Important Email Security Inquiry

[TickledToDeath]

How would one go about setting up spam protection in their email that is that the email sender has to enter that little code thing you see to authenticate the email just before you actually send it. You know those curvy close together combination of letters and numbers (JLM5UE) that you have to enter in a box in order to send the email and prove it is not spam?


TTD

 

[His Divine Shadow]

I'm not so sure I understand. You want the sender to have to enter a CAPTCHA code before they even send the email out? That would require an installation on the sender's server/computer and is not going to happen.

What I suspect you mean is something like this:
1. The sender sends their email.
2. It is received by a protection program before it gets to you.
3. That program sends an email back to the sender asking them to click a link/enter a code to confirm that they are not a spammer.
4. If the sender clicks the link the is delivered to you; if not it is discarded.

Is that more like what you meant?

 

[TickledToDeath]

I'm not so sure I understand. You want the sender to have to enter a CAPTCHA code before they even send the email out? That would require an installation on the sender's server/computer and is not going to happen.

What I suspect you mean is something like this:
1. The sender sends their email.
2. It is received by a protection program before it gets to you.
3. That program sends an email back to the sender asking them to click a link/enter a code to confirm that they are not a spammer.
4. If the sender clicks the link the is delivered to you; if not it is discarded.

Is that more like what you meant?

Yes.
However am I to understand that the security that is that verification code, you know curvy close together combination of letters and numbers that the sender of an email has to enter into a small box in order for the mail to be sent.
THAT is something installed on the Sendersend?. I only see that on certain emails that I send where I have to do that and I never installed something like that or it would be on every email I send where I would have to do that.
Perhaps I am or was describing wrongfully but it is something that makes the sender confirm they are not s spammer but it is done right away, after the emailer clicks on send, that little box comes up and the combination of letters and numbers appear etc. Once they are entered correctly, away goes the email.

TTD

 

[His Divine Shadow]

The thing you describe is an automated program installed on the recipient's end or subscribed to by the recipient. So if you wanted to protect yourself from spam you would install or subscribe to it. When email is sent to such a protected recipient this program intercepts it first. It checks to see who sent it and then looks at a "whitelist" of confirmed senders. If the sender is on the whitelist the email is okay'd and forwarded to the recipient. If the sender is not on the whitelist the program sends an automated reply to the sender, requesting that they either click on a link or enter the sort of CAPTCHA code that you refer to (I've never seen such on one of these services but it certainly would be possible and, in fact, preferable).

Once the user has confirmed themselves as being a real person they are added to the whitelist and the email goes through. Such a system prevents automated spambots from getting spam through, since they are unlikely to be programmed to deal with the response. You will have to manually add any mailing lists (since the mailing list client won't know how to deal with it) and you will have problems receiving emails from stores you purchase from, for the average shopping cart system (or even one at a large entity like Amazon) is not going to know how or want to deal with the confirmation.

This sort of thing is good for the recipient but can annoy senders. Did I explain what you're thinking of? I'm not completely sure.

 

[TickledToDeath]

The thing you describe is an automated program installed on the recipient's end or subscribed to by the recipient. So if you wanted to protect yourself from spam you would install or subscribe to it. When email is sent to such a protected recipient this program intercepts it first. It checks to see who sent it and then looks at a "whitelist" of confirmed senders. If the sender is on the whitelist the email is okay'd and forwarded to the recipient. If the sender is not on the whitelist the program sends an automated reply to the sender, requesting that they either click on a link or enter the sort of CAPTCHA code that you refer to (I've never seen such on one of these services but it certainly would be possible and, in fact, preferable).

Once the user has confirmed themselves as being a real person they are added to the whitelist and the email goes through. Such a system prevents automated spambots from getting spam through, since they are unlikely to be programmed to deal with the response. You will have to manually add any mailing lists (since the mailing list client won't know how to deal with it) and you will have problems receiving emails from stores you purchase from, for the average shopping cart system (or even one at a large entity like Amazon) is not going to know how or want to deal with the confirmation.

