jefft
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Posts posted by jefft
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I just tried switching my setup back to popgate manually to see if that works.
Thanks for your calm and measured response, Steven.
Looking at your account, it appears that we are not able to POP your Yahoo using the old popgate. I see the same error that everyone else was getting. We can login, but not actually retrieve any emails.
Do you see any Yahoo mails being POPped? Do you think that it was working a couple of days ago, right before we made the switch?
I see that the new system has stopped. We are going to restart it and put in monitoring to make sure it stays running. That is why nobody can connect right now.
JT
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Following up to myself, I have now read the greylisting white paper
http://greylisting.org/articles/whitepaper.shtml
and this does use sending server IP addresses as well as From:
Can we have a reference to the details of the actual implementation ?
I also note that there was only one greylisting delay to my forwarded mail, perhaps because
the forwarding ISP inserts the same Return-Path: irrespective of the actual From:
Which is good but may provide a loophole.
Yes, we have an implementation very much like the reference implementation. There is a triplet of sender email address, connecting IP address, and recipient email address that we use to make decisions. We are currently using a 30 minute delay for newly discovered triplets.
Petzl asked why spam is still getting through and it is simply because the spammers are retrying. For spammers willing to retry, this method doesn't help at all. However, there is evidence that a large number of spammers do not retry.
JT
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Since all of Yahoo was failing anyway on the old server, we've moved everyone who was trying to POP yahoo over to the new popgate2.cesmail.net server. I haven't heard of any problems so far with our small beta test. We'll be monitoring the new server to make sure it seems to be functioning correctly.
JT
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FWIW, I forward all of my email accounts to my SpamCop mail and since I started graylisting, I've seen only 10-15% of the normal spam levels. This could be coincidence, but it's been consistent.
And I presume you're getting all of your good mail.
This is interesting. I'd like to see more data. If this holds up, there is a possible explanation. Email from new, unknown users forwarded by your ISP will all get greylisted and delayed. Your ISP will retry, of course, so all of this spam will eventually be delivered by us. However, during this time interval all of the blacklists that we use have had time to update. Delaying delivery of your spam by 30-60 minutes might make a real difference in how much the blacklists can catch.
If you actually aren't getting the spam at all, either to your inbox or the Held Mail, it might be that a lot of your spam was actually being sent directly to your SpamCop account. Greylisting will help remove a lot of that spam, even if 100% of your legitimate mail is forwarded to us by another ISP.
<i>Won't help at all</i> ITYM so switching it off for trusted relays and other forwarders may save trouble.Well, no, see my other post about delaying delivery of spam. This is theoretical. I honestly don't know how much difference it makes. I do know that the SpamCop blacklist is very real-time and new spam sources are often detected within minutes.
JT
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We're getting, roughly, 45% of mails POP'ed down from other accounts, 45% forwarded from other accounts and 10% directly to the Spamcop account's address. Most of these 10% are messages between my partner and I (exclusively) when we're at different locations, as well as the occasional admin mail, but also and worryingly (where did the suckers get the address from?) some spam in the recent past. Usually things gets looked at in the webmail interface, spams reported, unnecessary mails deleted, etc. then real reading, answering and archiving take place in our mail application Entourage, after fetching what's left in the webmail.
If I understand the whole discussion well, we don't need to activate greylisting, especially as we're already losing mails (probably not due to Spamcop) because we correspond in all sorts of languages with people all over the world. Correct, Trevor?
Most of the usefulness of greylisting comes from email sent directly to your spamcop.net account. If it is forwarded or we POP it for you, greylisting won't help much.
JT
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Ok, If I enable greylisting, do I in effect not help the SPAMCOP system?
That is, if 'greylisted' mail is never seen, it never can be reported on....
I do 'pop' all of my mail. What I am using this for is bascially 'greylisting' people who send to my [at]spamcop.net address.
As time goes on, I think the majority of users don't ever report their spam, they just want it removed. This removes a lot of spam (and viruses) without relying on particular keywords or blacklists. If you want all your spam, though, you shouldn't enable it.
This is definitely a question I would like SpamCop to address.We need more controls over greylist settings. I would want a greylist to automatically use my whitelist to clear some e-mail addresses automatically, and I would want to be able to see and change the e-mail addresses that are cleared or uncleared that are on the greylist.
