Spam filtering

[kurt1]

I have SpamAssassin set up with default settings on our domains. A significant amount of Spam is caught, but a lot is still getting through to all our email accounts. My users bring up how they're getting hardly any spam in their accounts such as Gmail.

Are the default SpamAssassin settings at Futurequest set deliberately low to prevent real email being identified as Spam? Are the results that Gmail seems to get on spam legitimate, and how is Gmail doing it?

Any information or suggestions are appreciated. Our experience at Futurequest has always been excellent, spam in email is about the only problem we have.

Kurt

[manfred]

Hello Kurt1,

I had similiar problems with spam. Both, EFM and SA, did a good job, but not good enough. I can only suggest, take a look at IpNation (http://aota.net/forums/showthread.php?t=25397). You and your customer will love it.

:) Manfred

[kurt1]

Sorry for the late response. Thanks, I'll take a look.

Looking further at reports regarding gmail and spam, it seems that gmail is becoming less efficient at detecting spam. Also, I see reports about false positives. One indirect approach some people are using is to redirect mail from their provider to gmail, then back again. I don't really want to do that though.

[sheila]

Redirecting email to an external provider in order to use the external provider's spam filtering is not a good idea, as it causes that external provider to see your domain as a source of spam. (This makes sense...since you are sending spam from your domain to that external provider.)

Although gmail has historically been less knee-jerk about this than other large email providers, it can and does lead to consequences such as the external provider blocking email from your domain and the FutureQuest servers.

Anyone who forwards email to an external network should employ filters to try and eliminate spam before forwarding in order to prevent the type of issue described above.

[kurt1]

I'd experiment first of course. I would hope SpamAssassin on my FutureQuest account would filter before the forward occurs, and I would set SpamAssassin to either delete or not forward. So only spam that is not caught by SpamAssassin at FutureQuest would be forwarded (with non-spam mail of course).

Your point brings up a question about how I'm currently handling spam filtering at FutureQuest. I currently have SpamAssassin set up with a simple filter to redirect (conredirect) spam to another FutureQuest email address. Is that going to cause a problem as you describe?

Kurt

[sheila]

Redirecting to another POP mailbox on the FutureQuest network is also OK and should not cause problems.