Spam Filtering

Anti-spam software blocks spam based on the Sender Address (the email address of the person sending the email). There are three (3) types of Sender Addresses:

  • Authorized
  • Unauthorized
  • Blocked

We support 'Spam Arrest' software but you can use other leading spam filter providers. When an email arrives from an Unauthorized (unknown) sender, an automated verification email is sent from Spam Arrest asking the sender to verify him or herself by clicking on an included link. This link will direct the sender to a webpage which states that Spam Arrest is being used to block unwanted emails, and instructs the sender to type in a short verification word clearly displayed on the page. Once a sender successfully completes this quick and easy process, all future emails from that sending address are Authorized and will be met with no further verification requests from Spam Arrest.

Unverified emails remain stored on the Spam Arrest web site for 7 days, after which they are automatically deleted. You may choose to review these unverified messages at any time should you believe that a sender is not authorizing him or herself, and you may also pre-authorize senders and mailing lists by entering their email addresses individually or by uploading your address book.

Subscribers also have the choice to Block senders. Email from Blocked senders is deleted at the Spam Arrest server level, so you never have to be bothered with knowing it was even there.

You can reduce spam by following some simple steps:

  • sharing an email address only among a limited group of correspondents is one way to limit spam
  • forwarding messages to recipients who don't know one another should be avoided. This is becoming more of a problem when other users send multiple emails without using "cc" and not "bcc" methods. It is good practice to list the recipient names all after "bcc:" instead of after "to:".
  • once the privacy of the email address is lost by divulgence, it cannot likely be regained.
  • posting anonymously, or with a fake name and address, is one way to avoid e-mail address harvesting, but users should ensure that the fake address is not valid. Users who want to receive legitimate email regarding their posts or Web sites can alter their addresses so humans can figure out but spammers cannot. For instance, joe @example.net might post as joeNOS @PAM.example.net.invalid. Address munging, however, can cause legitimate replies to be lost. If it's not the user's valid address, it has to be truly invalid, otherwise someone or some server will still get the spam for it.
  • avoid replying to spammers. Spammers often regard responses to their messages—even responses like "Don't spam me"—as confirmation that an email address is valid. Likewise, many spam messages contain Web links or addresses which the user is directed to follow to be removed from the spammer's mailing list. In several cases, spam-fighters have tested these links, confirming they do not lead to the recipient address's removal—if anything, they lead to more spam.
  • contact forms allow users to send email by filling out forms in a web browser. The web server takes the form data, forwarding it to an email address. The user never sees the email address. Contact forms have the drawback that they require a website that supports server side scripts. They are also inconvenient to the message sender as they are not able to use their preferred e-mail client. Finally if the software used to run the contact forms is badly designed they can become spam tools in their own right. Additionally many spammers have taken to using contact forms to send spam to the intended recipient.
  • mail clients which do not automatically download and display HTML, images or attachments, have fewer risks, as do clients who have been configured to not display these by default. Many modern mail programs incorporate Web browser functionality, such as the display of HTML, URLs, and images. This can easily expose the user to offensive images in spam. In addition, spam written in HTML can contain web bugs which allows spammers to see that the e-mail address is valid and that the message has not been caught in spam filters.
  • disposable email addresses. Many email users sometimes need to give an address to a site without complete assurance that the site owner will not send out spam. One way to mitigate the risk is to provide a disposable email address—a temporary address which forwards email to a real account, which the user can disable or abandon. A number of services provide disposable address forwarding.