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In general terms,
Netpath's “Spam Firewall” service evaluates incoming messages and
applies a series of tests to classify each message according to its
likelihood of being spam or carrying a virus. The four categories are
as follows:
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Messages that are clearly neither spam nor virus-bearing. These
messages are delivered directly to your Inbox.
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Messages that have some of the characteristics of spam, but which may be
legitimate, are sent to your Inbox and are marked [SPAM?] so that you
can make a decision about how to handle them. Messages from
organizations, businesses, and mailing lists often fall into this
category.
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Messages that have objectionable content, attachments that might contain
viruses, or which match known spam content are quarantined (i.e., sent
to your “Spam Firewall”.) These messages will be held on the server in
quarantine for your review.
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Messages that are clearly spam or virus-bearing are discarded before you
see them.
At the simplest
level, you can use your email program just as you have always used it.
Our filter will strip out obvious spam and deliver the remaining
messages to your Inbox. You will, however, notice one difference: some
of the messages arriving in your Inbox will bear the label [SPAM?] in
the subject line. This label is there as a warning to help you
determine what needs to be done with those messages: read them, delete
them, store them in a separate folder, etc.
Note: Be sure to check your
“Spam Firewall” regularly to be sure that no desired email
messages have been “Quarantined” unexpectedly. This would be an
opportunity for you to “Whitelist” that email sender, so their future
messages go straight to your Inbox, as desired! (See the detailed
explanation below under “Managing Quarantined Mail”.)
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Netpath email users
have access to the “Spam Firewall” personal account management system.
To make use of this system you must initialize your account. Follow
these steps:
Access the “Spam Firewall” site from your browser.
The URL is http://spamjail.netpath.net:8000/.
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First Time User:
Request a password.
Your username is your regular email address, in the form
loginname@netpath.net, loginname@ mynetpath.net, or loginname@netpath-rc.net.
If you have never used this service before, the system will need
to issue you a password. To request a password, enter your
username/email address in the “Username:” field and click “Create
New Password”. The system will confirm the operation and within
just a few seconds a new password will be sent to you in the body of an
email message. You can also use this process to get a reminder if
you've forgotten your password. Please proceed to the next step, below.
Important: This will not change your regular email password;
you do not need to make any changes to your email settings.
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Already have a Username and Spam Password?: Login again with the password. Return to the login page and this time log in with your
username/email address and the password you just received (or click on
the link in the “Spam Firewall” Quarantine message you received). If
everything is working properly, the next screen will be the main user
account management screen displaying the Quarantine Inbox with other
tabbed options.
When you are finished
using the system, don't forget to click the
“Log Off” link in the upper
right-hand corner, or close your browser.
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The Quarantine
Inbox is your personal display on the “Spam Firewall” server of the
quarantined email that has been saved for your review. The system
assigns messages to the Quarantine category that have a very high
likelihood of being junk mail. However, because these messages are
quarantined, rather than simply discarded, you get to choose how to
handle them.
There is no need to delete the spam messages from
your “Spam Firewall” Quarantine box. These messages are stored on our
server and will be automatically deleted after 60 days. To delete them
only wastes your time.
The three most used
function buttons are described below:
·
“Deliver”
-- sends the selected message(s) to your regular Netpath Inbox.
·
“Whitelist”
-- automatically adds the sender's information to your “approved” list.
·
“Delete”
-- discards the selected message(s).
The most important
button of the three is the “WHITELIST” button. “Whitelist”
will add the sender’s email address to a list of people from whom you
want all of their email to be received, regardless of content. Thus,
any email from a person on your whitelist will be delivered to your
email box, no questions asked.
These three functions
are also available as links in the Actions column for each entry
-- you may use these to apply the action to single messages.
