allow the message to be accepted in the first place).

      This mathematical problem needs to be easy for the server to generate. The server withholds the answer and other information from the client and presents the problem to solve in a way that the client is forced to brute-force the answer consuming CPU time. The amount of CPU time needs to scale both linearly and exponentially (so we are talking a quadratic scaling mechanism).

      The server can decide per SMTP transaction to offer no problem to solve (like SMTP right now) or an easy problem to well behaved systems and a harder problem to untrusted systems.

      Now the client has the option to decide if it can afford the cost of sending at the moment of delivery (allow a bounce for HAM). Yes the spammers can go out and buy server farms to solve these problems, let them do it. You are forcing the cost of sending spam up in the process. Yes they use botnets but if these botnets start consuming 100% CPU people notice faster and get it fixed sooner and it rate limits what one bot in a botnet can send per hour. Power consumption goes up on sever farm botnets etc.. all noticeable metrics to someone to fix the problem.

      Now the question is how is a mathematical / cryptographic boffin who can propose such a mathematical problem. Generate random number, decide on problem scaling size (how hard it will be to compute answer), do something with these numbers and output a question and answer. The important point is that should take an short instant to generate while scaling takes it from a longer instant to solve to many 100s years to solve.

    65. Re:No filter is truly effective by idfubar · · Score: 0

      Don't fool yourself on this one.

      Okay... but maybe too late, yeah?

      You can set up a filter that removes (what you consider to be) an acceptable TP:FP ratio, but it won't be effective for long. The Spammers are constantly adjusting their tactics to get around filters. Eventually the noise will take over and you will either lose an unacceptable amount of non-spam email or you will receive an unacceptable amount of spam email.

      Perhaps the assessment is too pessimistic? Although individuals, organizations, etc. come and go, here we are years later and most people don't seem to worry too much about SPAM on a day-to-day basis....

      You cannot win with filters, period.

      Depends on what a "win" is... but if a simple solution that is rooted in nothing more than thinking first (i.e. giving out unique addresses when solicited) & being smart (e.g. filtering known abusers and doing one's part with respect to compliance) results in a little learned and a whole lot of utility then perhaps one can win with filters...

      The truth of the matter - that a lot of people seem to either not be aware of or not be concerned with - is that spam is an economic problem. Spammers don't send out spam to piss you off, they send it out to make money. No amount of filtering or criminal prosecution will change that; in fact it generally just increases the total volume of spam that traverses the internet continuously. We all pay for this spam to be transmitted, stored, processed, downloaded, etc, even if we never buy any spamvertised product. We pay for it in that it increases the consumption of internet bandwidth, it increases the consumption of storage at ISPs, and has other downstream impacts as well

      Although bandwidth is (essentially) free and SPAM is as much a behavioral problem as it is an economic problem one would tend to agree with the expressed sentiment; the only problem/oversight is that the people who send SPAM also pay! No matter how passionately one feels about the commons the subtlety is that debasement of said commons is everyone's concern; as such, suggesting (or even expecting) that government be involved (e.g. via a CAN-SPAM act and enforcement of said act) is not unreasonable. Perhaps the problem (and its persistence) has something to do with how we weigh our (domestic/national) interests against a global interest when said interest spans geographic/cultural/social/economic boundaries?

      If you want to make a difference on spam, you need to go after the only thing spammers care about - money. The most effective tactics ever used against spam have been the ones that prevented spammers from getting paid, nothing else - not even the sum total of all the filters ever installed worldwide - has had an impact even remotely near it.

      IMHO we can all do our small part and have a reasonable hope that society will accommodate the same...

      --

      Rishi Chopra
      www.rishichopra.org
  7. Google by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use both Gmail and Google Apps for my own domain email and their spam filtering is very good.

    1. Re: Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Too good as they constantly drops legitimate mails without a trace.

    2. Re: Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      I can see no evidence that this has happened.

    3. Re: Google by lurker412 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, maybe. What I know is that I don't see much spam even in my spam folder, which does suggest that Gmail may be blowing a lot of stuff away before I have any chance to see it. OTOH, I don't ever recall a case of learning later that something legitimate had been deleted instead of put into my spam folder, and the number of false positives there is tiny. My overall impression is that their filtering system is very effective. I haven't seen a true spam message in my inbox for years and don't even think of it as a problem anymore.

    4. Re: Google by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 1

      I doubt there is any filter anywhere that won't have an occasional false positive. I have had a couple. Also occasionally a spam will sneak through. That said, I use a catch-all on my domain so I get a huge amount of spam. I'm continuously impressed that it picks out my mere dozens of legit emails from the 5-10 thousand spams I get every month.

      I have run my own mail server in the past. I doubt I could do any better.

    5. Re: Google by Drakonblayde · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure the only thing they drop is mail with infected attachments. Everything else they think is junk gets sent to the spam folder.

      I mean hell, I had more problems with false positives from Outlook marking crap as junk than I ever did from Google, until I decided to just turn off the Outlook junk filtering and trust Google instead

    6. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I use both Gmail and Google Apps for my own domain email and their spam filtering is very good.

      Yes, google is soo awsome that recently some asshole used my email address as their From:. Now if I send email using my email address to gmail users, I get a link to,

      https://support.google.com/mai...

      1. ALL spams email was from unauthorized hosts, they check SPF records after all
      2. ALL my mail is from authorized sender, but alas, it bounces.

      So yes, Google is sooooo good at filtering spam that it filters legitimate users if spammers use your email for few hours. Awesome, isn't it? Maybe the world should block @gmail.com if they receive spam with forged @gmail.com.

    7. Re:Google by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 1

      Joe Jobs can happen to anyone no matter who their provider or domain is.

  8. Your ISP doesn't care by Maxwell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They would much rather you join the 21st century and use any email service except theirs. Take the hint, choose Microsoft or Google and move on...

    1. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Take the hint, choose Microsoft or Google and move on...

      Take an even better hint. Don't choose Microsoft.

    2. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And don't choose Google either. You're on slashdot. Running a personal email server has to be one of the simplest admin items ever. With VPSes under $2 a month, the excuse not to do so is wearing thin.

    3. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Along the same line of thinking: Don't use Google either. They're quickly becoming a bigger monster than Microsoft ever was.

