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Author Topic: Washing Mail with a Mac Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 06-04-2003 05:56 AM                        A Mac-owning friend has asked me for tips on spam prevention. My solution is to screen my incoming e-mail using Mailwasher, but that's not available for the Mac. Does anyone know of any software which does a similar job, i.e. view the incoming mail sitting on your POP3 server without downloading it, and delete and/or bounce offending messages first? Many thanks in advance...  |  IP: Logged Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-04-2003 09:13 AM                        I've been using Mailwasher for a couple of months and I love it. Nothing like being able to bounce spam (even if it doesn't do any good)  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-04-2003 09:21 AM                        The current anti-spam software of choice is Spamassassin: http://spamassassin.org/ It works by assigning a "score" to each message based upon characteristics which correlate highly with spam (e.g. subject lines in all caps, the use of the word "free," etc.). The user can then set the threshold (score above which mail will be tagged as spam) manually and then configure his mail client or other mail filtering software to handle the presumed-spam as desired (trash, bounce, send to a specific mailbox, etc.) It's primarily designed to run on Unix variants, so you could "probably" run it on your Mac if you have Perl, procmail, and fetchmail installed. Alternatively, see if your ISP offers shell accounts and procmail access.  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 06-04-2003 02:09 PM                     Tell him to upgrade to Mac OS X Jaguar. It has verry solid spam filtration built in.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 06-04-2003 06:43 PM                        Macs are not capable of receiving, sending, or viewing e-mail. But if your friend must, he can go to www.versiontracker.com and select the tab for the OS he uses. Type in "spam" in the search box and check out what is available.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 06-04-2003 07:37 PM                        I normally hate SPAMS like all of you but I received one from a woman who runs a small Web design company in Nova Scotia, Canada early last week. She had a very special offer for a hundred fifty photographers in the United States for a custom designed website for $200.00. Although I already have a website, the offer interested me very much and before you know it, there was my very own specially designed sample home page right in front of me on my computer screen and I was very impressed with the work she did. To check out her credibility, I turned to her links and found a photographer in Arizona who had used Lucie to design her site . Lianne, the photographer could not stop telling me how pleased she was with what Lucie had created and that sold me. Just by seeing what she has done for me already, I know I will be happy with her services. My new site should be up by the middle of next week. So guys and gals, there will be times when you can come across some good SPAM. Anyboby in the mood for a Spam Musubi (A Rice ball with a slice of Spam on the top)? -Claude  |  IP: Logged Chris Markiewicz Expert Film Handler Posts: 209 From: Glenaviegh, County Tipperary, Ireland Registered: Aug 2002 posted 06-04-2003 08:27 PM                     Oh, Claude...  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 06-04-2003 11:00 PM                     Oh, dear. I can't resist the urge to rant. BAD, CLUADE, BAD ! Never EVER buy something from a spam ad! It only encourages them to send more! There is no such thing as good spam. You can always use google or something to look for the services you want. Who knows? Sometimes you'll find something even better for less money!  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-05-2003 12:24 AM                        What Mike said. Spammers _steal_ my resources every day. Every spam message that I receive (over 100 per day at this point...if it weren't for Spamassassin, I'd never have time to get to my legitimate mail) uses up my bandwidth, disk space, tape space (for backups), and time. Most likely, the spammer is also stealing bandwidth from some misconfigured mail server ("open mail relay") to get his spam to me. Spam costs me real money every day and I'm not happy about it. Reputable sales organizations do not steal other people's resources and thus do not send spam. I will never do business with spammers, nor will any company which employs me. I don't buy from thieves.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 06-05-2003 06:40 AM                        Many thanks for all your responses. I think I'll go with telling her to go with Mac OS X, because my friend is not a technically minded person. She opted for a Mac precisely because it was an out-of-the-box and switch on solution for wordprocessing and the like.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-05-2003 10:45 AM                     Oh, there are all sorts of spam filters for Mac! <Spins around in chair... Reaches for bookshelf... Pulls out a copy of Macworld magazine. (April 2003-USA) Scans pages... (Page 60)...> What do you want? Boolean filter? Bayesian filter? Points filter? DNS Blacklists? Pre-download? Post-download? Macworld rates "SpamSieve" as the top contender. (4 mice) It uses Bayesian filters, post download and was tested with an accuracy of 82% with only one false positive. They say it costs $20. (USA) Check it out at THIS website. Free demo available. The second contender is almost a toss up between "SpamFire" and "Post Armor". PostArmor is a pre-download filter that catches spam by looking at the headers of your e-mails on the server before you go through the trouble of downloading it. Check it out at THIS website. The article says it is free for use with a single e-mail account! [ 06-05-2003, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: Randy Stankey ]  |  IP: Logged Matt Hale Expert Film Handler Posts: 123 From: Vancouver, Canada Registered: Dec 2002 posted 06-05-2003 11:21 AM                        Spamnix is a plugin that beefs up the somewhat lacking spam filter in Eudora. Works on both Mac OS X and Windows versions of Eudora. I dont use it myself, but I know a few people who swear by it.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 06-05-2003 01:13 PM                        Thanks Randy; PostArmor is exactly what we had in mind: a pre-download mail vetting program which allows you to kill spam and virus emails from the POP3 server. From the website I see that the only thing it won't do which Mailwasher will is bounce.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-05-2003 01:17 PM                     Glad I could help! Hey! Ya' can't beat the price, either! Also check out THIS little program at Versiontracker.com. It's a neat little anti-spyware device that prevents programs from "phoning home" on you without you knowing. I find that once I installed it my spam went down by at least half. A lot of spam has HTML, links or URLs, etc in it that lets the home server know that somebody received the message even if they trash the message. Of course, you can turn off the preview pane in your e-mail program but that prevents you from seeing what the e-mail you are getting contains unless you open the message. It's a good little tool to have handy. My other anti-spam trick is to tell Eudora to look at the e-mail's headers and immediately toss out all e-mails that contain HTML which come from people who aren't in my address book. (I use IMAP for my main e-mail account so Eudora can look at the headers without downloading.) That knocks out another 20% of my spam messages right there. Since my computer never downloads the HTML. With "Little Snitch" and Eudora's filters I only get about 1/2 dozen spams a day on average. Some days I don't get any. I also use most of the old anti-spam tricks like "Don't publicize your real e-mail address".  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 06-05-2003 01:47 PM                        I too use Eudora and especially like the 'disable HTML executable content within messages' option (which is especially useful for stopping viruses which exploit the OE preview pane trigger). A combination of that and Mailwasher keeps the spam under control for me. I agree on keeping a really private e-mail address to. I have three in fact: one for work which is publicised and on our website (ergo e-mail harvesting programs can get at it), one personal which I will give anyone (which is the one I registered on this site with), and a further address which I only give to relatives, close friends and people I know and trust. It doesn't appear on the WWW in any way at all, and has so far remained spam free. Thanks again...  |  IP: Logged

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