Our SpamAnswer servers use a
series of tests to determine how to handle e-mail intended
for you. Each test is executed in series (one after another)
until all are completed succesfully (and, the e-mail can be
delivered to you) or a failure is encountered. Here is how
an e-mail passes through our system:
A remote
computer connects to our SpamAnswer servers with the
intention of delivering a message to you. Our servers
require that remote computer not be listed as a known
SPAM server, not be a workstation on a dial-up/cable/DSL
modem (please see the "Home User" note below), and be
configured according to all accepted Internet standards
when it tells our servers its hostname.
The domain
that is supposedly sending the e-mail (the someplace.com
in user@someplace.com) must actually exist.
There are
no rules prohibiting the sender's e-mail address.
The message
does not contain poorly formed headers (headers are the
inforamtion that tells the systems all about the
delivery of your message).
If there
are files attached to the message, none of them must be
(or contain, in the case of "zip" files) files that have
a blocked extension (.pif, .bat, .com, etc)
If there
are files attached to the message, none of them must be
infected with a virus detectable by our virus scanners
(see "Virus Scanning" note below).
At this
point, if the sender has been "white-listed" for your
address(es), it will receive a value of -100 (minus one
hundred) before starting the content scanning phase.
The message
must not contain words or phrases that are not allowed
by our mail servers.
After a
message has been scanned for its content, it received a
"score". This score must not be higher than the maximum
score allowed by your filtering rules.
If the
score of the message is over your limit, it gets
quarantined. Otherwise, it gets queued up for delivery
to your server.
NOTES: Home
User: Home users are
not supposed to send e-mail directly from their computer to
anywhere. All e-mail messages are supposed to be delivered
to their ISP's server for routing to the intended recipient.
Users that abide by these "rules" will not be blocked for IP
Address violations by our SpamAnswer servers.
Virus Scanning:
Our virus scanners
automatically update their virus definition files multiple
times per day. And, there are always at least two scanners
running on every SpamAnswer server. Even so, we still
recommend that you run your own virus scanning software on
your server and on your workstations to ensure the
highest-level of virus protection. New viruses, and variants
of old ones, appear all the time. No single anti-virus
software package will catch them all. But, the more systems
that are checking each message, the more likely a virus will
not get through to your computers.