    4. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by sgrover · · Score: 1

      Run your own server? You got to be kidding with advice like this. It is simple enough to get such a server up and operational. But, the maintenance effort needed on that server quickly outweighs any benefits. Ensuring the server has appropriate spam / virus protections, keeping these up to date, dealing with blacklistings, etc. It just is not worth it unless it is your job to maintain a server like this. If this is NOT your job, that job will suffer due to less time being available while you deal with email server maintenance.

      In the end, it is much better to ask yourself two simple questions - How many mail boxes do I need? and How much storage is needed for each mail box? Using that information you can shop around and find a suitable solution where it is someone else's business to do that server maintenance. Prices and capabilities vary. Places like Rackspace offers an email services only option that costs much less than the time needed to host your own server. Gmail and the ilk become options as well. I hesitate to use the "free" services from companies like Google though - it is bad enough that I am relinquishing control of an essential service, I want to know that I am getting what I pay for. The contracts for free services are rather one sided with limited liabilities, IMO.

    5. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by Megane · · Score: 1

      In the immortal words of Ernestine the telephone operator, "We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company!"

      And in this case, it's very true. Verizon, formerly GTE, was the second largest phone company in the US during the Ma Bell era.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    6. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by FranTaylor · · Score: 2

      Along the same line of thinking: Don't use Google either. They're quickly becoming a bigger monster than Microsoft ever was.

      Tell us more about how monster corporations are more likely to snoop into your email than smaller ones. And go ahead and try to provide proof.

    7. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by Maxwell · · Score: 1

      Actually email is one of the most *complex* servers to run. You think someone who is using their ISP email is going to go from that to their own server? Why? The OP question was regarding SPAM filter's not working. You want a great SPAM filter - google is the best.

    8. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >But, the maintenance effort needed on that server quickly outweighs any benefits. Ensuring the server has appropriate spam / virus protections, keeping these up to date, dealing with blacklistings, etc. It just is not worth it unless it is your job to maintain a server like this. If this is NOT your job, that job will suffer due to less time being available while you deal with email server maintenance.

      There are cron jobs that can take care of the updates for spamassassin and clamd for you. Try them. I have. They work well enough. I only log into that server every once in a blue moon because it turns out there's yet another openssl vuln to take care of, or whatever else, so I'd say my entire invested time up to this point this year is 30 minutes.

      It isn't for everyone, but if you're not able to take care of a server, slashdot is just a bad forum to spend time on because the advice is tailored to sysadmins and programmers.

      >Places like Rackspace offers an email services only option that costs much less than the time needed to host your own server.

      My unpaid time is worth $0. I would feel terrible for someone who has a 24x7 job that never quits. Does RackSpace pay for using their service since most people don't get paid for every single hour of their life.

    9. Re:Your ISP doesn't care by KGIII · · Score: 1

      This is just anecdotal but I actually get far fewer unsolicited emails with outlook.com (Hotmail) than I do with GMail. The change has happened over the last five years or so, I am not sure of the reasons as they may be technical or just that one is a magnet for email that is capable of passing the filters.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  9. I'm kind of confused.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...As to why you even use your ISP's mail services? Why not any of the hundreds of other mail services? (Gmail, Hushmail, outlook.com, there's tons of them)

    No sense changing your ISP (frankly, if you're ON Verison, your only other choices are probably Comcast/TWC or COX or something...none of those is going to be a great leap in any sense.)

  10. Very effective, but.. by david.emery · · Score: 1

    With the increasing growth of outsource email, it's getting really hard for spam detectors to distinguish between real spam, and email sent on behalf of one company by some outsourced mail/customer contact management company.

    Here's the technology my ISP uses: http://www.escom.com/ (Disclosure: The developer is a friend-of-a-friend of long standing.)

    1. Re:Very effective, but.. by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      It's too bad no one has come up with a way for companies to denote what mail servers are legitimate senders on behalf of their domains...

      All sarcasm aside, SPF records are easy to configure. If you (and by "you" I mean anyone reading this. I'm not directing this comment at the parent poster.) are responsible in any way for managing email for an organization, make sure the domain's SPF records are configured. Chances are your email or DNS service provider has an easy to use tool for writing the TXT record for you. Then, look into DKIM and DMARC once your SPF records are set. DEMARC has a nice reporting feature to alert you when your return addresses are being spoofed.

    2. Re:Very effective, but.. by david.emery · · Score: 1

      The mail hosting companies are particularly delinquent in not making damn sure this is done for every "mom-and-pop.com" they host. If you're not a tech person, but run a small business doing something else, the ins and outs of this kind of thing is what you -should be getting- from an outsource mail service.

  11. domain email by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Email spam control is a full time job. If you host your own domain and mailserver you can have complete control over your filter rules, but it's a good bit of maintenance. You can host your domain at a 3rd party mail provider and take advantage of their rules. Google purchased postini years ago and incorporated their email filtering into their products, one of the reasons gmail has rather good spam filtering. I've never had good luck with an ISP's mail filtering, except for an old local shop.

  12. Exactly. NEVER change your email address. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Buy your own domain and move it to whatever email provider that you choose.

  13. Works For Me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My ISP (1&1) has a pretty good paid spam filter service. I use it for a couple of e-mail accounts, and get a near 100% hit rate of correct matches, plus a near 0% rate of false positives. I'm getting a couple hundred of spam e-mails per day.

    1. Re:Works For Me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      p.s.: I trained it manually by moving false positives into the correct folder.

    2. Re:Works For Me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I concur. I also use 1&1 for email. Not only their filtering is pretty good after it is trained, it also can be configured to email you the list of subjects for emails filtered as spam daily so that you can easily check for false positive without having to log in to web interface. Every email provider should have that but surprisingly Google doesn't. I guess they know better than me what i want.

  14. spam by JohnVanVliet · · Score: 0

    I DO NOT!!!! use my isp's email

    the LAST time i was using a Comcast mail i was getting 500+ spams EVERY DAY!!!!
    and was informed to use Microsoft Outlook to filter them out on my LINUX ( rhel) install

    so basically i told Comcast to F-OFF and changed the comcast billing email to a new Gmail

    With Gmail i get about 2 spams a month

    --
    "I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
    1. Re:spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Google reads all your emails as thanks for using their service.

    2. Re:spam by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      IIRC, mine was Time Warner, and it was just as bad! I don't think gmail existed yet. That's probably when I switched to yahoo, and it was better than TW.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    3. Re:spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Google reads all your emails as thanks for using their service.

      Which is still an improvement over the likes of Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon reading your emails and saying "screw you, sucker".

