• What's the first thing I should do to reduce my spam?
• What is SpamAssassin?
• How does SpamAssassin work?
• How do I get to my SpamAssassin Settings?
• What are "Required Hits"?
• What are "Trashcan Hits"?
• What is the "Allow/Deny Addresses List"?
• Do you have recommendations for configuring SpamAssassin?
• I've got SpamAssassin enabled but still get some spam.  What else I can do?

Probably the single most effective thing you can do is to turn on Greylisting for your account.

• What is Greylisting?  Greylisting is a new method of blocking significant amounts of spam based on the behavior of the sending mail server. It is used at the mail server level so it places no load on the end user's machine. Greylisting relies on the fact that most spam servers do not behave in the same way as "normal" mail servers. In testing, our Greylist has vastly reduced the amount of spam our testers received while at the same time reducing the burden on our mail servers. The only thing our testers noticed was that sometimes, with the first email someone sent them through the Greylist, receipt was delayed usually about 10 to 15 minutes, but occasionally up to an hour. After the first mail passed through the list however, receipt time was back to normal for that sender.  
   
• How does Greylisting work?  The Greylist works by returning a "Temporarily Unavailable" message to the sending mail server the first (and only the first) time a message is received from a given sender. Normal mail servers, such as ours or Yahoo! or AOL, will respond to this message by attempting to resend the email. Most servers try again in 10 to 15 minutes, but some may wait up to an hour before making the next attempt. However all legitimate mail servers will retry. Because of the tremendous volume of messages spam servers are trying to send, most do not try to resend these "failed" messages; they simply give up and move on. This is how Greylisting defeats spam.
   
• How Do I Turn Greylisting On/Off for My Email Account?  Because Greylisting is so beneficial, we very highly recommend that everyone turn it on, or have us turn it on for you. To enable Greylisting for your account, just go to https://mailhost.idcomm.com, and log in with your full email address and password. On the following page, scroll down to Greylisting and check the box to turn it on, or uncheck it to turn it back off. Then click the Update Settings button. This will turn Greylisting on or off for your account. If you prefer, you may contact us locally at 303-790-4343 or toll free at 888-790-4343, and we'll change the Greylist setting for you. 

 

What is SpamAssassin?

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SpamAssassin is offered by id Communications as a free, easy-to-use, customizable solution to your spam problem.  If you're tired of searching for "real" mail in the mountain of unsolicited and often offensive junk, SpamAssassin is for you.  With SpamAssassin you can:

• Manage and eliminate unwanted junk emails before download.
• Ensure delivery of wanted messages by entering your personal address book.
• Blacklist specific addresses or entire domains.  For instance, you can blacklist servers that have repeatedly ignored requests to be removed from their lists.

By default, SpamAssassin is turned on when we create your email account.
 

Based on default or customized settings, SpamAssassin rates messages for specific words, phrases, and patterns common to unsolicited email. When SpamAssassin detects spam, the email is identified with two numbers in the subject line, for example, *****SPAM*****[11.58/05.00] Overnight home delivery of vitamins. The first number (11.58) is the total score tallied by SpamAssassin. The second number (05.00) is the Required Hits value.
 

To get to your SpamAssassin settings to customize them, just click on the following link:

https://mailhost.idcomm.com/login.php

When you see the login screen, enter your full email address and email password.  You will then be taken to a page called "Email and SpamAssassin Settings for:" and it will show your email address.  On the right side of the screen, there will be a button called SpamAssassin Settings.  Click this button, and you're there.
 

The Required Hits value represents the minimum score for a message to be labeled as spam. Using the default settings, *****SPAM***** is added to the beginning of the subject line of a message that has a point value of 5 or more.  This is useful if you do not want to delete any messages or prefer to sort spam into a separate folder.   You can make SpamAssassin stricter by decreasing the Required Hits, or increase the number to make SpamAssassin more lenient.
 

