Handling unwanted email

[Tommy Trussell]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 10:55 PM, Noah <noah-list at enabled.com> wrote:

> I am migrating to a new hosting company and building a machine from
> scratch.
>
> What programs and strategies are people using to handle unwanted email -
> spam?   How are you keeping the rules updated to keep as much of the junk
> limited?
>

I cant tell if you're asking for yourself or on behalf of a company or
clients.

For my personal purposes I have a few "public" email addresses and lots of
private ones. My gmail address I use for anything like this -- a posting
where my email address will be out in the open. Gmail seems to be as good
as it gets about blocking spam. Plus they have a few ways you can make
adjustments if things get trapped inappropriately.

If I choose to give out an email address where I don't necessarily trust
the sender to keep it secure, I give them a modified address. For example,
if the Nissan automobile people want my email, I might give them a special
address starting with "nissan." If that address gets compromised and starts
getting a lot of spam I can block just that one address easily, AND I have
a responsible company to complain to. Your email provider or server will
have a special format for custom "throwaway" addresses.

I have several completely "private" email addresses I never share publicly.
I use them for bank and utility statements and notices, and voicemail
forwards from my VoIP company. Those, fortunately, have never needed any
spam filtering. (Though it might happen any day with the next database
breech. If it happens I will just create a new address.)

HOWEVER if you were asking because you will have paying email clients using
your server, you could rely just on SpamAssassin if your volume of email
and spam/ham ratios aren't too awful. But it has its limitations. I would
suggest looking into one of the spam services such as Symantec/Brightmail,
Barracuda, etc. (I haven't used one in years, so I don't know the latest.)

I decided a LONG time ago I didn't want to spend my time keeping spam
filters updated! Others do it much better than I can! Especially since the
big filtering companies will almost certainly see new spam somewhere else
before it hits me.
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