This sort of thing is good for the recipient but can annoy senders. Did I explain what you're thinking of? I'm not completely sure.

Yeah I do believe you did.
I am only bring all this up because my MAIN personal email is getting bombarded every friggin day with a ton of spam from Pharmaceutical companies and I cannot stop it regardless of the reports to Yahoo and or whomever the senders email address is from and hotmail/msn is even less help. AT least Yahoo is taking care of those I do report to their "abuse" but it all just keeps on coming....


TTD

Ps Thanks.
So where do I go get this program you speak of?

 

[His Divine Shadow]

Unfortunately it's not going to work (or at least, won't work well) for Yahoo! email. To use one of these programs you really need to control your own email server so as to install the program (called a challenge-response system). There are options where you can install it on your computer (if you use Outlook/Outlook Express to get your Yahoo! mail) but if you use their webmail it will be worthless to do so.

The only really worthwhile option is probably to create an entirely new email and start using that one. If you never share it save with personal friends who won't use it elsewhere you should be safe for a time. This is the trouble with Spam; no one has a good solution.

 

[cabalist]

Although I'm not sure if it's clear that it is a Yahoo address which TTD is wishing to "protect" from spam, if so, there is one service, boxbe.com, which can be used in connection with a free Yahoo account, using challenge/response in conjunction with spam scoring. It creates a special "waiting list" folder in your Yahoo account, to which it routes "spammy-looking" messages from senders not in your "approved" list (including everyone in your address book, which can be imported to said list), allowing you to "approve" or "disapprove" them. I'm not sure if the challenge-response message contains a CAPTCHA, or exactly how it works, since I haven't used the service extensively myself, but only to filter spam from a few mostly-unused old (non-Yahoo) accounts which hardly receive anything but spam anymore.

Again, I haven't used the service much, nor have I been using it for long, so I can't vouch for how well it may work for an email account which one actually uses on a daily basis. And as suggested above, any challenge/response type system has its pros and cons, but it can be helpful if the level of spam received in an email account has reached an "intolerable" level, and as very few if any other third party spam control services work with standard free Yahoo.com addresses (thanks mainly to their lack of forwarding or POP3 access), I thought I'd mention it as something possibly worth looking at anyway.

 

[TickledToDeath]

Although I'm not sure if it's clear that it is a Yahoo address which TTD is wishing to "protect" from spam, if so, there is one service, boxbe.com, which can be used in connection with a free Yahoo account, using challenge/response in conjunction with spam scoring. It creates a special "waiting list" folder in your Yahoo account, to which it routes "spammy-looking" messages from senders not in your "approved" list (including everyone in your address book, which can be imported to said list), allowing you to "approve" or "disapprove" them. I'm not sure if the challenge-response message contains a CAPTCHA, or exactly how it works, since I haven't used the service extensively myself, but only to filter spam from a few mostly-unused old (non-Yahoo) accounts which hardly receive anything but spam anymore.

Again, I haven't used the service much, nor have I been using it for long, so I can't vouch for how well it may work for an email account which one actually uses on a daily basis. And as suggested above, any challenge/response type system has its pros and cons, but it can be helpful if the level of spam received in an email account has reached an "intolerable" level, and as very few if any other third party spam control services work with standard free Yahoo.com addresses (thanks mainly to their lack of forwarding or POP3 access), I thought I'd mention it as something possibly worth looking at anyway.

I will indeed look into that. Much thanks!

TTD

 

[TickledToDeath]

Unfortunately it's not going to work (or at least, won't work well) for Yahoo! email. To use one of these programs you really need to control your own email server so as to install the program (called a challenge-response system). There are options where you can install it on your computer (if you use Outlook/Outlook Express to get your Yahoo! mail) but if you use their webmail it will be worthless to do so.

The only really worthwhile option is probably to create an entirely new email and start using that one. If you never share it save with personal friends who won't use it elsewhere you should be safe for a time. This is the trouble with Spam; no one has a good solution.

Yahoo does indeed have its downside.

I may have to reconsider email accounts for certain mail.

Thanks for your help and suggestions bro!

TTD