    4. Re:spam by JohnVanVliet · · Score: 1

      and so dose
      microsoft and yahoo and "fill in the blank"

      they ALL!!!!!!! do for selling advertising

      BUT it takes the nsa or gchq or any other Org to REALLY read the mail

      --
      "I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
    5. Re:spam by andymadigan · · Score: 1

      How would you expect them to filter spam without reading the messages?

      --
      The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
  15. Gmail works well for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We switched our corporate email to gmail last year and I give their spam filtering very high marks.

  16. ISP Mail is for chumps.... by Raxxon · · Score: 2

    When I operated an ISP we had an absurdly effective mail filtering system. 2000 users in the domain, on average 1,000,000 spam messages blocked per day (the owner had sold the customer mail list several times (somuchate)). This required LOTS of work and honestly wasn't worth the effort.

    I've had a GMail acct since 2004, haven't had an issue since. Left that ISP job, been through 2 other ISPs since then. Haven't had to change anything about external accounts, still have mail archival going back over a decade now and very few spam messages get through, very few legit emails blocked.

  17. Spamassassin and Greylisting.. by popoutman · · Score: 3, Informative
    Up to date spamassassin and well configured greylisting works very well for my email solution. The most spam mail comes in on mailing lists that deliberately have differing settings on them. Plus I have spam and ham training active. Rare enough to get spam into my actual inbox these days.

    I've also got very little spam on my Gmail address as well..

    --
    - This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
    1. Re:Spamassassin and Greylisting.. by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 1

      There's a reason that SpamAssassin is a core component to so many commercial spam filters.

      I've been using Gmail for years, and have it popping my mail from a couple of other accounts, or setting them to forward it. For email sent directly to my Gmail address, their spam filtering seems pretty good, but for forwarded or popped email, they get way too many false positives. Their filtering sees the IP address the mail is being popped or forwarded from as the "connecting address" for SPF, DKIM, etc., testing. This is a rather large pain in the butt. There's no way I have found to tell Gmail "These IP addresses are to be considered trusted forwarders for my email." The other conveniences of using Gmail are keeping me there, though. So far.

      My old shell account email uses Mailguard, which is yet another SpamAssassin based filter, and it's pretty good, but I do get some false positives, at least, when I set it to the most aggressive setting. The thing I like best about it is that I can view my spam quarantine sorted by SpamAssassin score. Skim the low scoring ones; all the false positives are going to be there.

    2. Re:Spamassassin and Greylisting.. by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Any suggestion on how to deal with mails with attachments? SA doesn't check those. And I get heaps of those "transfer done, please check your account", "here's the B/L for your shipment" and "please review this PO for your product" kind of mails that all end up in my inbox, and are apparently sent through real mailservers as they pass through greylisting.

    3. Re:Spamassassin and Greylisting.. by riondluz · · Score: 1

      don't forget fail2ban, DKIM, Razor/Pyzor and other
      indispensible utils...

      --
      resist propaganda
  18. Are you crazy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You'd change ISPs over your email address? Get a gmail account and then you don't have to worry about it. As a bonus, their spam filtering works really well for me.

  19. if you have to ask... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ....you have no business using email.

  20. Number of comments is really down by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Boy, the number of comments has really fallen on all stories since Dice's last "upgrade."

    1. Re:Number of comments is really down by carterhawk001 · · Score: 1

      My muscle memory is going crazy over this. Very much dislike.

    2. Re:Number of comments is really down by danomac · · Score: 1

      No kidding. Whose bright idea was it to overlay the comment count and icon over the title? It obscures long titles now.

      I think the UI designers unzipped their pocket full of tricks and forgot to zip it back up again, it's turning into a how-not-to-do-UI example.

  21. No filter is perfect but many are very effective by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can set up a filter that removes (what you consider to be) an acceptable TP:FP ratio, but it won't be effective for long. The Spammers are constantly adjusting their tactics to get around filters. Eventually the noise will take over and you will either lose an unacceptable amount of non-spam email or you will receive an unacceptable amount of spam email.

    Disagree. I have used gmail for quite a while and I very rarely see spam outside of the spam folder. This has been the case for many years now. I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a false positive (non-spam sent to the spam folder) and false negatives (spam that gets to my inbox) are fairly rare - less than 10 a month usually. It's good enough I don't even bother to check my spam folder anymore. When one does slip through I just flag it and the problem goes away. Spam effectively almost doesn't exist for me. While I do agree that no filter is perfect it isn't that hard to have one that is highly effective. With enough people flagging spam filters can be very useful in automating spam removal. It doesn't entirely solve the problem but it has made it manageable.

    You cannot win with filters, period.

    I have no illusions that I am going to eliminate spam entirely. The ISPs are the only ones really in a position to do something about the problem. So far nobody has come up with a credible and effective solution and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

  22. Very Effective - but it's not my ISP by pubwvj · · Score: 1, Informative

    My spam filters are very effective, but they're not on my ISP's servers. My email comes in through my own custom domain name sitting on an 'Nix Apache CPanel shared web host that I rent space on. I get to setup. This is very effective. Then my MacOSX Mail App does the next level of filtering. I have each level set for whitelists, blacklists, keywords so that there is very little in the way of false positives and only about 0.1% to 0.001% of spam is getting through (I have stats). There are surges where it rises to the 0.1% level when the spammers try something new but then the system adapts, recognizes them and zaps them.

    Verizon is probably not a good choice for a spam filter as they do not have a lot of incentive to care.

  23. ISP? ... You mean google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean really.. Don't use an ISP email service... You lose that email the moment you switch ISP.

  24. Run your own mail server by nyet · · Score: 0

    Run your own MTA, problem solved.

    1. Re:Run your own mail server by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

      Run your own MTA, problem solved.

      Yeah, you'll never get ANY mail if you're not on the white lists. Problem solved!

    2. Re:Run your own mail server by nyet · · Score: 1

      I've been running my own MTA for 15 years. Not on any whitelists. No problems.

    3. Re:Run your own mail server by mars-nl · · Score: 1

      What whitelist?

      The only problem with self-hosting a SMTP-server is you often get blocked because your server's IP-address is being blacklisted because it's a residential customer's IP address. I have solved this configuring my mailserver to use my ISP's SMTP-server as a smarthost. Works fine.

  25. As others said by jeauxkewl · · Score: 1

    Do not use ISP mail. Use a better free one. Or pay a little and get something with a highly configurable filter that works. I use fastmail.fm and they work beautifully.