We're going to be working to add some additional information. Greylisting should "just work" though. It's really not intended for you to have to go in and fiddle with.
We are working on allowing addresses in your personal whitelist to pass without being delayed. That feature isn't available right now, though.
I fear I'll be switching off the gray list for the time being. I tried it today, and it sadly failed my simplest of tests.Eight hours ago, I sent an email from a whitelisted address to a spamcop filtered email account and it still hasn't arrived.
I love the idea of the gray filter but until it has a few safeguards to ensure legit mail hasn't been lost or delayed beyond a reasonable time, I'll wait to implement.
That isn't on our side. That's your mail server losing your email. I'd be very interested in looking in the logs to see what happened. Can you email the address that you were emailing from and to to me at support[at]
Thanks
JT
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Is the "seen" list initially populated from our whitelist, or do we have to experience the delay once for every one of those, too?
You will experience the delay for those, too. The vast majority of users will not notice or even realize that their mail was delayed. However, if it is important to you that all of your email is received instantly after it is sent, greylisting may not be a great option for you.
JT
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Also, you can now use TLS and there is a correct certificate. So, if you specify TLS on either port, your login and email will be sent encrypted.
JT
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I have setup my machine to use it and the first test went through with no problem.
Would you like comments here or direct email?
Helpful hints for users can go here. Specific problems can be emailed to me.
Glad it's working for you. For everyone's info, I'm aware that SSL is a little funky right now. It works and encrypts your email, but the certificate is bogus and you might get a warning about that. We'll fix that in time.
Jeff
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Hi, guys.
Want to help beta test a feature before we open it up to the public? We're hoping to introduce outgoing SMTP service for all SpamCop email accounts. If you need SMTP service for roaming or whatever, maybe we can help.
First, all the caveats:
- This service is beta. It could go away or be unavailable at any time. However, if we accept your email, we'll definitely deliver it. No email will disappear.
- Outgoing service is not to be used for high volumes. Please don't put your whole office on it, send to your 1000-user mailing list, etc. It's a privilege, not a right. Any abuse will result in your access being cut off instantly with no warnings.
To use it, use the following settings:
SMTP server: smtp.cesmail.net
SMTP port: 25 (default) or 587 if your ISP blocks port 25
SMTP authentication must be enabled. Use your regular spamcop.net username and password you always use.
Please let me know if there are problems. The more information you can provide, the better.
Thanks
JT
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Here is how you setup SpamCop Email with bellsouth.net, a dialup and DSL provider in the southeast US.
Bellsouth.net will not forward email from a Bellsouth account, so you have to use the POP method in SpamCop Email.
Login to webmail at http://webmail.spamcop.net
Click Options
Click SpamCop Tools
Click Configure external POP servers
In there is a list of POP servers from which SpamCop will retrieve email for you. Enter these settings:
POP server: mail.bellsouth.net
Username: the left-hand side of your bellsouth.net address, i.e. everything before the [at]
Password: your bellsouth.net password
After you submit this information, SpamCop should start POPping your bellsouth.net account within 20 minutes and pulling all email into SpamCop. Now you just need to configure your email program to POP (retrieve) from SpamCop instead of Bellsouth and you're done.
JT
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Here are instructions for how to get Earthlink or Mindspring to forward your existing email address to your SpamCop account for filtering.
First, go to Earthlink at http://www.earthlink.net
Click the "Member Center" icon at the top of the page
Click "My Account" near the top
Enter your full Earthlink (or Mindspring) email address and password
Click Email Maintenance
Click Email Forwarding
In there, type your spamcop.net address and enable email forwarding. I don't recommend that you check the box to keep a copy at Earthlink. If you do that, your Earthlink account will eventually fill up because you shouldn't be checking mail there any more.
That's it. Now change your email program to POP (retrieve) your mail from the SpamCop servers instead of Earthlink and you're done.
JT
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Thanks, that's just what we're looking for.
JT
New Feature: Greylisting *UPDATED*
in SpamCop Email System & Accounts
Posted
If you're asking for a blacklist to be created automatically from your reported spam, this will never happen. Spammers rarely reuse the same email address, so there is really no point. And, how are you going to manage this data? Over months, we'd end up with millions of email addresses on this "blacklist". Your own blacklist would have thousands of entries (assuming you report spam a lot), pretty much none of which will ever email you again.
JT