Mail Filter Service

Spam Filtering

Open Relay filtering is an effort by several organizations aimed at curbing the number one vehicle used by unscrupulous spammers. Mail servers should not be configured to allow open un-authenticated mail relay from unknown, anonymous parties. The proliferation of cheap and "user-friendly" smtp email servers and the consequent increase in  under-trained system administrators has increased the number of open relay systems available to spammers. To combat this situation, Biz Net uses ORDB.org's list of open mail relays to filter for such open relays. This stops a good deal of the email even before it gets to Biz Net's filter.

SpamAssassin is open source code based on a series of algorithms used to identify and weight the various characteristics of SPAM. We use this source and modify it to produce our implementation of labeling and dealing with this time-robbing scourge facing today's online community. We are constantly updating the variables which make our Spam Rating System (SRS) a highly accurate enhancement of Spam Assassin.

Of the three options of post processing SRS email, label-it-and-send-it-on, send it to a special email address, or delete it, we recommend the first. Using this method, each end user actually receives his own SPAM, but has the option of using our markings to build simple email software filters available in all current email software (please refer to your email software documentation for creating filters). This allows the users to direct all SPAM to a special inbox, which we recommend they check periodically to see if anything important (non-SPAM) is being filtered incorrectly.  Although it is a rarity, our Mail Filter sometimes may generate a "false positive", resulting in a message labeled as SPAM when it is not really SPAM. Since spammers don't usually highlight the fact that their mail is unwanted and unsolicited, our filters have to do all the work! There are several things that we recommend to keep this from happening.

Items that are most commonly mislabeled as SPAM are newsletters and discussion lists that our customers are subscribed to. Normally, this is easily fixed by re-subscribing or changing your preferences so that you receive email in only a "plain text" version from that organization.  Or you can find a characteristic that is unique in the subject, headers, or body of the message and adjust your email client's filter so that it distributes the message to the appropriate box.

All messages that are labeled as spam are sent with the following text added:

"This message was scanned by the Biz Net Technologies mail filter and it looked like spam or junk mail. As a precaution, all attachments have been removed and any potentially malicious HTML code has been neutralized. If it's definitely NOT junk mail, please visit the following page as soon as possible

If you visit within 1 week (before Wednesday Jul 3, 1126 AM), the page will include an option to resend the original message without any junk mail filtering."

When the user clicks on the link there are two options to choose from; the user chooses one or both:

1. Definitely not SPAM, please adjust the filters to allow this email source.
   We'll verify that it is legitimate mail and add this to a "Good Mail" list in the filter.

2. Send this email on thru unfiltered.

For more information about our services, please contact Biz Net Technologies.