Why did we move away from Maverix: Maverix was the first generation of our Anti-Spam software and it worked well initially, however Spammers constantly innovate…….. So we needed to address some shortcomings that Maverix developed over time. Our goals were to make mail more convenient to use, speed up mail processing, and kill more Spam. STAMPS users can all view there pending queues, release or delete email, and manage their Whitelist or blacklist at their whim via Web Mail. STAMPS users will notice a new STAMP Tools Menu item in their Web Mail. An Overview of STAMPS STAMPS: (Spam Tagging and Address Management Protection System) can significantly reduce the amount of SPAM received through the use of Confirmed Senders List, Whitelists, Blacklists, tagged addresses and a challenge response mechanism. A STAMP-enabled account can be managed from within the Web Mail interface, with tools to edit list files, add control headers to outgoing email, manage pending messages and create tagged addresses for use outside Web Mail. In mid November Purespeed will complete a web interface, which will allow Purespeed customers to: Change the threshold, an email will get marked as Spam, right now if a message scores higher than 12 it will be mark as Spam, you will be able to rasie or lower that number to meet your email needs Add additional email Boxes to STAMPS Switch your account from a Challenge to a Hold STAMPS account "Tagged" addresses (Address Generator): Create STAMP tagged addresses for use elsewhere, such as on a sign-up page or customer details form, or signing up for that free magazine on a website. The generator allows the user to put an email address onto their website in such a way as to mask it from 'email spiders', these spider trawl the Internet collecting email address from websites and then they are sold/given away to 'spammers'. These spammers then send out thousands of junk emails to these addresses - you have probably experienced this problem yourself. List File Editor: Create Whitelist or Black List or a List of Confirmed Senders. Any Whitelists the users had have also been ported over so prior white listed senders will be accepted as usual. White listing, predictably, does what black listing does, but in reverse: Instead of keeping the bad guys out, it lets the good guys in, quickly and easily. Pending Messages: Manage incoming messages awaiting sender confirmation. You can view, release or delete pending messages. If someone sends you an email that is not yet on your Whitelist they will end up in pending messages. Here you can release them or delete them as you prefer. Spam Assassin: Spam Assassin is a mail filter used to identify Spam. It is an intelligent email filter which uses a diverse range of tests to identify unsolicited bulk email, more commonly known as Spam, also known as unsolicited commercial email (UCE) These tests are applied to email headers TO,FROM and SUBJECT and to the content of the email itself. If it is determined to be Spam, it can either be deleted or delivered back to your inbox marked as Spam. There are also a number of ways you can fine-tune your filtering to make sure legitimate email is let through and email that you don't want gets blocked. One-way Spam Assassin determines Spam is by Hits. Hits are a point scale used to determine if a piece of mail is legitimate or not. For example, if a message mentions something about "viagra" it will get a point. If it is written in all CAPS it may get another point. By default, if the amount of combined points a message gets reaches or exceeds the point threshold, it gets marked as Spam, if a message scores higher than 12 it deleted before delivery to your mailbox. Sometime you may have email addresses that you know would never send you spam, so you can place them in a Whitelist to always be allowed through. You may have an email address or domain that always sends you messages that you do not want to receive. These ones can be placed on a blacklist and will always be treated as spam. A Closer Look at STAMPS Using "Tagged" addresses (Address Generator) The Address Creation tool in STAMPS gives you the ability to create as many email addresses based from your own address as you want. With this ability, you can afford to give out a different email address to each individual or organization that you correspond with. If you start to receive unsolicited email to that address, you know immediately how they came by your email address and you can easily set up a filter to block those emails, or delete that [variant] address. To start using tagged email addresses, go into STAMP Tools and select Generate Address. You will then be given a choice as to how to distinguish this 'address'. Once you decide how to distinguish it, type in the words you want to use and click the Generate Address Button. Here's an example for the user demonstration@tidalwave.net. The user logs into demonstration's web mail and goes into the STAMP Tools. They want to create an address to use on eBAY so that they know if that address becomes compromised. They set the STAMP Send Mode option to "Keyword", then type in