Hello,

GalacNet operates a small free webmail service on her sites, but recently my ISP have been bugging me about people signing up and sending SPAM/SCAM messages.

I use the HiveMail application and after looking through it, there was no option of making an outbound mail scanner unless I invest in more expensive hardware.....
But after some research, I was able to be a very simple version of a filter.

So in your views what do I do when I get spam?

1) Let it go through, but send a message to the admin and then ban the user ?
2) Let it go through but immediately notify the user that the email was spam and he will be dealt with immediately ?
3) Delete the sending, inform the user that he is going to be banned
4) Delete the user, ban his acccount, lock the IP

I am progressing in the programming ( with my limited skills... ) from 1 to 4
But in the meantime should the I also set the program to mail people that have been sent the scam to inform them that that email is to be ignored??

However the problem is, if I set the program to auto ban and process without reviewing... some messages that are not SPAM maybe caught in the middle....

Any advice or views on this?

Originally posted by galacnet
GalacNet operates a small free webmail service on her sites, but recently my ISP have been bugging me about people signing up and sending SPAM/SCAM messages.


This is a problem.

My advise would be to temporarly suspend the service untill you can get a solution in place. I'd bite the bullet and either buy a ready to go solution, or find a coder to write something custom. Don't fool around with code you don't understand as it may not help the problem.

You do realize the more spam that goes out from your network, increases the chance that your network could be marked up and black-listed as a spam mill right?

This could also effect your ISP in the same manner and as such open you up to potential legal problems should you let this go un-resolved.

The way we look at it, you want "free" email, go to hotmail or yahoo

That is very discouraging indeed.

But not a problem, we are almost ready with our Subject and Body scanning filter ;) Shouldn't be long before we have it ready to run and maybe implement an auto-ban User and auot-ban IP since that will greatly limit their activities.

I am interested to know what other people and host do to limit spam from their servers. Because even if we limit the amount per minute per account that can be sent there will still be a high chance that the spam is still being sent out.

But thanks for the input anyway.

Originally posted by galacnet
I am interested to know what other people and host do to limit spam from their servers.

1) We don't offer "FREE" mail service (atleast to non-customers)

2) We require a ISP email @ signup.

3) Spam is strictly prohibited and can lead to fee's and cancellation of account.

We only had 1 client (in 5 years) send bulk mail (spam). He didn't realize that's what he was doing and since his first warning did not repeat the offense.

We don't tend to attact the attention of the types of clients that cause these type of problems (there's something to be said about not pricing based on what your competition is doing)

Services that are "FREE" and or Ultra cheap are bound to attract more problems than hosts offering a Service based offering over price.


Please not I'm not picking on you... just answering your question.

Please not I'm not picking on you... just answering your question.

I understand don't worry ;) Being straight forward is a good thing :) I get to see where some of my faults are.

However, even paid services could be hit by such events.
Fraud Credit Card signup and then SPAM and disappear cases are many from what I have seen and experienced from some chats with a few of my contacts.

Wouldn't a type of outbound spam or scam filter greatly reduce the risk? Because from what I have asked around or used to ask around about a year ago, it seems like no one is interested or keen on one......

Originally posted by galacnet
However, even paid services could be hit by such events.

Very true


Wouldn't a type of outbound spam or scam filter greatly reduce the risk?

Yes, it could, however the problem with spam solutions is that there is no 100% effective way to identify spam. You also run the risk of Falsly identified messages.

You also will be increasing your server workload.

If there was a viable solution to this problem, it wouldn't be a problem any more would it ;)

If there was a viable solution to this problem, it wouldn't be a problem any more would it
Yes thats so very true.

I will develop the outbound filter and see what happens and monitor its progress. Cuirrently its working very well, detecting most of those scamming "psychos"