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Spam Blocking with Spam Stops Here

IIn September, one of my clients received 60,756 emails into their network. The flickering of LEDs indicated a ballet of routers, switches, and ports delivering packages through servers humming the songs of IP and POP3 protocols bound for waiting employee in-boxes. You could almost feel the wheels of our modern information economy turn! But wait, as I need to mention that 57,660 of those messages were junk. No kidding. Ninety-Five Percent. 

I’ve tested around ten spam elimination solutions in the past several years and every single one has come up wanting – often severely. But after using SpamStopsHere (SSH), a hosted service from Greenview Data in Michigan, I must say that I’m now officially sold. I’ve used the product with around 150 mailboxes in the past 6 months to cries of joy.

SSH uses multiple layers of filtering including one called the URL / Phone filter. It is basically a list of all the click-me and phone numbers from recent spam messages – updated with around 1000 new entries daily.

Drama aside, the 57 thousand junk messages above never made it. If they had, it would have cost around $200 per employee that month even if the employee just deleted it in 2-3 seconds, not to mention ancillary costs such as storage, liability, and possible viruses.

Just for footing, there are three broad types of technology: server, hardware, and desktop-based. The desktop systems rely on your computer (and arguably its user) to filter email. Hardware-based solutions are dedicated rack-mounted devices that go with your other corporate hardware, and server solutions usually run on the email server, often Exchange or Linux, sorting the good mail from the bad prior to depositing it in your mailbox.

Desktop systems are simply out of their league these days. They suffer far too many technical and practical set-backs for business. A 50% spam filter rate and uselessness for web-mail can cause more harm than good.

Some server and hardware based systems aren’t much better. The best ones struggle for 80% filter rates with high “false-positive” rates, even with constant expensive tuning by overworked IT staff. ISPs, which are by their nature require scale to survive must often operate filters at “detuned” levels to reduce resource requirements and customer complaints. Greenview CEO Ted Green told me that “Many ISPs want to identify spam as fast as possible with as few resources as they can – so you get really bad false positive rates, and that lost message may be a large contract.”

The productivity gains and time saved went beyond the simple “lack of spam” into other areas of the workday.

Setting up filters is always a balancing act, and this is why other systems are so finicky. You either have to set up “mild” filtering level to avoid false positives and accept more junk, or bump up the strictness and lose more good mail. SSH’s technology breaks this paradox: “With a 1 in 100,000 false positive rate, even law firms and medical providers’ strict data retention needs are met.” continued Green, ” this is a core differentiator for us. We are ready to dedicate as much computing horsepower as needed to operate at this level. Spam fighting is all we do.”

SSH uses multiple layers of filtering including one called the URL / Phone filter. It is basically a list of all the click-me and phone numbers from recent spam messages – updated with around 1000 new entries daily. This catches 95%, and the other filters mop up. If you decide to use the system, they can explain the technology in detail.

The Greenview team told me in the past few years businesses have began to accept “good enough” in spam filtering. Junk email is now akin to dusting or cleaning the windows. But Greenview VP Jason Salvagni spoke of that “a-ha moment” when new clients realize the impact SSH is going to have “It’s only after being shown the effectiveness of a managed solution do people realize how much time they’ve been wasting on spam. The savings are exponential.” In some ways I was able to “rediscover” email. For the first time, I was able to set up Microsoft Outlook rules system to sort messages into folders reliably and keep spam away from my Windows mobile system. The productivity gains and time saved went beyond the simple “lack of spam” into other areas of the workday.

Lexington equine insurance company Marnitz and Associates’ has been using the SSH system for employees for a year “It’s fantastic.” Says President Chris Marnitz,”I was receiving more than 200 to 300 junk messages per day. It was not only costing me time but I was deleting good e-mails in frustration.”

Even though Chris never complained, when SSH is attached to your domain name, you may actually have a little bit of “spam withdrawal.” You’ll wonder if your email is working ok. You might even wonder what to do with the extra time. But it will pass, I promise. And when you look back at the savings over the year, you’ll forget entirely about the costs of the SSH product. Enjoy the quiet.  

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