ebay and click Generate Address. When they do this, they get the following message: Use this address for sending: demonstration+keyword+ebay.cf0daf@tidalwave.net This address will still come to demonstration@tidalwave.net because STAMPS knows that this address really is a part of demonstration. If the User uses this address for all interraction with eBay, they will know if that address becomes known to others because unwanted email will begin coming to demonstration+keyword+ebay.cf0daf@tidalwave.net. The user can easily set up a block for them by using "Block emails with envelope recipient" and entering demonstration+keyword+ebay.cf0daf@tidalwave.net. Filtering Emails with Webmail or your email client: Filters, which are a normal part of your email client or webmail, allow you to automatically sort your incoming emails so that you can prioritize them. By filtering "good" emails into a separate folder, you can check that folder for new email as often as you like while checking emails in the mailbox's main INBOX folder only once or twice a day. Some useful strategies for filtering emails include: Filter emails by "To" header You can filter all emails which include your email address in their "To" header or "CC" header into your "Good" folder. Most emails from mailing lists do not include your address in the "To" header, and instead use "Undisclosed Recipients:" Filter emails by envelope sender You can filter emails from email addresses you know into your "Good" folder. This is similar to the Whitelist Filter emails by "Content-Type" header Most Unsolicited Commercial Email is sent out in HTML format only. Most email programs, which send HTML messages, actually send both HTML and plain text versions in the same email rather than only an HTML version. Setting up a filter to catch "emails with header Content-Type: text/html" and filter them into a "Bad" folder will catch a lot of unsolicited emails By combining the filters above, you can come up with your own recipe for filtering the "good" emails into a separate folder. The "Whitelist" and "Confirmed Sender" List The Whitelist and Confirmed Senders is another very effective method of stopping unwanted emails. Unlike all the above methods, which require you to keep your blocks or filters, the Confirmed Senders List moves the burden of maintaining your filters on to the senders of your emails. Of course, some of the senders may not be willing to accept this, so it is important to understand exactly what the Whitelist and Confirmed Senders List does before you decide to use it. The Whitelist, which permits e-mail from, preapproved senders, so instead of having all your friends and family go through the "Challenge Response" process you can simply add them to your whitelist. The Whitelist from Maverix has been ported over to STAMPS so prior whitelisted senders will be accepted as usual. You can manually add addresses to the Whitelist at any time by going to Web Mail login go to "STAMP Tools" File Editor, > Whitelist. The Confirmed Senders List moves the burden of maintaining your filters on to the senders of your emails. Of course, some of the senders may not be willing to accept this, so it is important to understand exactly what the Confirmed Senders List does before you decide to use it. Receiving Mail Two Methods If someone sends an email to one of your mailboxes, which has STAMPS enabled, but with the email address not being in your Whitelist, the email will not immediately appear in your Inbox, but will be queued in the Pending Messages Queue on the mail server. Challenge Method Meanwhile, if you have selected the "challenge" method of STAMPS, a "challenge" email notification will be sent to the sender, saying, "The message attached below is being held because the address < unknownuser@junkmail.com > has not been verified by you". Any such challenged email can be viewed in your Pending Messages Folder. Hold Method Alternatively, if you choose the "hold" method of STAMPS, no challenge message will be sent; pending messages will need your intervention to be released (and hence "confirmed") before been sent to your into your INBOX. Maverix users had a similar option and whatever mode you were in before is what their current mode is; most Maverix users had choosing the "hold" method. To allow this email to be delivered the sender must simply reply to the challenge message. Once the sender responds to the "challenge" email notification, the sender will automatically be added to your Confirmed Senders List and will go straight to your Inbox from now on. You can also access the Pending Messages Queue emails directly if you need to bypass the Confirmed Senders List for any reason. Simply by to Web Mail and click you email domain, login, go to "STAMP Tools" then Pending Messages. If you do not respond to the "challenge" email notification request within 14 days, the message will not be delivered. This stops all unwanted emails, which use a false address, as well as most bulk emails simply be NOT responding to the challenge. Challenge Response If someone sends you an email, and that sender is not on your Confirmed Senders