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Spam and SpamAssassin |
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Questions:
What is The WELL's policy on spam?
Answers: What is The WELL's policy on spam? The WELL does not permit the sending of unsolicited bulk commercial email or spam from a WELL account, nor will we sell or rent addresses for any purpose. We provide SpamAssassin, a robust and powerful tool to identify and tag suspected spam for easier deletion using your email filter program. What is SpamAssassin? SpamAssassin is a UNIX server mail application used to identify and tag spam. It uses a series of rules to analyze each piece of incoming email and then assign a score to that mail based on its characteristics. The higher the score assigned, the more likely that mail is spam. Once a certain threshold is reached for a given piece of mail, SpamAssassin tags the mail as being probably spam. SpamAssassin handles spam tagging by adding several headers to each piece of mail identified as spam, and by prepending a special identifying string to the subject line of each such message. (On The WELL, the string "(SPAM?)" will be prefixed to the subject line.) The headers and subject line can then be used, if you wish, by your mail client to sort probable spam for special handling. Why does The WELL start by tagging spam instead of deleting it? SpamAssassin is a powerful tool, but it identifies suspected spam by its contents. It will probably correctly identify and mark from 80 to 95% of the spam you receive. However, some legitimate mail is likely to be tagged as probable spam, and some spam is likely to slide through untagged because it is written to look more like regular email. We recommend a cursory inspection of all email before you delete it. However, if you decide to trust the tool, read on. How do I filter (sort) email tagged as "(SPAM?)"? If, rather than simply hand-deleting email that is tagged as "(SPAM?)"from your Inbox, you'd like to put all it into a separate spambox folder to review later, use the filter instructions for your email program. How do I delete all email tagged as "(SPAM?)"? When you inspect your spambox, rescue any mistakenly tagged mail then delete the rest. We recommend you monitor your filtered spam carefully at first, to be certain that desired mail is not being caught. If you are willing to trust the program, various mail programs will allow you to delete all email that arrives tagged as "(SPAM?)" rather than to save it to a spambox for your inspection. How do I obliterate email tagged as "(SPAM?)" so that it never even reaches my mailbox? If you've monitored your (SPAM?)-tagged mail for a while and you've decided to trust SpamAssassin to identify your spam correctly, you can adjust the settings on the Utilities Configuration Page to delete mail that scores above a level you select. For example, set the Delete Threshold at 9 and move the Scoring Threshold down to 4, and your (SPAM?)-tagged mail will all have scores between 4 and 9. You will never again download anything with a score of over 9. If instead you set your Delete Threshold to match the Scoring Threshold, The WELL will delete any mail that SpamAssassin scores at or above your Scoring Threshold, and not send any tagged as "(SPAM?)." NOTE: Mail deleted in this way is not recoverable! How do I find out why a particular message was tagged as "(SPAM?)" Take a look at the full header of the email to see the strikes against email that is tagged as "(SPAM?)". To analyze the email's header, first you must open it up. Most email programs hide most of the header's content, but here are the instructions for displaying the headers in some of the more popular programs. Displaying full headers in POP email readers:
Displaying full headers in UNIX email readers:
In the full header, you will see "X-Spam-Status: Yes", the number of spam "points" it received, and below the line marked "Start SpamAssassin results" you can see a list of the weighted "Hits" received by the email. For more information about how SpamAssassin works, log in to the Spam Conference on The WELL or see the SpamAssassin site. Where is the Utilities Page where I can fine-tune SpamAssassin? Use the Utilities Configuration Page. How can I "blacklist" specific addresses and always tag them as spam? If you frequently get unwanted mail from a particular address you can put that address in the "black list" on the Utilities Configuration Page and it will be tagged as spam. How can I "whitelist" specific addresses to prevent them from being tagged? If there are emails you never want tagged as spam, you can put the address they come from in the "white list" by using the Utilities Configuration Page. How can I prevent my mail — including spam — from being tagged? If unwanted mail is not a problem for you, you can either ignore the (SPAM?) tags or set the threshold for spam tagging to 500. If you input that setting, no messages will be tagged. To configure your SpamAssassin filter with a threshold of 500, log into the Utilites Configuration Page. I forward my WELL mail elsewhere. Will SpamAssassin tag it first? No, normal forwarded mail will be untouched. If you do want to forward email to another address yet still get the benefit of SpamAssassin processing at the WELL, you must use an advanced feature called "procmail" to perform your forwarding. See the Spam Conference on The WELL for advanced peer support of procmail files. How can I get suspected viruses tagged, too? SpamAssassin is not a virus/worm detection utility. It provides no built-in way to detect viruses/worms. However, The WELL does perform basic scanning for those executable attachments likely to carry mail-borne viruses or worms in much the same way as spam tagging is performed. Go to the Utilities Configuration Page to see what we do for all mail, and to set up additional tests for your mail if desired. This is not a full substitute for having a virus protection program on, and keeping your computer "patched" with security updates. I set up a SPAMBOX to receive filtered spam. How can I find it so I can delete the spam there? If you set up such a a mailbox in your POP email program on your home computer, you should find it among those mailboxes. If you used a program to set up a folder called SPAMBOX in your home directory on well.com, the folder is either in your home directory, or a subdirectory there named "Mail" or "mail" where your other mail files reside. See the Filtering Out the Spam page to learn more about filtering with particular mail programs. The Spam Conference is the place to ask for specific help from others who use WELL mail programs just the way you do. How did spammers get my name? Spammers have many ways of finding email addresses. Here are a few:
Since SpamAssassin is not 100% effective, be aware of activities that may increase your spam volume. Can I get a new WELL email address? If you'd like to change your WELL email address, you can either:
For Further Information... For information about The WELL or for WELL Customer Support, contact: WELL HelpDesk
email: helpdesk@well.com for more information about The WELL and WELL Customer Support. |
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