Spam rolling in

I have used the discountasp.net email for 5+ years and normally get 1 or 2 spam messages a day... maybe. I have my settings set to Spam Low : Normal. Spam Med : Add to subject. and Spam: High Delete.

Well about 2 weeks ago I started getting 50+ a day. I even tweeked my setting for Spam Low to add to subject just in case these were getting marked low and they are not.

Has something changed? This is real real obvious spam (acutions, refi, ect. ect.) over and over.

I hate to change services, but this is the stuff I pay for and have never had an issue before.

Thanks

 

We did not change anything in our mail server that could caused you to get more spam or anything like that.

Spam can be originating from anywhere, knowing the source where it come from and how would help you create a profiling to block and avoid it.

Some sites use methods to extract a surfer’s email address from their browser, sometimes without the surfer noticing it. Using the HTTP_FROM header that browsers send to the server, some browsers pass a header with your email address to every web server you visit. To check if your browser simply gives your email address to everybody this way, visit http://privacy.net/analyze/.

http://jdoe.com/wordpress/i-got-spa...ed-how-does-a-web-site-get-my-e-mail-address/
read more
http://www.philb.com/spamex.htm

Smartermail has its built in spam filtering which you can adjust to trap spam.

You as the hosting owner has the ability to adjust spam filtering in Smartermail
http://support.discountasp.net/KB/a270/i-seem-to-get-more-spam-using-smartermail-than-i-did.aspx
http://support.discountasp.net/KB/a271/smartermail-default-spam-blockingfiltering-configuration.aspx

 

After talking to support I did get them to admit the spam weights listed in the KB article about spam are not what they are in actuality. For example the KB article says a SPF Fail will be 30 points (instant Spam High) however in the current weights of smartmail it was only 5 (half way to Spam Low).

I did get them to raise this to 10. But apparently every server has different values so check your weights as you might be on a server with low values and face spam problems.

For example something can be listed in SpamCop (4 points) <KB says this should be 10> and Spamhaus (5 points) and not even make Spam low! I still think they have stuff under valued, but they did raise the weights up a bit for me on the server I am on.

Hope that helps a bit. I'll give it a week and if I am still up there I'll see if they can raise things again. Looking at what was coming though it was getting hits on a lot of the filter items, the values are just set to low to put them over the thresholds.

AS the domain owner I can adjust the low/med/high activites (delete/header ect) but I cannot adjust the weights which is where the problem is.

 

Let me clarify - this was true for some servers but does not apply across the board.

After recent upgrades (and dhotot's inquiry), we did find that some of the mail servers were "out of spec" as far as spam weights were concerned. We are normalizing those weights now and will verify that they are still within spec after future upgrades.

Please do not contact support asking for changes to the spam weights, or if the weights are correct on your server. If they are out of range on the server you use, we already know about it and we will be making necessary adjustments.

After the servers are normalized, and generally speaking, we do not make changes for one user/server. So I don't want this to give anyone the idea that we'll support any spam weights someone asks for, because that is not the case (we cannot make arbitrary and non-standard changes, as you can see here, it would cause problems).

If you are having spam issues you should rely on the spam settings in SmarterMail to address them.

 

Saw some improvments went from 50 spam the past few nights to only 10 (all caught by cleint spam checker). Also seceral were in the SPAM-MED range . Hoping that the other 40 were at the high mark now with new settings. Hopeful that once everything get balanced it will be a non-issue again.

FYI I use settings SPAM-LOW: nothing
SPAM-MED: header text
SPAM-HIGH: delete

 

Just like the "SPAM is killing me" guy your losing another customer. I set up a bunch of content filters to try and make it work and it was fine for a week or so, but this is ridiculous when such completely obvious spam on several blacklists is allowed to come through.
It is 100% picked up by my lousy Thunderbird spam filter which is just shocking that a host cannot have the same success ratio.
The problem comes when I check my mail on a mobile and don't have the benefit of a spam filter where it just becomes completely unusable with how much spam is allowed.

I got 43 pieces of spam this morning (well actually 4 were dated tomorrow... come on really this stuff gets by?) of which only 7 were even marked spam med (I don't know how anything can get to spam high). So even changing my filter to delete spam med is not going to make much of a difference. And of those 7, 3 of them where 3 of the 4 post dated emails I got. The settings are way to low, but no one seems to care so guess it is time to move on.

I will admit in the 8 years I have used this host this is the only problem I have ever had, but it is a huge one. If you don't use discountasp.net for email then I would still highly recommend them, otherwise no.

 

Well looks like all the weights have changed again (higher) and getting some strange stuff. Yahoo lists are now SPAM MED, and even though I have SPAM HIGH set to delete I got a piece in that was labeled SPAM HIGH in the subject. The item was a legit newsletter but would not have missed it if it was deleted. Looks like you are working in the issue, that is good.

After looking for a new host I ended up trying a service called SpamDrain. It will watch your inbox and delete spam. It was only $15 a year and I said to myself if discountasp.net was "$11.50 a month with no spam, vs $10 a year and spam would I stick with them?" since the answer was yes I am staying. SpamDrain has blocked 100% of the spam I used to get! Everything is back to normal, cost me $15 a year but the lack of aggravation is wonderful.

 

As I mentioned earlier, we have been in the process of bringing all the servers into the same range of weights. The last changes were made earlier in the week, so now all the servers use the same weights.

The weights have always been the same, that is until a recent SmarterMail upgrade. Now they are back to where they were before so things should be back to normal.

 

Why not invest in a better tool? In the past few days I've deleted over 300 spam messages even though I've set the rule values low enough to delete many of these. I wonder what could be wrong to still allow that many through each day. In the past 24 hours I've received nearly 100 spam messages.