On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:22:03 +0000, David
wrote:

In article , martin
writes
So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no spam on that
mail box?

I don't know, unless something else has changed but it is a fact that
the spammers don't send from valid addresses (unless they're using an
unsuspecting host) they really *don't* see any replies (bounced or
otherwise).
The bit about they only use valid email addresses, well, they would say
that anyway wouldn't they
When the huge increase in junk started a while back I set up the
rejection rules to bounce most of it but it's still coming, 138 rejected
this morning with 7 getting through, I'm continually reviewing the rules
to fine tune.
One of the most popular addresses is which
is an easy one to block, I reject anything from aol and yahoo plus a few
smaller ones and unrecognised email names. I must admit there is a small
amount of satisfaction is seeing stuff bounced, is that sad?

Don't Demon offer a spam tagging service David?

How does that work Martin? I've had a text chat with them and they
didn't mention it, they suggested bouncing or deleting but were very
sorry there was nothing they could do...

Some ISPs have software that identifies 99.999% of spam.
The ISP inserts ***SPAM*** in front of the subject. On your PC you set
up a filter to either store ***SPAM*** messages in a folder, until you
are confident that they don't mark good messages as spam. Later if you
like you can filter ***SPAM***messages to be deleted directly. At work
all SPAM is removed before we see it, so we have no way of knowing if
we sometimes lose messages.

Some ISPs seem a bit reluctant to publicise this option. I pay a euro
a month extra for it.

Clara, Gradwell and BTopenworld are amongst the UK ISPs that offer
Spam tagging.

In NL Planet and Wanadoo both offer the service.

Demon appears to believe that Spam tagging is not possible

http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/spam/index.shtml
"Why doesn't Demon filter my email messages for UCE?

Filtering email, to discard the unwanted junk, often sounds like an
attractive option and indeed some people find that systems installed
on their own machines and tweaked for their own situation can work
very well. However, there are very significant challenges in setting
up a centralised system for a customer base as diverse as Demon's and
providing assurances that no-one's legitimate email will be discarded
by mistake.

We are also mindful that filtering is essentially a stop-gap solution
and that the "spammers" are already modifying their material to make
it harder and harder to distinguish from legitimate email. To fight
back, filters become more and more "fuzzy" and this increases the risk
of blocking the email that our customers want to receive.

Demon has investigated email blocking solutions and at present we do
not believe that we could offer a general system that would be
suitable for customers. However, this is not a final judgement, and we
will continue to monitor what is available as systems are improved and
updated."

Perhaps it's time for Demon users to put pressure on Demon to do a
real investigation.


--
Martin