    1. Re:As others said by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      This. Switch to something other than your ISP. Anything other than your ISP. If you want to go free, GMail is probably the best one out there, but if you're willing to go for-pay (and you really should!), consider this my +1 for FastMail.

      FastMail has done a great job of growing with me as my needs have changed. I switched from GMail about a year ago, and I was up and running with all of my contacts, archived mail, and my new e-mail addresses within a few hours of starting my trial (and most of that time was just watching it live as it imported my archived mail, which was fascinating to watch, since they animate them as they're coming in). A few weeks later, I added my own domain names and had it take over e-mail for them, and they were automatically able to manage the DNS for those domains for me to get everything set up correctly. Most recently, I switched to a family account a few days ago since I'm getting married next month, and they were able to painlessly get my migrated over from my personal account. Everything still works exactly as before, and they even prorated my previous payment and applied it towards my new account. They have an incredible web app that works across all devices, and they've recently added native apps for the various mobile OSes.

      Seriously, these guys are absolutely stellar. And I'd hope they would be, since for-pay e-mail is all they do. They don't try to shove other services or ads down your throat. They just do e-mail. Well, e-mail, calendars, and contacts, but you know what I mean, plus and the calendars and contacts support full syncing between your devices too, which is pretty awesome. Oh, and they're the guys developing JMAP as an open source replacement for IMAP.

      Anyway, they offer a free trial (I don't think they even ask for payment info up front, but don't quote me on that; I do know they won't charge you automatically when the trial runs out). Strongly recommend trying them out.

    2. Re:As others said by Tronster · · Score: 1

      Also a +1 for Fastmail. I was using Spamcop for over a decade until they spun down services a little over a year ago. I asked them what they recommended and pointed me to Fastmail ( https://www.fastmail.com/ ). Great service for native mail clients, a good online interface, and an informative blog ( http://blog.fastmail.com/ ). Worth the $10 to $40 a year IMHO.

  26. It sucks. by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    Comcasts Spam filter is crap, but who in the world uses their ISP email? Gmail and call it done so you can change ISP without disruption to email.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  27. They are all useless, aren't they? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I use gmail, and it frequently sends my forum registrations and password reminders to the spam folder, and delivers actual spam to me, then offers to send it an unsubscribe notice to let it know that my address is valid.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  28. Why? by krray · · Score: 2

    Like everybody else is saying -- Why are you using your ISP's email? They should only be your pipe. I personally stopped using any ISP's email in the 90's... It was after the first switch over that I figured this problem out.

    Originally I ran my own domain and spam filtering. I was on the first batch of first spam from those lawyers. Fuckers. Anyway...

    Have since migrated domain email to Google apps -- not free anymore for you unfortunately, but on a user @gmail.com basis is still very free.

    For speed Google wins -- never even came close to matching their speed for users with gigs and gigs of email they refuse to delete. Not that I'm one to talk.

    Their spam filtering beats anything I've seen. I always had too many false positives on my setup; Google has really had one problem in the last decade with that -- false positives from the COPIERS (they have their own accounts and in the domain mailing to same domain users). Annoyingly I had to add a filter to each user to fix that problem.

    Otherwise their spam filters are dead nuts on for me. One, maybe two spam messages will hit my Inbox in any given year. My account will @ the .com variant of the domain will get 2-5,000 spams a DAY...

    Use Google.

  29. How to choose?! Not sure. DMARC-providers maybe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not sure about Verizon, but I see a huge difference between providers that are on https://dmarcian.com/dmarc-status/ and providers that are not.

    For instance, GMAIL (google on the list) seems to be almost always correct, blocking most of my spam mail.
    Hotmail (microsoft on the list) seems to do a fair deal too, but it does seem to block less (more spam in mailbox).
    Yahoo I don't really use, but also no spam :)

    Other ISP providers (not on that list) which I have an account with seem to use something that does not work.
    Payed providers (e.g. my domain names) seem to use spamassassin (or equivalents) that do a fair job, but still fail to do it right.

  30. Use two email addresses with two spam filters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've found the following to be quite effective through the years....

    1. Set up a non-moving email address @gmail or @yahoo or similar.
    2. Configure that account to forward ALL emails to your ISP email account
    3. Configure your email client's reply-to address to the one setup in step #1.
    4. Provide the email address in step #1 when filling out any online forms.

    The only downside is you need to occasionally check the spam/junk folder in two places instead of just one.

  31. I just ignore my ISP's email service by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 1

    Why tie your email to your ISP? I ignore my ISP's email service except for email from them about my account. If I were you I'd set up an email account with another service and use that as my primary email. That way when I change ISPs (and I will, whether because I moved or because I got fed up with crappy Internet service) I don't have to worry about changing my email address everywhere. In fact it might not hurt to have accounts at more than one email service, so you have an established backup in case it's needed.

    1. Re:I just ignore my ISP's email service by hambone142 · · Score: 1

      Same here. I have never used my ISP's email service. Many moons ago, I had another ISP (defunct now) and I was pelted with Russian ads and other crap. Now I use gmail (for stuff that doesn't matter) and Fastmail (Australian email provider, paid account) . I get almost no spam with gmail and have not received a single spam message on Fastmail.

      I also have an old Yahoo email account that has been around for about 25 years. I get a lot of crap on it but use it as a "don't care" email address. Adrianna has the hots for me :-^

      Someone on my Yahoo email also thinks I need larger body parts.

  32. Why change ISP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use Gmail, and never have this issue. Try a similar service, especially if your ISP is the best proced one in your area, as Gmail at least is free.

  33. You have no idea how much spam hits your mailbox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Back before hosted exchange servers were a common thing I used to run the anti spam server for our deployment.

    You can not quite conceptualize the idea of 'abuse' until you look at the logs of an antispam server. For one domain with less than 50 email addresses I saw things like (This was back in 2010)...

    Between one and two MILLION connection attempts per day - About 95% filtered out by blackholes

    Between 50 and 60 thousand messages per day - About 99% of those filtered out by antispam rules, heuristics, keywording, etc

    All said and done for every given spam message you saw there could be between 5 and 10 thousand that you don't. Spam filters are pretty effective. The insane, overwhelming volume of shit thrown at your mailserver is positively unreal until you see it for yourself.

  34. Re:No filter is perfect but many are very effectiv by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a false positive (non-spam sent to the spam folder) and false negatives (spam that gets to my inbox) are fairly rare - less than 10 a month usually. It's good enough I don't even bother to check my spam folder anymore.

