How to control what mail you receive.
AntiSpamCentre.com is built around the SpamAssassin product. SpamAssassin inspects email as it reaches Net-Work mail servers and gives it a spam score based on: its origin; header information and content. We have modified the default rule set for SpamAssassin, and review our rule set on a regular basis, to reject as much spam as possible before it is accepted by our servers. We do not advertise what changes we have made to the default configuration to stay at least one step in front of the spammers.
The score that SpamAssassin returns is multiplied by 10; this is done as we prefer to work with whole numbers. So a SpamAssassin score of 5.9 becomes 59.
More information about SpamAssassin is available from www.spamassassin.org.
From http://www.antispamcentre.com select the login menu option. The menu is located on the horizontal black bar at the top of the screen.
You will be prompted to enter your email address and password.
If you want to manage mail for an entire domain name enter the domain name rather than email address together with the appropriate password.
Once you have logged in you are presented with the “Settings” page, your menu bar will change giving you access to Stats, Settings, AcceptMail List, RejectMail List, Quarantine, RejectedEmails and Webmail.
The settings are changed by the Antispamcentre control center under the ‘settings’ menu option. [This is the page that loads when you first log in.]
If you log in as the domain controller you can edit, add and delete users within your domain name. The standard control panel can only edit settings relating you your specific email address. Both control panels work in the same way
The settings you can change from the control panels are.
If you look in the headers of the email you receive you will see each mail is given a spam score (in outlook open the mail then select >view >options then browse down internet headers until you see X-Spam-Score).
By looking at the genuine emails you receive you will soon see the highest scores your genuine contacts are scoring. For a normal user we would not expect this to be above 50, it may be as low as 30. If you have one correspondent scoring particularly high, add them to your AcceptMail list (see ‘How does the AcceptMail list work?’).Set your Reject spam score threshold to just above this level. If you do not have time to check what scores your incoming mail is being given it is usually safe to set the Reject spam score threshold to 50, if you want to be completely safe leave it set at 70.
Now look at the spam scores the ‘spam’ you receive are getting. Some spam will creep through with very low or even minus spam scores; however you will see what the majority are scoring. Set the Quarantine spam score threshold to just below this level. If you do not have time to check what scores your incoming mail is being given set the Quarantine spam score threshold to 20. As the worse thing setting Quarantine spam score threshold does is send an email to a genuine contact asking them to confirm they are a genuine contact it is safe to set this to 0.
Below is a table outlining some settings you might try.
| Setting |
Quarantine spam score threshold | Reject spam score threshold |
| Default |
70 |
70 |
| Suggested Starting Values | 40 |
70 |
| Average Screen * |
30 |
50 |
| Normal |
20 |
50 |
| High Screen ** | 10 |
45 |
| Fully Screened ** |
0 |
40 |
*caution advised until full analysis of incoming email completed
**not advised until full analysis of incoming email completed
When you alter the Quarantine spam score threshold it is important to monitor the emails that are quarantined as you may find automated emails and emails from lists you subscribe to are being quarantined. You can add these addresses to your Acceptmail list from the quarantine screen (see ‘How does quarantine work?’).
Every message that scores more than the spam quarantine threshold and scores less than the spam reject threshold is quarantined.
An email is sent to the sender [of a quarantined email] asking them to verify they are sending genuine correspondence. This email gives instructions to the sender enabling them, via a simple web interface, to release the quarantined email for immediate delivery. Once this has been done, the sender is added to your AcceptMail list so regular correspondents would only have to verify themselves once. NB if you have chosen to de select the ‘Auto Add to accept list’ field this will not happen.
Select Quarantine from the menu to access your quarantined email from here you can accept or reject quarantined email as well as add sender addresses to AcceptMail and RejectMail lists. This feature is important to make sure you receive automated emails (such as order confirmations and circulars) and emails from lists you subscribe to.
You can manage your AcceptMail list by selecting ‘AcceptMail List’ from the menu.
Full email address such as fred@mydomain.com in the AcceptMail list mean that any mail from that address will be delivered to you with no Foul Language check and minimal spam score checks being performed. The spam check at 100 is retained to catch obvious spam (spammers can pretend to be from email addresses might be on your AcceptMail List). Our normal virus and executable file checks are still performed.
Domain names such as mydomain.com can be entered into the AcceptMail list in this case any mail from any sender in that domain will be accepted with minimal checks.
When a correspondent whose email has been quarantined confirms they are a genuine correspondent their email address is added to the AcceptMail List.
If somebody is added to your AcceptMail list via the quarantine that you would rather not receive mail from you can use the appropriate Reject List button to transfer the address to your RejectMail list. See “How does the RejectMail list work?”
If somebody is added to your AcceptMail list via the quarantine and you want to receive mail from them and their colleagues at the same Domain name select the appropriate Domain button to remove the “user@” from the email address entered.
If you are logged on as a Domain Administrator any entries in the AcceptMail list affect every user within your domain. So if fred@yourdomain.com is in the AcceptMail list and you manage mydomain.com. Email addressed to any valid user at mydomain.com from fred@yourdomain.com will be accepted with minimal checks.
Manage your RejectMail list by selecting ‘RejectMail List’ from the menu.
If a full email address such as fred@mydomain.com is in the RejectMail list any mail from that address will be rejected.
Domain names such as mydomain.com can be entered into the RejectMail list in this case any mail from any sender in that domain will be rejected.
As with the AcceptMail list a Domain button is provided to remove the user@ from an email address enabling you to quickly reject all mil coming from a domain name.
If you are logged on as a Domain Administrator any entries in the RejectMail list affect every user within your domain. So if fred@yourdomain.com is in the RejectMail list and you manage mydomain.com. Email addressed to any valid user at mydomain.com from fred@yourdomain.com will be rejected.
View a list of email that have been rejected by selecting RejectedEmails from the main menu this will offer you 10 days history and filter on reason for rejection.
Possible Reasons for rejection:
These settings will stop email bound viruses. We can not guarantee it will stop all viruses, as we do not know what new virus might be invented tomorrow. Viruses can reach your computer from other sources (eg: web sites, CDs) as well as Email so it is important that you run Anti Virus software on your computer system.
These settings will stop about 70% of spam with virtually no chance of genuine mail being bounced as Spam.
If your mail delivery is to a mail box on our server (rather than forwarded to a different address) a WebMail option will be available on the menu. From here you can access your mail box content through our web mail.