This year, half of all email will be spam. Stinks, huh? Stinks even worse if you’re responsible for keeping that junk out of your users’ mailboxes.
Plenty of tools promise to help. But which ones work? Which ones fit your environment? How do you keep ahead of the spammers and still avoid false positives? One book has the answers: The Anti-Spam Toolkit.
Part I focuses on choosing the right strategy. The authors cover network-based blacklists, client- and server-based filtering, gateway solutions such as Brightmail, and provider-based solutions (for example, ISP and external exchanger filtering).
Next, they drill down into serious practical detail. For example, there’s a full chapter on IP- and domain-based DNS blacklisting, including detailed coverage of MAPS, SpamCop, Spamhaus, and Distributed Server Boycott List. (The authors also walk you through configuring Sendmail, Postfix, and Microsoft Exchange to honor a blacklist.)
The authors swear by SpamAssassin, and cover it in depth (primarily the Linux distribution, but also commercial versions for other platforms). You’ll walk through installation (from CPAN or tarball, your choice); then configuration.
The Anti-Spam Toolkit contains chapters on Windows anti-spam clients and servers, as well as tools for both Mac OS X and Linux. Once you’ve deployed this stuff, of course, you need to manage it. This book shows how to identify new spammer evasion techniques, fine-tune your system, and more.
These authors are in the trenches, swatting spam for ISPs, corporate, and government email systems. Don’t know how they found time to write a book, but we’re glad they did. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2003 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.