I use SpamAssassin and I have a pretty low threshold. Anything with a score of 4 or more gets flagged as spam and held in a separate spam folder. 5 or more is the recommended threshold for spam. Anything with a score of 7 or more gets permanently deleted. So even if you get a lot of spam, I think you really only need to review the messages that are near the threshold.
Maybe this version will be the charm, the one that recognizes my network card and display card and monitor at the same time, so that I can use it to connect to my LAN and the Internet, and also see what I'm doing at the same time! Am I the only one who has tried FreeBSD and had terrible luck with it recognizing and configuring key pieces of hardware? I am surprised that anyone runs FreeBSD (or cares) considering how well the major Linux distributions handle the recognition of such a wide variety of hardware devices. Of course, I'm going to try FreeBSD, because I would really like to see it work on one of my machines. Will I be able to get GNOME compiled from the Ports collection this time? It's always interesting to see, but usually disappointing too!
I see some benefit in this new filesystem that Microsoft is working on, such as the ability to distribute files across servers using the same technology that lets you distribute database records now, but I think the real reason they want this filesystem is to break compatibility with Samba in a major way. This does not sound like it is going to be something that will be easy to duplicate with Open Source software.
I try each stable release of FreeBSD and I am continually disappointed by its very limited hardware support. Network cards and display hardware cause me the most problems. I think it's going to continue to be a fringe system until its hardware support improves. Is there any way that they can draw on the excellent hardware support that the top Linux distributions have?
It's too bad that it doesn't have a better installation program. It doesn't have to be nice and graphical like RedHat or Mandrake, but a more capable installation program would be much appreciated.
The Ports collection just doesn't work very well. I wish there was an easier way to select groups of packages that are commonly used together. Again, something that's more like one of the better Linux distributions.
This is such a cool unit. Verizon is going to be in some serious trouble with customer defections if they don't carry this phone. Whenever a cool new phone comes out, I wonder what Verizon is thinking by not carrying it? The only good thing about them is their coverage area.
There's no reason to pass on virus messages if they were generated automatically, as opposed to the old fashioned viruses that piggy-backed on document files.
Do you think that systems should send bounce messages back when spam messages are detected? That creates a lot of useless traffic. If the message is spammy enough, it should be silently ignored. Otherwise, the intended recipient should get a chance to decide for themselves if they want to receive it.
I don't think the cure is worse than the disease. If your message is important enough that need confirmation that it was received, you can use some other method to achieve confirmation. Or you can follow-up if action is not taken on your message. That is one thing that these stupid antivirus software companies have done inadvertantly: they killed the reliability of e-mail by spamming people with bounce messages that should only be used in real cases of undeliverable legitimate mail.
I wish there was such a way for residential customers to get static IPs for a reasonable price if they want or need one, but I think that time has long passed.
There's no real need to block incoming port 25 since most are using dynamic IPs. I would prefer to see the ISPs not block port 25 outgoing unless it was abused. I would consider abuse the sending of 20 or more messages per minute.
Since the sender is an automated, malicious program with no mail reception capabilities, I do not understand how you could get in trouble by filtering these messages.
I personally think it's a good thing for ISPs to block port 25 outbound access for their customers. That block does not stop customers from checking their corporate e-mail with POP, IMAP, or HTTP; and those customers can send outgoing e-mail using the ISPs SMTP server. The ISPs can then virus scan the outgoing e-mail on their SMTP server and block any virus infected messages, especially virus messages like SoBig where the entire message was auto-generated illegitimate content.
I agree with the other person who replied: the software is just lame. It was designed during a time when viruses piggy backed on legitimate files and there might have been some small amount of merit to informing the sender that they sent a virus. With the latest round of viruses, there is absolutely no point to sending a bounce message back to the sender, because 1) the from address is forged, and 2) the messages are pure auto-generated virus with absolutely no legitimate content.
Okay, sorry, I get it. I'm surprised that they let you connect to outside POP/IMAP servers. To get around this, maybe you can use one of those e-mail services that will let you get your POP messages and view them through a Web page.
I've written to some of the people whose systems spew these bounce messages to complain. One of their admin's first told me that it was helpful in cases where people send a file that has a piggyback attachment. Ya, how often is that the case, 1 in 100000 times nowadays? Then he later said that it was good to inform people that there's a virus out there pretending to be from them. Ya, even if that's true, then send me a single bounce message, not 1000 of them!
