What is IL.net doing to reduce Spam?
During the six month period between October of 2002 and March of 2003, MSNBC estimated that the amount of Junk E-mail (Spam) sent in the U.S. doubled (MSNBC Article).
IL.net has been developing new tools that enable customers to limit the amount of unwanted e-mail that they receive. The increase in unsolicited e-mail on the Internet has created enormous frustration for Internet users and service providers. The following sources can be used as reference for more information on the problems that unsolicited e-mail messages are causing the online community:
CBS News has recently written an article indicating that the federal government is debating a measure that might give law enfocement the authority to send spammers to jail. Pennsylvania actually already has a law about spam on the books.
In light of the challenges that Junk E-mail presents, IL.net has been working to develop tools for our customers to use in order to get the most value from their e-mail service. Check IL.net's What is spam? article to find out what type of e-mail messages are spam. This page will present a history and outlook of our efforts at IL.net to create spam filtering services.
I. Early Spam Filter/Blocking Tool:
Two years ago, CTI released a preliminary tool that customers were able to test long before spam became the daunting problem that it is today. This tool was made available for PA.net customers only.
CTI's first implementation of Junk E-mail filtering allowed customers to subscribe to a service that would either tag e-mails suspected of being spam or block them and only deliver via POP3 based on a user preferred schedule. This utility enabled customers to create a list of "Friendly Senders" that would not be marked as spam, as well as indicate what mailing lists they subscribe to.
Based on our experience with the original utility, IL.net has replaced it with far more advanced spam filtering tools for customers. If you are still using the original utility you can deactivate it by logging into the control panel with your username and password. After logging in, make sure that the "Check this box to block suspect spam" box is UNCHECKED.
II. Open Spam Relay & Spam Server Blocking:
If you have received e-mail that you would like to report as spam, please follow the instructions online at www.pa.net/reportspam.html. Using the message's headers IL.net will determine if the mail server that sent the spam should be blocked from our network.
As the amount of unsolicited e-mail rose at an exponential rate in early 2003, most service providers implemented network-wide solutions to block spam servers guilty of sending the largest quantity of unwanted e-mail to their networks. IL.net setup TCP/IP blocking on a network-wide level based three initial criteria:
The e-mail server is an "open spam relay."
This means that anyone on the Internet can send e-mail through it without having to have an account on that machine. These servers are often targeted by spammers to send thousands of junk e-mail messages in only a few minutes. By blocking these servers, IL.net encouraged many administrators to "lock down" their machines and by doing so make life more difficult for people trying to send spam.
If you have an e-mail server that you think may be blocked by IL.net because it is an open spam relay, please contact rbl@ctiresidential.com and request information about what you can do to have it fixed.
The e-mail server has been listed by the collaborative Internet community as a portal for sending unsolicited e-mail.
There are several "blacklists" that we use to judge whether a mail server is being used routinely to send spam. If you would like information on what list services IL.net subscribes to please e-mail abuse@il.net. If your e-mail is being blocked, contact us at rbl@ctiresidential.com.
An e-mail server sends a large number of e-mails to addresses that do not exist at our domain (i.e. unkownuser@il.net). This will happen if they are engaging in an "alphabet attack," which means they send messages to fictitious addresses hoping that they will work (i.e. a@il.net, b@il.net, ...).
Unfortunately, as Internet service providers test new ways of blocking servers suspected of sending unwanted messages there will be some "false positives" along the way. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause and promise to work hard to correct any errors.
We can check to see if the someone trying to e-mail you is using a mail server that has been blocked due to unsolicited e-mail messages. Just have them send the returned message, including the Internet headers, to rbl@ctiresidential.com. Or, if you know their mail server's name and IP address we can check using that as well.
III. Prepending Subject Lines in Suspected Spam:
Messages that our software thinks are likely to be spam are currently being prepended in the subject line with: {spam?}. This is a temporary measure that is being used to gauge the accuracy of our artificial intelligence software, which judges whether an e-mail message is spam or not. The new version of IL.net's webmail will have filtering built into it. At that time we will remove {spam?} from the subject line of suspected spam messages.
In the meantime, however, customers are able to filter out suspected spam by having the filtering rules in their POP3 mail client look for messages with the {spam?} tag.
IV. Webmail Spam Filtering Tools:
IL.net has been working for months on the artificial intelligence that judges whether or not a message is spam. We are just finishing the front end that customers will see. Internal testing of the new webmail program is slated to begin on May 1, 2003.
Once complete, webmail will be the interface for customers to adjust their spam filtering settings and view / delete the mail that has been filtered. The new webmail program will have a separate mailbox where suspected spam messages are stored. Every e-mail message that you receive will be assigned a score. That score will indicate the likelyhood that the message is spam. This will give customers a frame of reference when setting the sensitivity with which they apply the filter.
The messages in a customer's spam mailbox will not be downloaded to their computer when they check mail in Outlook or any other POP3 mail program. Customers will be able to go online and request that legitimate messages be delivered. Those messgaes will be moved from their spam mailbox to their regular inbox. Any mail that sits dormant in the spam mailbox for a long period of time will automatically be deleted by the server.
There is also going to be an address book for every IL.net e-mail customer. The address book will keep track of stored e-mail addresses, and can be used to identify whitlisted senders. A whitelisted sender is someone that should never be blocked. Therefore, if someone you know ever gets filtered, you will be able to add them to your address book and it will not happen again.