When enabled, the Trashcan Hits value represents the score a message must reach to be deleted directly from the server before reaching your mailbox.  Enable the trash can feature by entering a number in this field that you feel comfortable will not delete legitimate emails. If spam has been redirected into a separate folder, scan the contents and see if any are misidentified. Determine the highest score of the incorrectly identified messages, and set the Trashcan Hits value to one higher than that number.  Now that you know what the numbers in the subject line mean, start controlling your mailbox! 
 

By entering the email addresses of friends and family members in the Allow List, you ensure that those addresses are never identified as spam. On the other hand, entering undesirable addresses in the Deny List ensures that, regardless of scoring, these blacklisted addresses will always be identified as spam. In fact, entire domains can be blocked if you desire. (Enable Trash Can Hits to guarantee automatic deletion of email from denied addresses.)
 

Of course we do.  While some spam is easy to detect, much of it is concealed because solicitors and viruses try to disguise messages.  You can configure SpamAssassin to match your definition of what's important and what's not.

We recommend a three-step process:

1. Filter spam messages into a separate folder. This step will help you create a mail rule for your email program that will sort all email with *****SPAM***** added to the subject line into a spearate folder away from your inbox.  Instructions for creating your mail rule can be found below:
   
   • Outlook Express
   • Microsoft Outlook
   • Netscape Messenger
   • Eudora
      
2. Decide if your Required Hits should be more restrictive or lenient. For instance, a number of emails may be incorrectly identified, all with a score of less than 8. You can either input the incorrectly identified email addresses into the Allow List, or you can increase the Required Hits to 8 instead of 5 so that fewer messages are misidentified as spam.
    
3. Determine the value for the Trashcan Hits feature.  Once this feature has been enabled, messages scoring higher than this number will be deleted before reaching your mailbox.  To choose a number, review messages marked as spam.  Find the highest scoring mis-identified email, round the score up, and add at least 1 to that number.  For example, assume the highest scoring mis-identified message shows *****SPAM*****[11.58/05.00] Monthly Billing Invoice for the subject line. In this case, you would set the Trashcan Hits value to 13. (Round off 11.58 to 12, add 1 for a total of 13). We recommend using an initial value of 15 until you determine whether you need to enter some friends into your Allow List. Once you have entered any mis-identified addresses into your Allow List, you can lower the Trashcan Hits value to further reduce your spam.
    

If you are already using SpamAssassin and would like to reduce the amount of spam you receive even further, try some of these tips.

• Use your Allow/Deny list to block entire domains instead of one specific email address.  For example, if you receive spam from buynow@greatdeals.com, and you don't want to ever receive mail from anyone at greatdeals.com again, instead of buynow@greatdeals.com, enter *@greatdeals.com, select Deny, and click the Add New Address button.  This tells SpamAssassin to block anything from that domain. 
   
• Block mail from entire countries.  Many spammers now are using mail accounts based in other countries, accounts that end not in .com but with .fr (France) or .ru (Russia) or .jp (Japan).  To block mail from entire countries, for instance from France, simply enter *@*.fr, select Deny, and click the Add New Address button.
   
• Block spammers with multiple mail servers.  Some spammers have several email servers, such as smtp5.greatdeals.com and smtp6.greatdeals.com.  To block this type of spam, enter *@*.greatdeals.com, select Deny, and click the Add New Address button. 
   
• Use your Allow/Deny list, Required Hits, and Trashcan hits together to drastically reduce spam.  PLEASE NOTE:  If you use your email for business purposes or otherwise receive legitimate email from those not in your address book, this tip may cause some legitimate email to be lost.  User discretion is advised.  Initially, this tip may take some time depending upon the size of your email address book.  However it can be well worth the effort.  Enter all addresses from your email address book into your Allow list with the exception of yourself (if you are in there).  Now lower your required hits to 2 or 3, and your Trashcan hits to 3 or 4 (Trashcan Hits must always be at least one number higher than Required Hits).  This will eliminate all but the most devious and clever spammers' junk mail.  Will you still receive any spam?  Unfortunately yes.  Spammers are always improving their techniques.  However, you should notice a dramatic drop in the amount of spam you receive.