Published by rich on
Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 06:33:34
- Filed under Spam
Against my will, I've needed to add yet another feature to SpamButcher. Ok, maybe this is more accurately described as an "option" or "setting" than a feature - but it's still a bunch more code.
I've been getting a handful of users reporting "553 errors" or "address not verified" when trying to recover messages using SpamButcher.
The problem is that Yahoo! (and related ISP's including sbcglobal.net, AT&T and others) have been implementing some pretty harsh spam blocking measures.
The short of it is that their SMTP servers will only send email from the account owner's primary email address - even if the user authenticates with the server first.
Typically, if you can successfully authenticate with an SMTP server - it'll send email from anyone to anyone.
The problem is that since it's so dang easy to get a free Yahoo! account - spammers will often sign-up for them and have a party.
Personally, I think this is the wrong approach. I'd recommend making accounts trickier to signup for, and limit how much email an account can send in a given period of time. Unfortunately, Yahoo! and company are big enough email providers that I can't just ignore the issue.
Yes, you can manually add additional validated email addresses to your account - but this doesn't really work for SpamButcher's purpose. To "restore" an email message SpamButcher has historically tried to resend the message using the original sender's name.
Adding to complications, Yahoo's "incoming" SMTP server's refuse connections from dynamic IP addresses. This makes them unusable to most users for the purpose of restoring messages. This is another attempt at email filtering.
I even considered opening up SpamButcher's own SMTP server to users - but many networks block all external port 25 (SMTP) traffic. Further, this would pose the risk of landing us on various anti-spam blacklists.
Starting with version 2.1d, SpamButcher spam blocker application
gives the user the option to, "Recover messages as if sent from my own email address."
This in effect readdresses the message so it looks to the server as if the account owner is actually sending it. Tests with my own Yahoo! account seem to indicate it works.
The message's reply-to address is unchanged. If the user replies to a recovered email - things should work as normal.
Further, SpamButcher is smart enough to identify the SMTP error code, and automatically make the configuration change.
Published by rich on
Thursday, May 15, 2008 - 05:14:38
- Filed under Other Fun Stuff
Over the last year or two I’ve purchased a few different cat beds for Buster (the official cat of the SpamButcher spam blocker).
I adopted Buster a couple years ago from my neighbors.
At first, he actually used both beds periodically. I kept one in my den, and one in my living room.
However, he hasn’t shown any interest in either one of them for the last six months or so. He seemed quite content to just lay on the carpet in my den, or on some blankets on the living room futon.
I’m about to do a major cleaning of my house - so I figured I’d throw them out.
In preparation for tossing them - I set them both aside, one on top of the other.
Anti-Spam Software for Outlook - Filter Junk Email
Published by rich on
Friday, May 9, 2008 - 06:19:10
- Filed under Spam
To anyone who tried to download SpamButcher last night between the hours of 12pm and 2am PST:
SORRY, MY BAD.
At about the same time two different users emailed me that the SpamButcher download was corrupted (if you're reading this - thank you for letting me know).
I tried downloading a copy of the POP3 spam filter myself, and sure enough - it was only 1.1 megabytes as opposed to the 2.3 megabytes it should have been.
Turns out the daily web server log files for SpamButcher overtime managed to fill up my server's disk. Just before it was full though, I posted an update to SpamButcher - which didn't quite fit.
To celebrate my presumably successful upload of SpamButcher's new version - I then proceeded to the local watering-hole and had two beers.
I'm sure the upload script flashed an error message - but since it always works - I've come to ignore its output.
Long before spam protection software even existed, I managed hosting for PGATOUR.COM. The log files were up to 700MB a day, and this was back when a large hard drive was only about 8GB.
A big part of my job was compressing, moving, archiving or otherwise doing something with the incoming log files. Worse, the client actually wanted the logs - so I couldn't just delete them.
I can't say I never let that drive run out of space - but it rarely happened - because I knew it was something I had to watch everyday.
Since SpamButcher's server has enough disk space to hold about a year's worth of logs - it's easy enough to forget about. It's something that I don't need to worry about often - but I do need to worry about it occasionally.
If I wait until someone else tells me about it - it's already a serious crisis.
The litter box situation is just fine until the cat pees on my laundry.
Anti-Spam Free Download