I definitely appreciate your rant and your point of view.
Sadly, until SMTP is rewritten and we're not using protocols on the Internet that have been based on very very old code and then just patched and updated ad infinitum, there isn't a "sure fire" solution. More patches, more fixes, more filters, more overhead, more wasted CPU time and bandwidth.
There's plenty who won't agree with my point of view and think of it as unrealistic, but that's just the way opinions go. :)
Independent email providers will never have the resources of conglomerates. We have the security and the ability to guarantee data control, delivery and confidentiality, but as far as SPAM filtering and other time and resource intensive things go, we'll never compete at the same level.
Keep on keepin' on. On 07/28/2014 10:10 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
Hi All, Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes who some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a better mail service since "they don't get any spam" No it's not going to break us. But this is what I see happening. SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the box, doing nothing other than using defaults. If the users feed the learner, it's even better. But, the spam is coming in at such a tremendously high volume now that when a user account gets 5,000 pieces of mail a day, all of it except for maybe 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses, compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail. they don't see the 4,950 pieces of mail we deleted for them. They just see the 50 pieces that got past, compared to their 5 legitimate pieces. So naturally the users figure we are rat bastards who aren't doing a good job filtering. So they setup a test account at Google and "try it out for a month" Of course, the account gets very little spam. Why would it otherwise? It's brand new. It hasn't had a chance to be disseminated to all of the mailing lists, the websites, the other coorespondents's computers of theirs that get hit by harvesting viruses. Their ignorance then reinforces their invalid perception and then they figure we are liars. So they move their domain. A year later, when Gmail is doing the same thing to them, they finally figure out it's not the provider, its the spammers and oh boy maybe we weren't lying after all. But, it's a lot of work to shift back to us, so why bother if all the mail services are the same way? So they are gone, permanently, never to return. We have tried educating them. But spamfighting today is complex. If you explain it completely and they understand the explanation and believe you, they give up hope because they realize that just hitting the delete button on those 50 pieces of spam is easier than shifting their poor email behaviors that got them into the mess in the first place. But then a month later the complex explanation is forgotten and they are once more vulnerable to any snake oil sales consultant selling them gmail. But most of them don't understand anyway. And if you just try to dumb down the explanation it starts making no sense at all very quickly. What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either on Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a warrant? And to add insult to injury - this small company is a dental office - subject to HIPAA - and Gmail is not (and has stated they will not) be HIPAA complaint. We are! Ted --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
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