Book Image

SpamAssassin: A practical guide to integration and configuration

Book Image

SpamAssassin: A practical guide to integration and configuration

Overview of this book

As a busy administrator, you know Spam is a major distraction in todays network. The effects range from inappropriate content arriving in the mailboxes up to contact email addresses placed on a website being deluged with unsolicited mail, causing valid enquiries and sales leads to be lost and wasting employee time. The perception of the problem of spam is as big as the reality. In response to the growing problem of spam, a number of free and commercial applications and services have been developed to help network administrators and email users combat spam. Its up to you to choose and then get the most out of an antispam solution. Free to use, flexible, and effective, SpamAssassin has become the most popular open source antispam application. Its unique combination of power and flexibility make it the right choice. This book will now help you set up and optimize SpamAssassin for your network.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
SpamAssassin
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Introduction
Glossary

Spamtraps


A spamtrap is an email address that has never been associated with a real person role in a company. The spamtrap is placed on web pages in such a way that it can only be picked up by spammer web spiders. When email is received at the spamtrap address, it can only be spam, and so the email can be sent to the Razor network as definite spam.

Normally a spamtrap is hidden from view by using a tiny font, by hiding the email address behind another element of the page, by using the same color for the text and the background, or by another technique). The spammer's web spider will nevertheless detect the email address and add it to its database of valid email addresses.

Spamtraps can also be added to postings on Usenet, as long as it is made clear that the email address should not be used for real replies.

Choosing a Spamtrap Address

A spamtrap address should be made of completely random characters. Using an address such as [email protected], [email protected], or other popular generic addresses...