> > I'm not saying "don't filter." I'm saying "Filter based on the results of > several tests, rather than just one." By doing so, you are guarantee fewer > false positives. And, if you want, you can find out exactly how many false > positives there are. >
Scott, Isn't the only way to determine if there are false positives to accept and review each email? As was mentioned before this is a huge waste of resources IMHO, though I agree that it is probably the right approach for some. We have clients who have been to the point of swearing off email due to the volume of spam which remains an issue if they still have to review emails marked as spam and doesn't solve their dilemma very well. But it's okay with me if others handle it that way. I guess I don't understand what the big deal is if somebody takes a different approach. The examples that I've seen thrown out in this debate are extremes. I don't know of any competent administrators that block entire countries for all their clients. Also, in my experience, the only people that use spews understand the ramifications and are typically very vocal, do it (at least in part) as a political statement, and run political, non-profit, or gaming driven websites. Most of us don't block based on dynamic ip allocation (although I can see why we should). Most of us use criteria that no mail server anywhere should fail. If an email gets rejected from our server it should get rejected. I don't mean that in a BOFH kind of way I mean that the email is either spam or there are serious mis-configuration issues on the other end. Either way, we and our clients understand the risk of false positives and for everybody that has chosen to use our filter (it is an optional service) the benefits of not having to deal with the spam far outweigh the possibility of false positives. If you and you're clients feel differently I am okay with that. The one issue that I do completely agree on is that the rejections that the sender of a false positive gets vary wildly depending on their email server. Despite returning a detailed message to their server, this is the bounce that a 'false positive' (really a mis-nomer as this server was blacklisted and was an open relay) recieved last week: Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients. Subject: xxxxxxx Sent: 8/14/03 11:02 AM The following recipient(s) could not be reached: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 8/14/03 11:02 AM The recipient name is not recognized The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=US;a= ;p=xxxxxxx;l=EXCHANGE-030814150145Z-82 The sender had no idea why the message had been rejected. You know what though, I'm okay with that. I realize that some people may not be and I'm okay with that too. I guess my feeling on the whole thing could be summed up as being that any approach is okay so long as you communicate clearly with your clients about it. Regards, Bruce To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
