spam, spam, spam, spam

[#1]

JohnJ
You are right in your assumption why I blackholed the two mail boxes.
They probably became compromised because I was not careful enough when inputting my email address on websites which I really knew nothing about. I am now much more circumspect in that respect. It was suggested to me that I have an address which I can use in the cases I mention, which of course can be 'blackholed' if it becomes compromised. But also I am now much more aware of the dangers inherent in being careless.  
My actions leading to the compromising may have been also followed by other people who are now suffering.

[#2]

231 spams tonight.
Is this a record? Probably not.
Does anyone care? Doesn't look like it.

[#3]

I think you are being rather unfair - you have been offered a solution and you have declined to take up the offer because you can't understand the technicalities. I wouldn't have a clue how to go about building a wall - but if someone who knows about these things says get xyz to do it - I'll follow their advice.
There are quite a number of knowledgeable people on here recommending Postini - I suggest you follow their advice.
I've been on Postini for a fortnight and the affect on my inboxes is quite dramatic - very, very little is getting through compared with the usual volume.
Apart from making the request to be put on the trial it needs absolutely no action on your part whatsoever - all the changes are made by Plusnet.

[#4]

I have received "Zero" Spam.  Score!

[#5]

Today I've received more spams than ever. Does anyone knows exactly how long the postini trial will last before Plusnet decide to keep it for good or discard it?

[#6]

Have you checked the headers of the spam emails to see if they came via Postini?
I pretty sure that Postini is here to stay.

[#7]

What is slightly annoying is that I have to sign up for a trial spam protection system when I thought I was paying for SPAM as a part of my service?  Am I missing something here.  Are we saying that there is no protection unless you sign up for Postini?  Is the SPAM option in my email settings useless without this trial?  Apologies, but unless I'm missing something here?

[#8]

The original spam protection is still in place (if you look in the headers of your emails you will see a lot added by the DSPAM process). The trouble is, the way DSPAM works it is very slow to react to new tricks employed by the spammers. So at the moment a lot is getting past the DSPAM filter where they have run the words together.
When they first started doing this quite a lot of them got past Postini - but that only lasted a day or so. Those that do get through I can see in the headers added by Postini have been correctly identified as spam - although the [-SPAM-] subject tagging once the email reaches the Plusnet servers has not been turned on yet.

[#9]

Quote from: jelv

I think you are being rather unfair - you have been offered a solution and you have declined to take up the offer because you can't understand the technicalities.

Probably I am.
But I am also a paying customer and I'm not sure I should be involved in the testing of the product at all.
If you were paying me to build you a house, would you be happy to turn up on site and assist me while I tried new housebuilding methods?

[#10]

No - which is why Plusnet used it on their own internal systems for some time before they offered it to us.

[#11]

Quote from: Richard_261

If you were paying me to build you a house, would you be happy to turn up on site and assist me while I tried new housebuilding methods?

That actually happened to me 
A roofer hadn't used the particular (but quite common) dry ridge method for the roof tiles and asked me to climb up to the ridge and help him work it out.
I contacted the main builder and he got a different roofer.
If I was paying a builder and he had an idea that carried some risk but may result in a better job, I would expect him to let me know, explain the risks and costs and ask if I wanted to go for it or not. It would then be up to me if he went ahead.
Likewise, this is a voluntary trial.
What I object to is the possibility that we may all be forced to allow our emails to be diverted via a third-party, when only users with compromised email addresses may benefit.

[#12]

Quote from: Richard_261

Quote from: jelv I think you are being rather unfair - you have been offered a solution and you have declined to take up the offer because you can't understand the technicalities. Probably I am. But I am also a paying customer and I'm not sure I should be involved in the testing of the product at all. If you were paying me to build you a house, would you be happy to turn up on site and assist me while I tried new housebuilding methods?

I am in agreement with Richard_261.
I am a little worried concerning the role of PlusNet.
Am I right that the older anti-spam provisions provided by PlusNet for their customers became relatively ineffective, so they started to seek alternatives?
They tried a solution which involved something called 'Critical Path' which did not give an acceptable result. Subsequently they turned to Postini, which seemed to be better, both of these solutions were first tested on their internal email system.
Have we not reached the stage where the use of Postini is being implemented?
My concern is that the customers are not seeing much involvement by PlusNet staff. There seems to be a lot of input by customers which may be perfectly acceptable. But I have noticed that a lot of advice given is centred around email 'headers'.
This where I continue to be unhappy because we seem to have slipped back into the use of jargon. I guess that most simple customers do not know anything about 'headers', or even to know how to find them.
Perhaps we all would be better off if Plusnet staff, advised 'paying customers' and did not rely on too much on non-staff input.
Maybe Neil Armstrong could look at what appears to me to be a bit of a problem. Can someone please ask him to interest himself in this matter. After all he is a nice approachable fella. He also pushes out the boat in the pub across the road which we hear about frequently.
The count of the number of viewers of this matter shows there is a great deal of interest.

[#13]

So far today, I've had 32 emails from "Intelligent Finance" about my (non existant) online account.
And about 300 other spams from other ****s

[#14]

And I've just realised that posting here hasn't reduced the ammount of spam **** that I receive, so I'll leave you all to it.
Cheers.
Richard

[#15]

@ Bob Milton
If a builder was proposing a totally different way of building your house that you hadn't heard of before, would you take his assurances at face value, perhaps get the boss of the firm to speak to you  or would you like to see a house built that way and speak to the owner to get an "end user's" opinion?
I'm inspecting every nook and cranny of my "new building" and it's looking damned good to me.