[FreeDNS] Mail Filtering

["Anna Swanepoel" <anna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

Okay, back to the original topic of discussion.

To recap: briefly, my (and if I understand correctly - Graham's)views as
follow:
Virus protection should happen at ISP/mailing list administrator level,
where possible, as most end-users are not capable of doing this themselves.

Interestingly enough, I posed the same sentiments to a far more
technically-minded person than myself this morning and his response was:
"Personally, I'd object to an e-mail provider
filtering messages for me (be it for spam, viruses, or whatever). I can deal
with those myself, and occasionally I need to receive them, for whatever
reason."

Well, whaddaya think?

Personally, I cannot think of a single reason why I would want to receive a
virus. Like with any "real" virus (e.g HIV), I'd be very happy to be lucky
enough to base my knowledge on theory....

Spam, on the other hand... some of it has proven useful, but then those were
mostly ones that I would rather term as "unsolicited once off messages".
Those are the ones which have real return addresses and were more
personalised (e.g where the sender at least visited my/our company's web
site, made the effort to figure out what we do and sent the mail to my
address, or the general company address only, stating that it's a once off
or that my mail address will be removed from the list upon my request, and
honouring such a statement). These type of "unsolicited messages" also tend
to slip through any normal "anti-spam" filters anyway, but like I say, I
honestly don't mind receiving those.
I would however like for my ISP to protect me, where possible, against known
spammers and those "invalid return address" users, who send to 2000 people
on a daily/weekly basis, without bothering to find out if the recipient of
such mail would have any possible interest in what they are trying to
market, or any intention of ever stopping the spam...This as far as I know,
is possible to a certain extent (?) and I'd like all the protection I can
get...

I am currently doing research for an article for our company news letter
(our newsletter archives and subscription details can be viewed at
www.allafrica.co.za under "news") on the topic of mail filtering by mail
providers and would appreciate any feedback. Specific questions I need
feedback on are:

>From End Users:
1) Does your mail provider filter for spamming and viruses? Please mention
who your mail provder is. Would you want them to provide such filters?
2) Did you receive any virus via mail lately? If so, which virus did you
receive and which mail provider do you use. What were the results of
receiving the virus?
3) What actions do YOU take to protect yourself against viruses?
4) What actions to you take when receiving spam? How sucessful are these
actions?

>From Mail Providers:
1) Do you filter for spam and viruses? If not, why not?
2) Has your mail server and users been hit by any virus lately? If so, what
were the results (e.g, complaints by users, backlog on the mail server, etc)
3) What actions do you take when you receive complaints re spam from users
(e.g, do you block the offender's IP/domain from sending to your mail
server, do you cancell the account if the spammer uses your mail server,
etc)

If you respond to this and I would like to quote you, I will contact you to
ask for your permission and will send you details on the context in which I
would like to quote you and confirm whether you want your name mentioned in
the article(as opposed to an anonymous quote). The rest of the responses
will be used for more statistical purposes in the article.

Thanking you all in advance.

Warm Regards

Anna Swanepoel
All Africa Technologies
Tel: 011-805 4310
     011-805 8111
Fax: 011-315 1839
E-mail: anna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.allafrica.co.za
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