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Open thread: Favorite spam blocker service?
Merlin Mann | May 21 2006
I've been relatively fortunate with filtering spam over the past couple years (knock on wood). But despite a kickass three-tiered system that includes the world-beating server-side Sieve, plus Mail.app's pretty good client filtering, it's inevitable that even my best-loved private email addresses would find their way into the wrong hands (it's why I recently created "ThanksNo.com" -- an experiment in social re-engineering that you are free to use as well). So, now that the spelling-impaired Lords of The Dark Side have such renewed interest in my investment options and genital proportions, I'm considering joining a service like Spam Arrest or the apparently deceased Knowspam. I mostly plan to run this on the addresses I use for strictly personal stuff, so I'm satisfied I can start with a "whitelist" to ensure I don't generate loops or dead ends for the "good" senders. But, you tell me... Apart from running smart filters on your server and in your mail client, what's the best way to protect a mydomain.com-type email address from becoming compromised and punked-out? What are the dangers and cons of using a challenge/response service like Spam Arrest? Apart from abandoning it wholesale, what's the most effective and non-annoying way to rehabilitate a compromised address? 57 Comments
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 I used Knowspam and then...Submitted by Phil Gyford (not verified) on May 22, 2006 - 2:00am.
I used Knowspam and then SpamArrest for a while. They really worked. Checking my email was a joy again, just like it was ten years ago, when I'd know that every email Eudora picked up was for me, personally. It really was a revelation. I loved it. But, after 18 months or so I gave up on the challenge/response system. Really, it shifts and changes the problems of spam from your inbox to another system. First, there's the problem of people missing your challenge and their email never getting to you. Second, I always felt bad if I gave my email to someone, in person, and knew that they'd get a challenge when they'd email me. It seemed rude and overly-complex, especially for non-techy people. I felt unfriendly and self-important. Ultimately it's a trade-off between how much spam annoys you and makes you ineffective, and how rude you can bear to be to people. Since giving up SpamArrest I've been more comfortable that new people emailing me will get through, and I won't annoy them. The downside is that I dread checking my mail in the morning, even after Spam Assassin has done its job. More and more spam is getting to my inbox these days, and it's now a choice between making Spam Assassin's threshold so draconian that legitmate mails will get trapped, and going back to Spam Arrest. The more annoyed I get, the less I care about pissing off new friends/contacts. That other people (spammers) have made email such a chore thoroughly depresses me. » POSTED IN:
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