Either the antivirus software has to get a lot smarter about which viruses fake the headers (and not send bounce messages in those cases), or there needs to be a netiquette against sending bounce messages for virus infected messages in all cases, or these antivirus companies that produce this crappy software need to be added to SPEWS. I am really sick of this problem personally.
Sadly, I don't really think that would make a difference. People would be upset, feel betrayed and violated, but that would not motivate the companies responsible for the problems to do anything about it.
The ISPs can implement a limit on the number of messages that each customer can send per day, say 100. I think it's reasonable for this kind of limits on residential customers.
I agree that server-based virus scanners need to get more intelligent with what they do with infected e-mail messages. With some viruses like SoBig there is no use in disinfecting a message and then passing on the cleaned messages to the intended recipient. There are some viruses where this might be useful, especially if only one of many attachments was infected, or if the virus scanner was able to clean the infected file. With most of the recent viruses I can think of, though, the message is automated trash that should be thrown away.
Right, the default in version 2.55 is to run in Bayes and network mode. SA will actually run in Bayes and network mode as soon as its Bayes classifier has learned enough messages. It's going to start out in network mode, and quickly switch to Bayes and network mode. Since the scores in the 2nd and 4th positions of the default "score RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM 0.0 0.552 0.0 0.864" line are non-zero, that means that SA will run this test in its default configuration, whether it's currently operating in either network, or network and Bayes mode. So either way, you need to set the score for this test to zero to disable it.
I do not like SPEWS's policy of using collateral damage in order to indirectly pressure ISP's to remove spammers. I do like their aggressive policy of adding spammers to blocklists. For these reasons, I was happy when they split their listings into the Level 1 list (known spewers only) and the Level 2 list (lists bigger blocks for political/pressure purposes). Osirusoft was using their Level 1 list, and I found it helpful to use osirusoft. Having relays.osirusoft.com at the end of my list of chosen RBL's (list.dsbl.org, dnsbl.njabl.org, sbl.spamhaus.org, bl.spamcop.net, and blackholes.easynet.nl) didn't leave much spam for their list to catch though.
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I use SpamAssassin and I have a pretty low threshold. Anything with a score of 4 or more gets flagged as spam and held in a separate spam folder. 5 or more is the recommended threshold for spam. Anything with a score of 7 or more gets permanently deleted. So even if you get a lot of spam, I think you really only need to review the messages that are near the threshold.
Maybe this version will be the charm, the one that recognizes my network card and display card and monitor at the same time, so that I can use it to connect to my LAN and the Internet, and also see what I'm doing at the same time! Am I the only one who has tried FreeBSD and had terrible luck with it recognizing and configuring key pieces of hardware? I am surprised that anyone runs FreeBSD (or cares) considering how well the major Linux distributions handle the recognition of such a wide variety of hardware devices. Of course, I'm going to try FreeBSD, because I would really like to see it work on one of my machines. Will I be able to get GNOME compiled from the Ports collection this time? It's always interesting to see, but usually disappointing too!
I see some benefit in this new filesystem that Microsoft is working on, such as the ability to distribute files across servers using the same technology that lets you distribute database records now, but I think the real reason they want this filesystem is to break compatibility with Samba in a major way. This does not sound like it is going to be something that will be easy to duplicate with Open Source software.
Wrong, these drives run very hot. Make sure that you have very good ventilation in your system.
It's too bad that it doesn't have a better installation program. It doesn't have to be nice and graphical like RedHat or Mandrake, but a more capable installation program would be much appreciated.
The Ports collection just doesn't work very well. I wish there was an easier way to select groups of packages that are commonly used together. Again, something that's more like one of the better Linux distributions.
There's probably a much better chance of your being tracked via your cell phone than because of any RFID tags.
This is such a cool unit. Verizon is going to be in some serious trouble with customer defections if they don't carry this phone. Whenever a cool new phone comes out, I wonder what Verizon is thinking by not carrying it? The only good thing about them is their coverage area.
Do you think that systems should send bounce messages back when spam messages are detected? That creates a lot of useless traffic. If the message is spammy enough, it should be silently ignored. Otherwise, the intended recipient should get a chance to decide for themselves if they want to receive it.