    If you don't check your spam folder than you cannot make a statement of your FP rate, until someone tells you that they sent you an email and you realize you never saw it - but you may be too late to do anything about it by then as the spam folder retention is not particularly long on gmail.

    The ISPs are the only ones really in a position to do something about the problem

    No. By the time spam makes it to your ISP you've already paid for it. At that point you have to pay your ISP to accept it, analyze it, tag it, and store it. Sure, they do it all at such high volumes that the cost is pretty minimal relative to your monthly bill but the cost is not zero either. As the volume of spam goes up - and filters only cause it to go up - the cost of dealing with it goes up as well. You have to pay for your ISP to keep more storage around just to hold spam so people can check their spam folders. You have to pay for your ISP to upgrade CPUs and RAM to process spam more quickly.

    But if you like paying for spam, your ISP is happy to charge you for it.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  35. Better than Gmail spam filter by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

    I use both ISP e-mail and Gmail over IMAP with a proper e-mail client The ISP Spam filter works extremely well, always has, which is one reason I still use it. For years when someone has mentioned spam, I often said: "what is this spam thing you speak of?" For those who decry using ISP e-mail as a trap to keep you subscribed. Well perhaps, but since that ISP has had the fastest speeds and better service than any other local provide, I'm not worried that much. They did drop USENET though.

    Gmail's filter, while effective at stopping spam, has a much higher false positive rate. I think it filters BEFORE my own filters kick in, when I'd rather it filtered AFTER.

  36. Re:You have no idea how much spam hits your mailbo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cool story bro.

    I'm waiting to see what the fuck are we going to do with the e-mail protocol. It's simply an unsustainable way of communicating. My guess is that the communications field will start to divide into smaller segregated circles, such as Facebook (it's dying, but probably not fast enough to be included here), Skype etc.

  37. I'd say visi.com (Yes, 3rd party, NOT MSN) is good by smchris · · Score: 1

    I only route their daily digest to a folder because maybe every YEAR OR TWO I check for a false positive that may or may not be there.

    What gets through is always a question. If you've purchased from a company and might do so again, are their weekly, biweekly or daily ads spam? I have an extensive local filter so most ads go to an "ads" folder for more frequent removal and pure spam gets added infrequently as needed.

  38. All we have are imperfect technical solutions by sjbe · · Score: 1

    If you don't check your spam folder than you cannot make a statement of your FP rate, until someone tells you that they sent you an email and you realize you never saw it - but you may be too late to do anything about it by then as the spam folder retention is not particularly long on gmail.

    I would hear about a missed message if there were one and every once in a while I check just to be sure but my statement stands. It's good enough that I really don't feel the need to bother checking.

    No. By the time spam makes it to your ISP you've already paid for it.

    Wrong ISP. It needs to be handled by the outgoing ISP, not the incoming one. Yes it will cost money but less than later in the delivery process. You aren't going to eliminate spam but you can minimize the economic impact of it.

    In any case the notion that you are somehow going to get greedy a-holes to stop sending spam is delusional. If there is money to be made (and there always is) then the problem will persist. It is quite correct that it is an economic problem but there is no viable economic solution. All we have a imperfect technical solutions. If you have an actual solution to this problem then by all means share with the class but there is a reason why there is a form letter for people who think they have the solution for spam. This is nothing new.

    1. Re:All we have are imperfect technical solutions by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      If you don't check your spam folder than you cannot make a statement of your FP rate, until someone tells you that they sent you an email and you realize you never saw it - but you may be too late to do anything about it by then as the spam folder retention is not particularly long on gmail.

      I would hear about a missed message if there were one and every once in a while I check just to be sure but my statement stands.

      From a statistical standpoint it does not. You cannot make a statement about your false positive rate if you do nothing to evaluate it. It is like saying you don't crush any ants under your shoes on your walk in to work, made without ever looking at the sidewalk or your shoes.

      No. By the time spam makes it to your ISP you've already paid for it.

      Wrong ISP. It needs to be handled by the outgoing ISP, not the incoming one. Yes it will cost money but less than later in the delivery process.

      It doesn't matter which ISP you want to process it, you will end up paying for it regardless. Furthermore as most spam is distributed across a large number of (often compromised) mail servers anyways, it wouldn't be that useful for the ISPs who sell bandwidth to the owners of said servers to manage it.

      In any case the notion that you are somehow going to get greedy a-holes to stop sending spam is delusional. If there is money to be made (and there always is) then the problem will persist. It is quite correct that it is an economic problem but there is no viable economic solution.

      That is not true. There have been demonstrated economic solutions that have been shown effective - particularly ones that involve interrupting the flow of money to the spammers. These are not hard to implement - particularly when the vast overwhelming majority of online transactions are handled by a very short list of financial institutions - and shut down the operations quickly.

      So while indeed there are profiteering assholes making large piles of cash from being complacent towards spam, there are also players in the game who can preserve their finances by taking steps against it.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  39. Gmail by Tomahawk · · Score: 1

    Just use Gmail. The SPAM filter there is quite good. Yes, on occasion something gets through when they haven't learned it yet. Yes, on rare occasions something gets put into Spam that shouldn't (so just check your spam folder every week or so). But overall I can't complain

  40. My ISP? Verizon, really bad by bobbied · · Score: 1

    Verizon FIOS (aka Verizon broad band) has what they call "SPAM Filters" but they are pretty much worthless. It used to be pretty good, but they have apparently not managed the filters for a few years and now they are really not effective at all. It is so bad that I'm almost wondering if they actually HAVE a filter anymore, or is it just a check box on the web screen they put there to keep people from complaining....

    I've been seriously considering buying a domain and setting up my own server just so I can get some reasonable filters back, but who's got time for that? What I do now is just use GMail for everything and I just use a throw away account for most things with specific filters to forward only what I want to see and keep my *real* e-mail address for only the most important things and close friends.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:My ISP? Verizon, really bad by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      For my primary small business account, I went with KolabNow which has pretty good spam filtering. The downside is that you're going to spend $65-$95 per year on the service depending on your mailbox size. They need to cut their prices a bit or offer more storage for what they charge. They have more of an incentive to stop spam as email is their primary business.

      Running your own mail server is not worth it unless you absolutely need control over storage of the mailboxes for legal reasons. I've admin'd an Postfix/Dovecot/SA for the last decade. Setup takes 3-4 days, you have to tune it monthly for the first year, and then keep an eye on it. I estimated that we blocked about 90-95% of all inbound spam at the firewall, without too many false positives. The client-side spam filters took care of the rest.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
  41. It's garbage from my email provider. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I get email through a cheap (non-free) third-party host not affiliated with my ISP, but on a domain I own.

