RANT: Spam and Sonic.net

[bobrk]

Someday one of those zip files will contain a Linux/BSD executable.

[tensigh]

True dat.

[tensigh]

Okay, another rant: Can Sonic implement single sign-on? Why do I have to sign on to members.sonic.net and then webmail.sonic.net? Follow up rant; why doesn't members.sonic.net allow the option to remember my credentials or at least user name? Since I have to log on practically every day to blacklist YET ANOTHER subject to prevent spam, SSO would be quite helpful. Okay, end rant. (white sandy beaches...white sandy beaches...white sandy beaches...white sandy beaches...)

[Flip]

How about this as an option: Add a blacklist function to webmail.

I would love to be able to rightclick on some span and blacklist the email account or domain.

Flip

[tensigh]

There is a way of doing that. Go to the blackmail by email address screen and do something like:

*@yahoo.com

or

*@yahoo.*

This works.

[newcustomer]

FWIW - Google uses Postini (which it bought in 2007 I believe) which is the leading email filtering gateway for enterprise systems. As the other customer noted, my gmail account also hasn't allowed any UCE (spam) to reach the inbox in the 5+ years of usage - amazing but true. Also, is Sonic using SPF in email processing? It doesn't appear that it is currently and this would be helpful in this situation.

I'm new to Sonic, but after reading this thread I'm very disappointed with the support tech's response to use "a native email client" as a resolution. If the Sonic webmail is poorly designed (which I found it to be after using it IMHO) or implemented, then why is it available for customers to use? Having users run a native client in lieu of webmail puts the burden on the customer to manage UCE, rather than Sonic examining their email system for any issues related to this. This is the primary reason that I switched to Sonic - the promise of excellent, expeditious technical support by the ISP support staff and unfortunately that is not what I've experienced so far as a customer. I'm offering this feedback as constructive criticism and not as a personal attack on the support staff; hopefully it is helpful to Sonic and it's customers.

[tensigh]

Sonic's support is pretty good in most cases. I'm amazed when I've called them at the level of technical expertise; it's like each support person is a hacker or CCNP level support person plus they're very kind to my parents.

You are right that there seems to be a "meh, there's not a lot we can do" attitude towards UCE/spam. Sonic has always been on the cutting edge of technology but with spam/UCE there should be a more comprehensive strategy. For example, a page with suggested SA settings, plus recommended DNS block settings. Instead it's quite technical (fun for me, not so much for my parents) and not all that effective.

[thulsa_doom]

I'm new to Sonic, but after reading this thread I'm very disappointed with the support tech's response to use "a native email client" as a resolution. If the Sonic webmail is poorly designed (which I found it to be after using it IMHO) or implemented, then why is it available for customers to use?

If your native client is having problems or is unavailable for some reason, a webmail interface provides an alternate means of accessing your correspondence. Using a native client means you get exactly the interface and feature set you're looking for, at the expense of portability. Using a webmail client means tremendous portability but limited choice in interface and feature set. Having both available is optimal from the email provider's pespective; it wouldn't make any sense to cut one or the other off.

[kgc]

You are right that there seems to be a "meh, there's not a lot we can do" attitude towards UCE/spam. Sonic has always been on the cutting edge of technology but with spam/UCE there should be a more comprehensive strategy. For example, a page with suggested SA settings, plus recommended DNS block settings. Instead it's quite technical (fun for me, not so much for my parents) and not all that effective.

Everyone starts out with our recommended and suggested settings - users should not need to change the settings in order to enjoy a basically spam free email box. We've traditionally exposed a lot of the internals to allow people to apply their own filtering policies to their mail be it as lenient or draconian as they like.

That said, what I hear is that our systems are not as effective as they used to be and I'm seeing that in my own mail flows too. I would expect that customers will see a substantial change in our inbound anti spam systems sometime in the next few months. The systems in place are overdue for an overhaul. It is likely that in the long run we'll migrate completely away from SpamAssassin and users will have a much simpler interface to control their preferences.

[tensigh]

Thank you, Kelsey. Since my SA settings are pretty tight and a number of spams have gotten through, I started looking at the headers. Almost all of the ones that got through had a tiny SA score (1.5 or less) and I realized it's become less effective. I appreciate your comments above.