Email

[RM_Drake]

The way Spamarrest works is called "whitelisting." It's the opposite of "blacklisting." When an address is "blacklisted," email from that address is blocked. The problem with blacklisting is that spammers change their "From:" address with each new broadcast, so you wind up with hundreds of thousands of blocked addresses that were used once but will never be used again. With whitelisting, you specify which addresses you will let through -- a much shorter list -- and everything else is blocked.

Earthlink allows their subscribers to set their SpamBlocker (included free with the account) to off, medium, or high. The "high" setting, which I use, is whitelisting. Incoming mail is then directed to one of three boxes [my counts]: "known spam" [over 1000/day], "suspect mail" [10-20/day], and my inbox [10-20/day]. "Suspect mail" is held on their server for 10 days and automatically sends a challenge email to the sender that requires a human response. A response [maybe 2-3/year] is sent to my inbox, asking if I want to add the recipient to my whitelist. I check my "suspect mail" box online every couple of days, just to see if I've forgotten to add a new address to my whitelist (when ordering something from a new vendor, for example). Even looking at the "suspect" email online does not let the sender know you're looking at it, since no graphics/web bugs are loaded.

I've had my email address for over 14 years, so I'm on every spam list known to man. Without a whitelist, I'd have to change my address every couple of years just to keep my sanity! --Randy

[RM_Drake]

[ QUOTE ]
I cannot get it to display JPG attachments in the body of an email like I can in Netscape or Outlook. I'm not talking about inline pasted images, they do show up, I mean a true attachment.

[/ QUOTE ] It depends on how the JPGs are attached. If the sender is using Eudora, he can either attach it from the menu (Message|Attach Document) or just drag and drop it into the body of the email. When dropped into the body, it will appear in the body of the email when opened. When attached with the menu, it will appear as an icon in the email. Fortunately, you can drag the icon right from the body of the email and drop it onto your favorite JPG viewer (e.g., Preview on a Mac) to display it. --Randy

[RBP]

I recommend strongly against any "challenge-response" and "whitelist" e-mail system.

For one, that is not the "solution" to spam. It just hides a symptom.

Second, there are more and more systems that will not and indeed can not respond to such challenges. You buy something mail order and get automated e-mail of the tracking numbers and you'll never see them.

Third, what happens when the original sender's spam system flags your challenge as spam itself? Again, you don't get their e-mail.

I run a very expensive pay site for attorneys (over $3000 a year for some practices) and the subscription process is automated, as are a number of other functions of the site. These automated systems can not reply to e-mail challenges. The site and the forms make explicitly clear that if you use such challenge/response systems, you may not receive e-mail from the site and no refunds will be given because you use such an e-mail system.

If e-mail is important to you, don't use Spamarrest or similar system.

Just my $0.02.

[RBP]

Andy, are you unaware that there are a couple of well known viruses like "Trojan.Moo" that deliver their engine and payloads in JPG files? See http://www.easynews.com/virus.html

[RM_Drake]

That's precisely why I check my "Suspect Mail" box every couple of days. The only time mail hits the "Known Spam" box is when mine is one of several thousand emails my ISP receives from the same sender. A single-send (that is, not broadcast) email that is not on my whitelist is put into the "Suspect" box for my review. I don't really need a response from my ISP's automated challenge-response system. I'll find it and manually move it to my inbox anyway. --Randy

[Andy_Pearlman]

The whole point of Spam Arrest - automated systems cannot self-authorize their sent emails, and that's fine with me. I send stuff by Fedex online, receive order confirmations from Amazon and B&H, get credit card statements, and subscribe to few legit mailing lists and Yahoo groups (not to mention GG). I never miss them because they're all smart enough to send their email from the same email address over and over, and once you approve each sender you get whatever they send. What you are missing is that you - the recipient - can approve the email sender from a list of pending (or "unverified") emails, you don't have to depend on the sender to do it. Yes, you have to approve them the first time because the humans on the sender side can't, but so what? That's why your suspect email is held - on Spamarrest's site for a week or so - in an "unverified" box, and I check that at my leisure, usually a couple times of day. As I said, I re-sort the suspect email based on the subject line, and you'd be amazed at how easily legitimate email shines through. You can also "whitelist" or "blacklist" entire domains.

Yes, in a perfect world there would be a "solution" to spam. When you have one let me know, until then I'll stick to spam arrest.

Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio

[Andy_Pearlman]

That was my point. Unless the sender attaches the JPG a certain way, you'd have to use an external JPG reader - like Photoshop - to view it. I don't want to do that, I want to see it in the body of the email. Since many of the photos I get sent are from non-computer literate models and some photographers, I can't assume the word will get out on the proper way to insert, or attach a JPG. However, the answers from Ernie below and RBP above yours, do give me some things to think about.

Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio

[Andy_Pearlman]

I wasn't aware of that, but a few thoughts come to mind. First, it seems like a fairly new development (from the link you posted and some followup), so why would Eudora not have allowed JPG attachments prior to this? In other words, if the the threat is new, what was their reason for not showing JPGs before the threat came into existance? Second, it sounds like the AntiVirus world is as aware of this technique as they are all the other techniques, so with a current A/V definitions subscription, my A/V software should catch those viruses as well (or not) as well as they do viruses in other attachments or emails, so what's the difference? 3) Shouldn't it be my choice?, and 4) If you use SpamArrest like I do, you cut down dramatically, the potential for such viruses to come into your machine on their own. I'm going to assume that a model sending me photos, unlike a bot sending me spam, has a lesser chance of being a viruses promoter. Now if her images somehow have picked up such a virus, what difference does it make whether I open them in an email client, the Windows viewer, or Photoshop?

Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio

[Andy_Pearlman]

I agree, I do like Eudora a lot. Let me ask you about these JPGs showing up. Are you sure these are simple attachments, and not pasted into the body of the senders email? If so, that's what I'm looking for.

Thanks,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio

[ErnieR]

Andy, the photos are standard attachments, mails with the image pasted into the body don't have an attachment icon with the message. I didn't change any of my settings to get the photos to appear. I just updated it when it notified me of a new version and the photos went from icons to full fledged photos. I'm useing the paid version of 6.2 to get the spam filtering and I love it.