    The spam filter is garbage because it blocks too many important false positives like genuine financial emails and, more commonly, event tickets.

    I opted out and use one I can tune on my end. Works much better.

  42. Layme.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Guys and dolls,
    first off, its petty, stupid, and unrealistic to thing some one will manage our junk for free. Take responsibility for your self and your privacy..
    DO you really think changing ISP's is realistic?? Please pull you head out and STOP with the nonsensical New-Bie questions.. Do some research before throwing it out there..at every cost try to mitigate the the notion of the ignorance being displayed here.

    Over Lords I respectfully request, the reasoning why this was posted on here.. As this is not truly /. material. How is this News for Nerds? This seems more like a request to a community, to do research and report on the findings that should be done by the individual..

    sorry I dont work for free, nor should anyone else. Friends and family are one thing, but news 4 nerdz is another..

    What I find even more depricating, is that various people whom have lost or were never apart of the movement in the first-place, responding therefore perpetuating the ignorance, and promoting the allowance of unrelated articles like this one..

    I am sorry that you as the individual are having issues, but you cant rely on a poorly uneducated, morphed hyperboly, and misleading responses that are DERIVED FROM WHAT THIS PLACE HAS BECOME, a sess-pool of squander, and shameless advertisement.
    Over lords please pul your heads out before its too late,
    Also before the skin on your face n head metamorphiszes into the tissue that lines the inside wall of your ANUS to which it seems your head and various other appendages may be immersed in..

    I appreciate your willingness to reach out to the community, but your questions seems to have a similar amount of weight as "did I leave my car keys in the bathroom?"

    both similiar, if you stopped to ask or recheck your car keys I am sure the results would be similar..

    Thanks, my unmoderated 2 cents..

  43. My EMAIL PROVIDER'S filters work great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...almost perfect. Check out Fastmail.

  44. ISP based email? In 2015? by Skynyrd · · Score: 1

    I honestly can't remember when I last used my ISP's email address, but I think it was in the 90's.

    Why are you using it? There's not a single good reason I can think of.

  45. Great! by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    I've tried calling Verizon support a couple of times and the experience is about as pleasant and productive as banging my head on a wall.

    That's still much better than my ISP.

    Signed,
    a Canadian.

    1. Re:Great! by dskoll · · Score: 1

      Canadian, you're probably with Bell or Rogers. Yes, they suck. Try Teksavvy. They're actually pleasant to deal with.

      Disclaimer: I'm not a Teksavvy employee or shareholder, but I am a very satisfied Teksavvy customer.

    2. Re:Great! by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      I wish Teksavvy was available around here. I've known about them for years, but alas I live in a digital black hole with only one choice of ISP. They're not bad, but they're way more expensive than they should be.

  46. 100mb by stoned_ritual · · Score: 1

    ISP email is typically anemic in both storage and security. Why in hell would you ever use it?

  47. Strongly discouraged... by WoTG · · Score: 1

    I strongly discourage any friends or family that I notice are using local ISP email accounts from doing it. I wouldn't trust it to keep the good email. LOL, for a while, our local cable co was spam binning their OWN newsletter. I do a lot of work with an opt-in email newsletter, so I've monitored a test email box with the cable company for years - it's bad, bad, bad. Coincidentally, they've recently changed something, and now a lot of spam emails don't even hit the junk folder, they simply vanish.

  48. opportunity to plug my GPL'ed email server by marvinglenn · · Score: 1

    Ditto all the stuff about not using your ISPs email server.

    Personally, I'd experienced a declining state of affairs in email hosting at a price that I thought was reasonable. I eventually got to the point where I hacked together my own (receiving only) email server in Python. (Also using pieces from Django to connect to an SQL backend.) My outgoing email is sent via a cheap hosting package I have that also doubles as a backup if I have a major incoming server problem... I can just point my MX records back to them.

    https://github.com/marvinglenn/asnn-mda (Open Source licensed, free as in both speech and beer)

    I'm getting a few false positives in blocking, but that's more due to incompetent configurations by legitimate companies. For example, US Cellulars SPF records don't clear their own sending servers. A few other business, my bank in particular, use a registrar that I find to be such a spam source that I reject email merely by being registered there.

    This software is not for anyone that doesn't have at least a modicum of hacker spirit, but I've gotten it to the point where it's been extremely effective for me, hopefully not too hard to set up for others, and gives me the cathartic release of dropping F-bombs on spammers during the SMTP transaction.

    --
    The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
  49. Re:Exactly. NEVER change your email address. by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    what about the free email address your college gave you when you graduated? why aren't you using it?

  50. Yahoo spam filter works well by tomkost · · Score: 2

    I see a lot of comments here telling the OP to settup his own domain, email service and spam filter. That's a lot of work and cost. Since the OP is using ISP mail, he probably isn't wanting to go the full monty route being proposed by most respondents. Yahoo mail works pretty good. At least as far as spam filtering is concerned. I get a couple a week maybe, if that. Very few false positives as well.

    1. Re:Yahoo spam filter works well by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      I have a very old Yahoo email address, it's my name @ yahoo.com. I've never used it for actual email, I only got it because I used another Yahoo service, and it came with the package. So I've never received a "legitimate" email at that address, but I've received many thousands of spam messages. I started getting spam in my Yahoo inbox within seconds of creating it. I can only wonder if you've ever tried GMail...if you had, I don't think you'd be saying that Yahoo has a good spam filter!

  51. Free or paid e-mail provider by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see plenty of comments in favor of using Gmail, but there appears to be no love for Outlook.com (free, $20/year for no ads + more storage), Zoho (free for 5 users with personal domain) or Fastmail (paid without personal domain, about $40/year). I've pretty much used all three, right now I'm using Outlook.com as my daily driver. People give me shit for using it, but to be honest, I like it (I even paid to get rid of the advertisements). Fastmail is fast! (hence the name) I still have my paid account and tend to use it for the really important stuff. Gmail, it's good, probably not going anywhere for a while and is pretty much the defacto standard for a free 3rd party e-mail, however there is something creepy about a machine reading your mail to better serve you targeted advertisements. I only use it these days for mailing lists and sites that insist I give them an e-mail to use their service once.

  52. Random Thoughts... by NormAtHome · · Score: 1

    I don't know what platform you use but if it's Windows just use the mail client of your choice and something like ESet Smart Security which includes a really good spam filter; I have any number of customers using it and they are all very satisfied.