I don't think the cure is worse than the disease. If your message is important enough that need confirmation that it was received, you can use some other method to achieve confirmation. Or you can follow-up if action is not taken on your message. That is one thing that these stupid antivirus software companies have done inadvertantly: they killed the reliability of e-mail by spamming people with bounce messages that should only be used in real cases of undeliverable legitimate mail.
There's no real need to block incoming port 25 since most are using dynamic IPs. I would prefer to see the ISPs not block port 25 outgoing unless it was abused. I would consider abuse the sending of 20 or more messages per minute.
Or nullroute the IP address of the last sender that's not a trusted relay.
Since the sender is an automated, malicious program with no mail reception capabilities, I do not understand how you could get in trouble by filtering these messages.
I personally think it's a good thing for ISPs to block port 25 outbound access for their customers. That block does not stop customers from checking their corporate e-mail with POP, IMAP, or HTTP; and those customers can send outgoing e-mail using the ISPs SMTP server. The ISPs can then virus scan the outgoing e-mail on their SMTP server and block any virus infected messages, especially virus messages like SoBig where the entire message was auto-generated illegitimate content.
I agree with the other person who replied: the software is just lame. It was designed during a time when viruses piggy backed on legitimate files and there might have been some small amount of merit to informing the sender that they sent a virus. With the latest round of viruses, there is absolutely no point to sending a bounce message back to the sender, because 1) the from address is forged, and 2) the messages are pure auto-generated virus with absolutely no legitimate content.
Okay, sorry, I get it. I'm surprised that they let you connect to outside POP/IMAP servers. To get around this, maybe you can use one of those e-mail services that will let you get your POP messages and view them through a Web page.
F-Prot software has a trial version. I like it. I dont know if it's the best but it works very well for me. I'll probably end up buying it.
More like a brain-dead admin for not scanning your incoming e-mail and blocking the viruses.
Either the antivirus software has to get a lot smarter about which viruses fake the headers (and not send bounce messages in those cases), or there needs to be a netiquette against sending bounce messages for virus infected messages in all cases, or these antivirus companies that produce this crappy software need to be added to SPEWS. I am really sick of this problem personally.
You can use the DNSRBL china.blackholes.us
Sadly, I don't really think that would make a difference. People would be upset, feel betrayed and violated, but that would not motivate the companies responsible for the problems to do anything about it.
The ISPs can implement a limit on the number of messages that each customer can send per day, say 100. I think it's reasonable for this kind of limits on residential customers.
That will be an excellent and much appreciated addition to this excellent database. FP
I agree that server-based virus scanners need to get more intelligent with what they do with infected e-mail messages. With some viruses like SoBig there is no use in disinfecting a message and then passing on the cleaned messages to the intended recipient. There are some viruses where this might be useful, especially if only one of many attachments was infected, or if the virus scanner was able to clean the infected file. With most of the recent viruses I can think of, though, the message is automated trash that should be thrown away.
Right, the default in version 2.55 is to run in Bayes and network mode. SA will actually run in Bayes and network mode as soon as its Bayes classifier has learned enough messages. It's going to start out in network mode, and quickly switch to Bayes and network mode. Since the scores in the 2nd and 4th positions of the default "score RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM 0.0 0.552 0.0 0.864" line are non-zero, that means that SA will run this test in its default configuration, whether it's currently operating in either network, or network and Bayes mode. So either way, you need to set the score for this test to zero to disable it.
I think that the default is to run in network mode, so you do need to disable the Osirusoft tests if you do not want their blocklist consulted by SA.
I do not like SPEWS's policy of using collateral damage in order to indirectly pressure ISP's to remove spammers. I do like their aggressive policy of adding spammers to blocklists. For these reasons, I was happy when they split their listings into the Level 1 list (known spewers only) and the Level 2 list (lists bigger blocks for political/pressure purposes). Osirusoft was using their Level 1 list, and I found it helpful to use osirusoft. Having relays.osirusoft.com at the end of my list of chosen RBL's (list.dsbl.org, dnsbl.njabl.org, sbl.spamhaus.org, bl.spamcop.net, and blackholes.easynet.nl) didn't leave much spam for their list to catch though.