E-Mail Filters Added to Prevent Spam
E-Mail Filters Added to Prevent Spam
Background |
| On November 6, 1997, someone used Show-Me Net's system to deliver a large amount of spam e-mail. Most (if not all) of it was for delivery to people unaffiliated with Show-Me Net. Our system received over 1000 messages that bounced because of a bad address. We also received a dozen or so messages from individuals who complained that our system was being used to send unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE). |
| We consider this a theft of our resources. It certainly bogged down our system and caused our system administrator lots of grief. At http://spam.abuse.net/ you can learn a lot more about spam and find advise of what you can do. If you don't like receiving junk e-mail, we strongly recommend their advice on how to complain to the spammer's provider. |
New filters to reduce e-mail "spam" (unsolicited commercial e-mail) |
On August 13, 1999, we imposed stronger e-mail filtering rules aimed at reducing "spam" to our members. Previously we had refused to relay third party e-mail but we would accept any and all e-mail to our members. We have received more complaints from our members about the junk e-mail they are receiving. We have also noted that its volume has increased. We will reject any e-mail to our members that does not have a valid domain name on the "From" line. We will also check a list of known e-mail spammers and will refuse to deliver mail from such sites. We don't think these changes will adversely affect our members unless you are someone who likes to receive mail about "get rich quick" schemes or where to see x-rated images. These new filtering rules will not prevent all unwanted e-mail but we expect it will reduce it. Such filters are becoming more common on other Internet servers and are part of efforts to fight the scourge of spam by reducing its effectiveness. |
Filters may cause problems
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| These filter rules may cause some legitimate messages to be rejected. For example, if you travel outside the local region, you can connect to some other Internet Access Provider (IAP). E-mail you then send through Show-Me Net's mail server is no longer locally generated. If it is addressed to someone outside of Show-Me Net, it will be returned with a "relaying denied" message. If you have problems sending a message from outside our network, you can change the SMTP server to that of the IAP you are using. Please send a message to Helpdesk@showme.net with a copy of any rejected message if you have problems. Be sure to include all message headers. |
Expire Mail changes |
In the past we have allowed members to keep e-mail on our server indefinitely. All e-mail programs can remove mail from the server after reading it. But, by design or accident we see that some people have not done so. As part of the move to the new machine, we will remove all e-mail on our server that is more than 60 days old. We will continue to "expire old mail" on a regular basis. If you wish to keep mail longer than 60 days, it will be necessary for you to save a copy on your computer. In fact, most people regularly do this. |
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This page was last modified April 24, 2003 |
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http://www.showme.net/filters.htm |