    As far as customer service goes, I've deal with Comcast and Verizon many many times and it's always the same. The person you're talking to seems to have no idea how to address your problem; they put you on hold multiple times while they apparently run around looking for someone who has a clue and in the end you may be transferred multiple times and after spending what seems like days on the phone you either get no help or you get disconnected. Sometimes you could swear these people are paid to be as unhelpful as possible rather than to actually help the company's customers with their problems.

    There's a really good reason Comcast was voted "Most hated company" and I'm sure that Verizon and Bank of America were runners up.

  53. Why are you here if you cant setup a VM by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

    Spend a couple bucks grab a VM buy a domain name for 10 bucks. Use google or MS if ya realy need to.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  54. This is a big problem by iplayfast · · Score: 1

    My company does emails quite often and the emails affect the bottom line of the companies they are going to. Most of the companies that they are going to are small and old, and a large portion use their isp's email. Versison has decided to mark our emails as spam. They claim they aren't etc etc.

    Isn't interfering with someones mail a federal offence?

  55. Re:You have no idea how much spam hits your mailbo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And yet, one important false positive or of tens of thousands of hits, and the whole filter is useless.

  56. Cisco IronPort by roertel · · Score: 1

    I've got an account at a small local ISP and I know that they use Cisco's IronPort spam filtering and it works great. Additionally, I pull the e-mails down and it's even got my subscriptions (newegg, local brew store, etc) categorized with some mail headers and I can procmail them into folders. I've also got Gmail (it's now $5/mo for your own domain) which works well and I have another e-mail address that I host and use spamassassin. I get a few dozen each week on the one that I host because I'm too lazy to set it up right.

  57. my ISP dont filter it by FudRucker · · Score: 1

    they send it all, spam included, i use seamonkey's junk filter which is decent enough

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  58. Do you really want by dhaen · · Score: 1

    your ISP filtering your mail? I don't, and prefer to filter my own, for completely obvious reasons.

  59. Att.net (Yahoo) is horrible. Earthlink is less so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Att.net uses Yahoo for it's email. That is really bad. Yahoo has their own targeted email spam that pops up to the top of every list. It's one of those "partner" things. To be a partner you just pay Yahoo, and they make your spam email fly to the top of the list and be undeleteable.

    Earthlink.net seems more reasonable. They have a whitelisting that works perfectly. But they require you to check your email periodically or they will "inactivate" it which causes incoming mail to bounce till you check your mail again.

  60. GMail by hduff · · Score: 1

    Create a GMail account and POP from your ISP's crappy system.

    GMail's SPAM filter is not perfect, but it's very easy to live with.

    ISP email is pretty crappy.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  61. Re:Exactly. NEVER change your email address. by tiberus · · Score: 2

    That's great unless, for anyone of a number of reasons, you don't want to be thatgeek@college.edu for the rest of your life.

    What free e-mail address? My university canned all my accounts several years after I finally got around to graduating. That's a lot of overhead for them to have to deal with I wouldn't expect that to live forever.

  62. Mail filter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My email is filter-free and gets hardly any spam. I'm just very careful which address I give to whom. I get hardly any ham either, which is fine because the world is full of dimwits unable to express themselves in email, and I don't need to watch them fail to improve in my inbox. Arrogant? Look at yourself first. What makes you think your drivel is worth my time?

    Here's what you should do: Carefully pick the people you'll exchange emails with, carefully vet them and teach them to write and format their emails properly (see RFC1855, interleaved quoting or no quoting at all, NO quoting everything, no stacking replies upon replies and expecting people to read backwards, thanks), heck, consider filtering everything that doesn't come with a valid signature from a known gpg key. Teach yourself first if you have to.

    You don't have to change all the world. Just the 150-odd people that make up your social circle. And those people only have to get their act up when talking to you, they can still herp and derp at will to the 149-odd other people in their respective social circles. You wouldn't be asking much. You should be asking though, and you're not even doing that now.

    If all y'all were a little less incompetent and a little more discerning you'd not have to ask this question.

  63. ISPs have no incentive by dskoll · · Score: 1

    ISPs have no incentive to offer spam filtering, and indeed very little incentive to even give out email addresses. Email is a huge PITA and there are plenty of free providers to choose from : Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and probably dozens of lesser-known ones.

    Also, ISPs have a pretty small profit margin on consumer service, so any costs they can cut, they will cut. So don't bother with an ISP email account.

  64. Gmail Is Not The Solution by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 1

    I have a work email, a gmail account and a couple of ISP-based accounts that I've had for years. The gmail account blocks about 85% of spam, but blocks a lot of non-spam. The big problem is that the gmail account draws a tremendous amount of spam, so the volume of garbage to look through searching for the legitimate emails that were blocked is huge. Because of this, I have given up using gmail for anything that matters. Additionally, I consistently get gmail intended for at least four people who share my uncommon last name, two of whom share my first initial and two of whom don't. Some of this is quite personal and some is financial. The bottom line is that I don't trust gmail at all anymore. All I use it for now is getting grocery store coupons My personal opinion is that webmail sucks. I know other use it happily, but I'm not one of them. Right now I'mm happy with IMAP, and I will probably switch to my own hosted solution eventually.

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
  65. Use Google - please, this is /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Use someone who cares, like this dude

    http://www.junkemailfilter.com/spam/

    1. Re:Use Google - please, this is /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, if you want to DIY, get a Digital Ocean VM and use Scrollout

      http://www.scrolloutf1.com/

  66. Re:Exactly. NEVER change your email address. by steveg · · Score: 1

    Our Computer Science alumni get to keep their email account on the departmental server. (At least until we replace that server.) Students elsewhere on campus? Not so much.

    As a matter of fact, for the last 5 years or so, non-CS students aren't provided with any university associated email address -- they have to provide their own. To be fair, this was largely because most of them already had an address of their own and weren't responding to emails sent to the campus address.

    --
    Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
  67. The self-destruction of andymadigan #1/2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "uBlock is using 33MB of RAM" - by andymadigan (792996) on Friday June 12, 2015 @10:31PM (#49902053)

    Inefficient: Hosts @ 3-11mb w/ current data & does things adblock variants can't & U RAN FROM IT http://apple.slashdot.org/comm... ).

    UBlock uses 63++ MB & AdBlock = 128mb++ -> http://www.ghacks.net/2014/06/...

