I'd like to see this as an optional, configurable feature that can be turned off for selected users.
Quick questions: How are they creating accounts on your server? Have you considered a slight pain in the butt option of having your outbound mail hit a gateway like IMGATE that would help stop the outbound spam? I know it would be more work for you but better than being black listed. Marc -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Godwin Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2004 10:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [IMail Forum] Can't stop spammers using scripts in webmail I researched this forum before making this post and I couldn't find any previous post on this exact problem. iMail said they will not implement my "feature" suggestion unless they receive many requests from iMail customers to implement my suggestion. So here it goes... NEW IMAIL FEATURE: Restrict the number of outgoing emails that can be sent during a time period (i.e. a day) by a user account (not just by an IP address) to prevent spammers from using scripts in webmail or otherwise. DECLUDE HIJACK: I don't see why iMail's customers have to spend $249 to another company that has created a semi-workaround for a much needed fix ("new feature") for the iMail product. (NOTE: We use Declued JunkMail and its great) Buying Declude Hijack will not solve our problem because from reading this iMail forum I have learned that Hijack works by blocking the IP address rather then the user account (or so it seems). The Declude website on their Hijack product does not explain its method of blocking. In our escalating arms race with these spammers they now use scripts that fill out the webmail compose page. We didn't figure this out, iMail tech support did after we sent them our massive log files. The spammers are sending upwards of 30,000 emails a day per user account using this method. Email sent via webmail uses the same IP address as anybody else using webmail. Declude Hijack would end up blocking the IP address of our webmail IP so that nobody could send mail using webmail. If Declude Hijack did it by user account instead of IP (or as an option) I think it would work. Even then I think iMail should be responsible for this and not have to depend on Declude for a workaround. The specific problem comes from spammers using scripts to post to the compose page of webmail. Declude and SMTP see the webmail IP address of our webmail server (and/or 127.0.0.1) and not the specific IP address of the user's internet connection. Am I wrong? Is there another workaround? IMail tech support tells us there is not. NEVER ENDING LOOSING BATTLE TO SPAM BLACKLISTS. This creates a never ending battle that we loose each day with dozens of spammers creating new accounts all day long and spamming from our webmail until we shut them down. It is a loosing battle that we will NEVER win until iMail implements the feature of restricting the number of emails that can be sent from an account each day. Ipswitch.com is irresponsible with its iMail product by having absolutely no way to restrict the number of emails sent by an account each day. Fight spammers don't help them. For example Hotmail.com and Yahoo.com restrict the number of outgoing emails as do many others and they should. Everything I have read and researched says that everybody restricts the number of outgoing emails per day per account to a maximum of 100. But iMail doesn't, spammers must hunt for iMail servers knowing they can exploit them in this manner. You can't shake the spammers once they have found you. This means anybody using the iMail product is a sitting duck to being black listed in numerous SPAM lists (check your mail server at dnsstuff.com) and it will only get worse. We are listed in six and counting. Because we are now in SPAMCOP we can't send legitimate email to a number of mail servers. The iMail product becomes degraded over time as more mail servers block all email from us as being spam. We can not pay to hire several people to monitor the log files all day long to see who is sending out thousands of spam emails again from their new webmail account using scripts, we delete their account and wait an hour to catch them spamming again from another new account. There seems to be no way of stopping this kind of spammer and iMail says there isn't either. They come in from various Class C IP addresses so blocking them from the firewall doesn't work either. They must be low wage monkeys trained how to do this to keep the spam flowing until they have rendered the iMail server's IP address useless via spam lists. HOW TO GET THIS FEATURE IMPLEMENTED INTO THE NEXT VERSION OF IMAIL: I see this more as design flaw rather then as a "new feature". iMail is contributing to the growing SPAM problem of the world and it renders their product unusable with time when one single "new feature" can cure the whole issue. iMail tech support has told me that the only way this feature will be implemented is if "lots" of iMail customers send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (as in not this forum discussion, only by email to this address) requesting. "New iMail Feature: Restrict the number of outgoing emails that can be sent during a time period (i.e. a day) by a user account (not just by an IP address) to prevent spammers from using scripts in webmail or otherwise.". iMail says if enough people ask for it iMail development will "move it to the top of their list of new features" for the next iMail update release. Stop spammers and email IPswitch asking them for this iMail feature if you want to save your mail server from being blacklisted if it isn't already. Rick Godwin President Snowboard.com 565,000+ iMail user accounts iMail customer for 4 years. 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