CategoryIndustry

June 9, 2014

Stop telling me how great Spamarrest is

By laura
2 Min read
3 comments
09June

Late last year, Al wrote a piece discussing how Spamarrest lost a court case. In the comments on that piece I described how much I really detest Spamarrest because of all the spam I get from Spamarrest users. Every few weeks, someone notices that post again and points it out to Spamarrest users who then come over here to tell me how wonderful Spamarrest is for them. I Get It. You like Spamarrest...

June 5, 2014

Spam filters and mailbox usage

By laura
3 Min read
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05June

It’s no secret that I run very little in the way of spam filters, and what filters I do run don’t throw away mail, they just shove it into various mailboxes. Looking at my mailboxes currently I have 11216 unread messages in my mail.app junk folder, 10600 unread messages in my work spam assassin folder and 29401 messages in my personal spam assassin folder (mail getting more than +7 on...

June 4, 2014

Are FBLs required for a clean mail stream?

By laura
1 Min read
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04June

A few years ago I would have said that a good mailer could have a good mailing program without necessarily participating in FBL programs. I’m not convinced that’s true any longer. As the mailbox providers and ISPs develop more complex filtering methodologies, it’s important for senders to get any possible feedback from recipients. That press on the this-is-spam button may not...

June 3, 2014

Spammers react to Y! DMARC policy

By laura
2 Min read
1 comment
03June

It’s probably only a surprise to people who think DMARC is the silver bullet to fixing email problems, but the spammers who were so abusing yahoo.com have moved on… to ymail.com. In the rush to deploy their DMARC policy, apparently Yahoo forgot they have hundreds of other domains. Domains that are currently not publishing a DMARC policy. Spammers are now using those domains as the...

June 2, 2014

May 2014: The month in email

By laura
3 Min read
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02June

It’s been a busy and exciting month for us here. Laura finished a multi-year project with M3AAWG, the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (look for the results to be published later this year) and continued working with clients on interesting delivery challenges and program opportunities. Steve focused on development on the next version release of Abacus, our flagship abuse...

May 22, 2014

The more things change

By laura
2 Min read
1 comment
22May

I was doing some research about the evolution of the this-is-spam button for a blog article. In the middle of it, I found an old NY Times report about spam from 2003. At the same time, the argument is intensifying over what represents legitimate e-mail, particularly when it ends up being blocked by an antispam filter. Last November, AOL threatened to block e-mail from Gap. Even though Gap said it...

May 21, 2014

Yahoo FBL problems

By laura
1 Min read
3 comments
21May

Multiple ESPs are reporting that the volume of Yahoo! FBL reports have slowed to a trickle over the last 24 or so hours. While we don’t know exactly what is going on yet, or if it’s on track for being fixed, there does seem to be a problem. There has been some ongoing maintenance issues with the Yahoo! FBL, where requests for updates and changes weren’t being handled in a timely...

May 19, 2014

It's about the spam

By laura
1 Min read
1 comment
19May

Tell someone they have hit a spamtrap and they go through a typical reaction cycle. Denial: I didn’t hit a trap! I only send opt-in mail. There must be some mistake. I’m a legitimate company, not a spammer! Anger: What do you mean that I can’t send mail until I’ve fixed the problem? There is no problem! You can’t stop me from mailing. I’m following the law. My...

May 8, 2014

IP reputation and email delivery

By laura
3 Min read
1 comment
08May

IP reputation is a measure of how much wanted mail a particular IP address sends.  This wanted mail is measured as a portion of the total email sent from that IP. Initially IP reputation was really the be all and end all of reputation, there was no real good way to authenticate a domain or a from address. Many ISPs built complex IP reputation models to evaluate mail based on the IP that sent the...

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