    SCREENSHOT -> http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...

    BEST UBlock's done = 38mb/ABP = 64mb -> http://www.extremetech.com/wp-... From http://www.extremetech.com/wp-...

    * See 'p.s.' below - Says all (& I didn't do the saying!)

    ---

    "which blocks more ads? Answer: uBlock/Adblock" by andymadigan (792996) on Sunday June 14, 2015 @12:04AM (#49907001)

    WRONG - "Almost ALL Ads Blocked"'s PAID NOT TO by default-> http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/...

    &

    ABP too http://finance.yahoo.com/news/...

    UBlock/Adblock = far less efficient on CPU & RAM (added messagepassing, SLOW usermode vs. hosts in kernelmode) & NEITHER does a fraction of what hosts do in more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity.

    ---

    "your system blocks fewer ads" by andymadigan (792996) on Sunday June 14, 2015 @12:04AM (#49907001)

    See above: + hosts do MORE w/ less via 1st link above!

    ---

    "I'm more than happy to spend an extra 1% of my computer's power to block far more ads than your shitty idea" by andymadigan (792996) on Sunday June 14, 2015 @12:04AM (#49907001)

    You're 'happy' being illogical & stupid?

    AdBlock's 4++gb & 100% CPU use inefficiency -> https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth...

    +

    ClarityRay defeats it & NOT hosts (clarityray BLOCKS addons via native browser methods).

    ---

    YOU started it -> http://apple.slashdot.org/comm... & here too http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

    I finished YOU WITH IT all above!

    APK

    P.S.=> Howard Stark in "Capt. America" - hosts (Cap's Shield) vs. AdBlock & variants (steel):

    "It's stronger than steel & 1/3rd the weight"

    "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" & "eat your words"

    ... apk

  68. The self-destruction of andymadigan #2/2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Chrome has thankfully started warning users who try to download it." - by andymadigan (792996) on Sunday June 14, 2015 @03:48PM (#49909947)

    Google's going to have a tough time explaining away multiple PROOFS below that my ware's COMPLETELY CLEAN:

    MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee who also has the source & verified it safe too) hosts & recommends it -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... & MalwareBytes = BEST antivirus per this VERY recent testing of them all http://www.av-test.org/en/news...

    &

    It's GUARANTEED safe & clean per it being checked by 57 antivirus programs recently in BOTH its 64-bit model https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

    +

    In its 32-bit model also https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

    * :)

    In case you hadn't noticed it, like when you made your PUNY THREATS effetely *trying* to "blackmail me" on Hilton Hotels here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ?

    (which I could give 2 fucks about, I made the money already on a successfully done large scale project with them on contract)

    I SMOKED YOU TOTALLY @ EVERY TURN, & who started it twice here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... AND HERE TOO http://apple.slashdot.org/comm... saying "I should die painfully" etc. - et al?

    You failed badly on all accounts.

    APK

    P.S.=> Especially funny is that you work for CLOUDWORDS (an advertiser affiliate of Marketo) which tips your hand & PROVED YOUR ILL MOTIVES for your stupidity, running away from this most of all -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

    ... apk

  69. E-Mail posting problems by jraff2 · · Score: 1

    I too have had several pieces of E-Mail that came in to my mailbox, but when I attempt to send the exact same E-Mail Verizon declares it spam. I have called and talked to Verizon on this issue several times with no effect. The help people say to send the E-Mail to; spamdetector.update@verizon.net A lot of good that does, as in NOTHING!!! I had to use another E-Mail provider to get around the issues.

  70. My ISP even has a spam filter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My ISP even has a spam filter? That's news to me.

    Whilst many have pointed out that you should never use your ISP's "free" email address, and I wholeheartedly agree with this, my ISP sends me important notifications to the email address they provided for me and I can't change it. As a result I check it every 6 months or so.

    I have never, not even once, typed this email address into a form - so luckily I don't get spam to it, other than the spam that my ISP send themselves.

    Knowing other people who do use their email addresses from this ISP however, there is little to no spam filtering at all on their email service.

  71. Stupid is as stupid does... by Spankalot · · Score: 1

    Another stupid slasdot piece of drivel.. Go ask your 10 year old how to get rid of spam. or load up your own linux server, become your own isp and can your own spam.... FFS is this the most interesting thing we can post on here?

  72. Don't use ISP email by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    see title

  73. Re:Exactly. NEVER change your email address. by KGIII · · Score: 1

    I do not because it seems like bragging when I do use it. I still use it for contact with old friends and professors. I also still subscribe to some of their mailing lists. I have to wonder if the primary purpose of the mailing lists is to get me to donate money for my alumni but I donate anyways even though they certainly have lots of money. Anyhow, it seems like I am bragging if I use my .edu address. I was fortunate enough to have graduated from a prestigious school and posting such seems to detract from discourse as I (I have used it in the past and learned my lesson) am asked about the school, how I got in, what I majored in, what my degrees are in, etc... So I have learned not to post it as it, as I have mentioned, is not productive.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  74. wow, slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this turning into computers for dummies? Go do your division by zero homework.

  75. Two words by spongman · · Score: 1

    Dreamhost

    Spambayes

  76. Bad advice by hackertourist · · Score: 1

    I see a number of highly-rated comments recommending using Google for mail rather than the ISP's mail service.
    This surprises me, given the privacy implications. I can reasonably assume my ISP won't read my mail other than for spam filtering. Google, on the other hand, will use your mail as input for their advertising machine.

  77. Very effective by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

    How Effective Is Your ISP's Spam Filter?

    So effective I didn't see this

    --

    Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  78. Re:Exactly. NEVER change your email address. by nmr_andrew · · Score: 1

    As best I can tell, many colleges and universities do indeed offer a free e-mail address to alumni. Most of the ones I'm aware of cost the institution nearly nothing and don't have much overhead. I'll note that very few of these actually host your email - they do indeed can your student account within a fairly short time of graduation. Instead, they'll provide you with a permanent address, usually of the form user@alumnus.college.edu, that is really just an alias/relay that forwards to your choice of email account. Of course, you have to figure out how to set your return address correctly, but this can be useful because if and when you change your "real" email provider for any reason you just need to log in to the alumni server, update your preferred email address, and don't need to ask all of your contacts to update your information themselves.

  79. Re:How to choose?! Not sure. DMARC-providers maybe by allo · · Score: 1

    dmarc tells you about false positive, not false negative. if you send mail from a dmarc server, it will be more likely to reach its target.