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Customizable
Spam Filtering Tools
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Select
hosting accounts include a "Spam Filtering" option
in the Email Setup area of the Control
Panel. This page
contains more detailed information about this feature.
What is "spam"?
The
slang term "spam" is used to described unwanted or
unsolicited email, usually email sent in bulk. Sometimes
unwanted emails also contain viruses or other harmful
attachments.
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What
does Commerce Blvd do to prevent unwanted email from
reaching my in box?
By
default, Commerce Blvd already enables a strong firewall
that filters out some known open-relay servers and
recognized virus attachments. This system has proven to
block a large percentage of unwanted email, however
additional prevention methods are available to help
customers combat the ever increasing "spam"
problem more effectively. Some accounts allow the customer
to customize the filtering settings for each email address.
It is also often recommended to consider a local solution,
such as a virus and email filtering software you can install
on your computer.
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RBL
Options (What is an RBL?)
You
can select from any of the listed RBLs in the interface to
use to filter your incoming email. RBLs ("relay block
lists") are lists of servers that are recognized as
resources for spam. Each list is maintained by different
parties, who each have their own procedures and policies for
adding servers to the list. Some webmasters have preferences
for which lists they want to use to filter their
email.
If
one of the emails sent to you is detected as coming from a
resource/server listed on the RBLs you selected, it will be
automatically deleted before the email reaches your mailbox.
An RBL will typically determine whether an email is "spam"
based on the IP address of the server that is used to send
the email.
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How
do I know which RBLs are best?
There
isn't a unanimous "best" RBL to recommend. Since
each RBL is managed by a different party in a different way,
each one could contain drastically different information.
Some web professionals prefer certain methods for listing
recognized "spam" servers, while other web
professionals might frown on those methods. For these
reasons, Commerce Blvd provides options for each customer to
choose from. For more information about individual RBL
lists, visit the appropriate web site by clicking the
"more information" link.
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Keyword
Filtering Options
Filter
your emails based on specific keywords or phrases found in
the subject line. Enter the specific words or phrases in the
box, each on a separate line. If any of these keywords or
phrases are detected in the subject line of an email, the
email will be automatically deleted before it reaches your
mail box.
By
default, any keyword or phrase you type in case sensitive.
If you would like it to be case insensitive (meaning it will
detect the word, no matter if it's lowercase, capitalized,
etc.), add a (i) before the keyword. For example:
If
you type Kangaroo in the box, the keyword Kangaroo with a
capital "K" is what the filter will search for. If
you type (i)Kangaroo, the filter will match
"kangaroo", "Kangaroo",
"KANGAROO" or any other mixed case version of the
word.
For
advanced users:
You can use ^ and $ anchors to specify the beginning and
ending strings, or just any expression without them, by
default this is case sensitive. For case insensitivity you
can use the following keyword format: (i)pattern or (i)^pattern$.
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Email
Header Filtering Options (For More Advanced Users)
Filter
your emails based on specific email headers. Enter the email
headers in the appropriate box of the Spam Filtering setup
screen, each different one on a separate line. If any of
these email headers are detected in the email, the email
will be automatically deleted before it reaches your mail
box.
The
syntax for the headers is 'X-Header: BLOCK THIS'. You can
use the ^ and $ anchors for regular expressions just like
the subject blocking, this is case sensitive. Also you can
use the following syntax for case insensitivity Xheader: (i)pattern
or Xheader: (i)^pattern$.
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Filtering
Based on Attachments
Filter
your emails based on specific attachments included in the
unwanted emails. Enter the names of each email attachment,
each different one on a separate line. If any of these
attachments are detected in an email, the email will be
automatically deleted before it reaches your mail box.
The
attachments you specify can be an extension (such as .exe),
or a full filename (such as filename.exe) or part of the
filename (such as just filename). For advanced users, regular
expressions can also be used.
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Filtering
Specific Email Address and Domains
A)
Do not allow incoming emails from the following
email addresses/domains.
Enter specific email addresses/domains, each on a separate
line. If any of these domains/email addresses are detected
in the "From" header of the email that is sent to
you, that email will be automatically deleted before it
reaches your mail box. Enter email addresses/domains in any
of the following formats:
@domain.com or
.domain.com or
domain.com or user@domain.com
B)
Always allow incoming email from the following
email addresses/domains.
Enter the specific email addresses/domains, each on a
separate line. If any of these domains/email addresses are
detected in the "From" header of the email, the
email will be automatically allowed to go to your mail box,
regardless of any other filtering options you have chosen.
Enter email addresses/domains in any of the following
formats:
@domain.com or
.domain.com or
domain.com or user@domain.com
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Forwarding
Copies of Detected Spam
If
you type an email address into the "Forward email
determined to be spam to" box, any email that is
determined to be spam by the spam filtering program (based
on any of the filtering methods that you chose) will be
automatically forwarded to the selected email address.
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Forwarding
Copies of Detected Viruses
If you type an email address into the "Forward email
determined to contain viruses to" box, any email that
is determined to contain a virus by the spam filtering
program (based on any of the filtering methods that you
chose) will be automatically forwarded to the selected email
address.
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Can
I use pattern matching or regular expressions to filter
emails?
Yes,
many of the features in our email filtering interface allow
you to use regular expressions, extending the capabilities
of filtering by subject line, email headers, and
attachments. If you are an advanced user seeking information
about this option, the resource below provides a general
guide to regular expressions.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/helpsheets/regex.html
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Using
Razor
The
"Use Razor" option will enable a powerful spam
filtering program called Razor to determine if the incoming
email is spam. Razor is a distributed, collaborative, spam
detection and filtering network. Through user contribution,
Razor establishes a distributed and constantly updating
catalogue of spam in propagation that is consulted by email
clients to filter out known spam. Detection is done with
statistical and randomized signatures that efficiently spot
mutating spam content. User input is validated through
reputation assignments based on consensus on report and
revoke assertions which in turn is used for computing
confidence values associated with individual signatures. For
more information on the razor program, please visit the
Razor website: http://razor.sourceforge.net/
Please
bare in mind that Commerce Blvd cannot be responsible for
the affect that these filtering options have on your email. Commerce Blvd
does not guarantee the accuracy of any of these RBLs, of
Razor, or of any other type of "spam" list. Commerce Blvd
provides these customizable filtering options so that each
customer and/or webmaster may set their preferred standards
for email management. For questions about the Spam Filtering
feature, please email support@commerceblvd.com
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