However, these "Deliver" and "Delete" options affect only the
current message, not any future messages with the same profile. For
example, choosing to have a quarantined message from a particular source
delivered will do nothing to change the fact that the next message from
that source will probably get quarantined as well. By the same token,
deleting a specific message won't block the next message that comes in
from that sender. This just means more work for you. Fortunately
there's a better way: taking advantage of “Spam Firewall”'s ability to
learn by example.
It is possible to
perform a “Deliver”, or “Delete”, or “Whitelist” action on several
messages at one time by putting a check into the box in front of all
applicable messages prior to clicking the appropriate action button.
Normally the “Spam
Firewall” filter applies a series of global tests and each tested
message receives a cumulative score that determines how the message will
be classified. These tests are reasonable approximations of what most
users want, but there is a large gray area in between "spam" and "not
spam" and you may find that you don't always agree with “Spam
Firewall”'s decisions. The solution to this problem is to feed “Spam
Firewall” examples of messages you consider to be spam and messages you
consider to be valid. This is the purpose of the other two action
buttons on this screen:
·
“Classify as Not Spam”
-- submits the selected message to the filter engine, which in turn uses
its features to classify future similar messages as valid email.
·
“Classify as Spam”
-- submits the selected message to the filter engine, which in turn uses
its features to classify future messages as spam.
Note that using these
buttons will perform no other operation on the selected message - you
must then “Whitelist”, “Deliver”, or “Delete” the message to remove it
from quarantine.
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There are other basic
preferences to set in your “Spam Firewall” account. All of these are
available from the Preferences tab. When the Preferences page
appears, the default view will show you the Security page, with
the other options displayed as a row of links.
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Security (change password)--
You may use this form at any time to change
your password. Fill in the fields and then click the Save
Password button to activate your changes. You will at this
point be sent back to the login page, where you will be able to
login again with your new password. If at any time you happen
to forget your new password, use the Create New Password
option on the login screen to get a reminder, as described above.
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Quarantine Enable/Disable--
This section of the preferences page gives you
the opportunity to turn the quarantine service off and on. The
default setting is Yes. You will have to log into the “Spam
Firewall” server to review and act on those messages. If you prefer
to have your quarantined messages delivered to your Inbox, select
No. Click Save Changes after you have made your choice.
If you select NO for Enable Quarantine, all messages that are
identified as spam will show up in your Inbox with [QUAR] in the
subject line. Virus-bearing messages will not be delivered.
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Spam Filter Enable/Disable--
On this page you can enable or disable the
filter. Yes is the default, and is the recommended option.
If you set this to No then you will not be protected by
Barracuda spam filtering. Click Save Changes to store your
settings. All messages are subject to virus filtering; this cannot
be disabled.
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Whitelist/Blacklist-- This section of the “Spam
Firewall” interface allows you to instruct the system to allow
certain messages to bypass parts of the filtering process. You have
two choices. The “Whitelist” option allows you to designate senders
to pass through to your Inbox without modification.
Virus-bearing messages will not be delivered even if the sender's
address is “whitelisted”. You may also name senders and domains
that will always be blocked, even if there's nothing wrong with the
message. In the tables provided, enter either a fully qualified
email address or a domain name (everything after the @ sign in an
email address is the “domain”.) In the latter case, messages from
all senders at that particular domain will be affected.
You may use this feature to make
sure that you will receive messages from certain favored senders and to
block messages from unwanted mailers. To remove an item from either
list, click the trash can image next to that entry.
Quarantine
Notification--
If you have
enabled the Quarantine service, messages that are believed to be spam
will be held for you on the “Spam Firewall” server for you to peruse at
your convenience. In this part of the preferences section you can tell
the system to send you email reports summarizing the contents of your
Quarantine box, either daily or weekly. These notifications are graphic
email messages that looks very much like the Quarantine Inbox that you
see when you log into the “Spam Firewall” server. Answering “Never”
to this question will not affect the quarantine function, but it means
that you will have to remember on your own to access the “Spam Firewall”
interface to see the messages that have been quarantined. Click “Save
Changes” to record your settings.
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