List or Whitelist, then STAMPS will automatically create an email notification. In "subject line of the "challenge" email notification you will see "Please confirm your message". To release your message for delivery, you will need to reply to the notification by sending an empty message to the address enclosed in the email notification, or use your mailer's "Reply to Sender" feature. SAMPLE "challenge" EMAIL NOTIFICATION This message was created automatically by the S.T.A.M.P.S. system. Your message attached below is being held because the address <unknownuser@junkmail.com> has not been verified and an effort is being made to control UCE. (Unsolicited Commercial Email) To release your message for delivery, please send an empty message to the following address, or use your mailer's "Reply" feature. <username+confirm+1098364822.76552.210521@purespeed.com> This confirmation verifies that your message is legitimate and not junk mail. You should only have to confirm your address once. If you do not respond to this confirmation request within 14 days, your message will not be delivered. Again, once the sender responds to the "challenge" email notification, the sender will automatically be added to your Confirmed Senders list and will go straight to the Inbox from now on. The Blacklist The blacklists were not imported from Maverix's, however if using the STAMPS system, a black lists can be created either my manually editing the blacklist file or by black listing from the pending queue. Most black lists have proven to be significantly less effective, as they tend to involve single-use forged email addresses, which spammers then immediately cease to use. If you are going to add to your Black list it would be more effective if you can block by domain: *@domain.com - this blocks email from anyone at a particular domain. Disclosure Statement Can we stop ALL Spam? Spam is defined as unsolicited, bulk commercial e-mail and our system is designed to stop that kind of mailing. But you know the saying," Never say never!" The system isn't designed to stop e-mail based solely on content. So, an individual person might send individual unwanted messages to you and verify them for delivery. By definition, that isn't spamming, just unwanted email. However, if you receive such a message, you may add the sender to your blacklist and all future e-mails from that address would be blocked. As we said, this system is not a solely content-based filter. Studies show that even the best content filters still let one in four spam messages through to your e-mail account. Worse than that, they can often catch e-mails that aren't spam. Our system is designed to prevent bulk mailers from hitting your account, not specific phrases or character strings. That way, you get the mail you want and stop the mail you don't. Frequently Asked Questions about Webmail What this mean +, a? A bar containing three fields (From, Date, and Subject) is next. These headings separate the message table into logical parts. From tells you who sent you the message, or at least what email address it came from. Date shows the day, which the email was sent. Subject displays what the sender entered as the subject. Note: Between the Date and Subject a column is a small column that is unlabeled. There could be a "+", "!" or an "A" in there. If you see the "+", that means that the message has attachments; if you see the "A", that means that you have answered the message, and if you see the "!", then the message was marked as urgent! Where can I use this Web Mail?. Anywhere there is a browser available. I get an error when I try to delete my mail? The mail folder is to full. This comes up a lot and it is a very basic Web Mail feature. Go to options -> Folder options and from the drop down list next to Trash Folder select "Do Not Use Trash" and hit submit. Why use web mail instead of a regular email client? It is doubtful that Web Mail will ever be a complete substitute for a regular email client. But hey, who knows? Anyway, if you ever were at a friend's house, on a trip, at home or work and away from your computer and wanted to check your mail you already know why. Because it is a huge hassle to set your mail up on their computer and then delete it again. Can I add names directly to the address book from an email in Web Mail? No. At this time you cannot add names directly from a received email to the address book. You can, however, right click on the address and save it to the clipboard and paste this into the address book. Can I use multiple names from the address book? Yes. The address book search will display all matches for the search criteria entered in the search box. If 10 names are displayed any combination may be selected for either the to: or CC: fields. All selected addresses will be inserted into the proper field when the Use Address button is pressed. How do I Login to WebMail Purespeed has two primary Email Domains purespeed.com and tidalwave.net. Purespeed web mail is webmail.purespeed.com login using your full email address. Tidalwave web mail is webmail.tidalwave.net login using your full email address.