Spam Trapping Errors

[Keith Doxey]

Hi All

Firstly apologies to anyone who has sent me email and either had it bounce
as undeliverable or seemingly had it ignored.

I have just logged onto my email account via the web interface to see what
was in the SPAM folder as I thought it strange that I hadnt received
replies
to a couple of emails that I had sent.

I found that the SPAM folder contained 351 messages. Unfortunately 100 of
them were GENUINE EMAILS that had incorrectly been identified as SPAM. I
have established that they had several things in common.

1. Sender Identified as an Open Relay
bigpond.net.au
aol.com
ntlworld.com
rapidhoster.co.uk
( this trapped support messages from RapidHoster, some of my own messages
as
that is where my sites are hosted, and several from people I know have
there
sites hosted on RapidHoster)

2. Trapped by contents of messages. The SpamAssasin added points for
"Toner
Cartridge" contained within the body of the message which with the
points
for being an "Open Relay" were enough to push it over the limit.
Upon
checking the contents of the message it became apparent that the ONLY
reference to Toner Cartridge was in the advertisement text added by Yahoo
Groups.

It may be worth other people checking their email accounts if they are
setup
not to download spam just to ensure that wanted messages havent been
mistakenly labelled as SPAM.

Any advice on how to "Fine Tune" SpamAssasin so that I minimise
the risk of
losing wanted email whilst successfully trapping most of the trash would be
gratefully appreciated.

Once again, apologies if you have had problems contacting me or have not
received a reply but I dont know what else I can do to improve the
siutuation. Alternate accounts that I used to use on BTInternet are now
totally useless due to massive volumes of Spam received on a daily basis
about 10% of which doesnt get trapped by their filters.

Keith

www.diyha.co.uk
www.kat5.tv