report spamming to apple

The .Mac servers do filter spam.

Yikes! Not that I don't want filtering, but considering that we have no control over it and don't have a way to view the filtered messages to check for false positives, this is troubling news. Even if they're just filtering messages from known spam domains, there are no guarantees. I've heard a report recently (of questionable nature, but still present) that the mac.com domain is listed in one database of known open relays, and that one person's e-mails from his .Mac address to a particular client were being filtered out by the client's server-side filters.

Anybody know how reliable the filters used by .Mac are?

To keep my domains from getting on the open relay
lists I use filtering.

Filtering has absolutely nothing to do with whether a mail server is an open relay or not. An open relay is a server that allows sending of mail without authentication, so anyone can use it to send mail.

Apple is providing mail service, where do I contact
them about spam?

Why should you notify Apple because someone's sending mail with a mac.com address faked on the From line? As we have said, this is in no way Apple's fault and there is absolutely nothing Apple can do about it. If a spammer in Singapore (to pick a totally random country) decides to send out mail using an open relay in Belgium (again, totally random), and puts your mac.com address on the From line, in what way can Apple do anything about it? You're acting like Apple is behaving irresponsibly by not preventing this, but they can't!

However, if you wish to report spam that you have received on your .Mac address or spam coming from a mac.com domain (which is different from what appears on the From line) to Apple, you can send it to spam@mac.com. A little Googling even turns up an AppleScript to automate it ( http://www.hawkwings.net/2006/09/26/applescript-to-report-mac-spam/).

"Apple can filter that ip or range of ip's so that they are blocked from sending emil through Apples email server. "

<2 cents>

The problem I've found with blocking IP ranges is you frequently end up blocking legitimate users. If you are a company like mine, that means blocking legitimate mail from some of your customers, which isn't acceptable. In the case of Apple, that could mean some .mac users could be blocked. Or worse, for me as a .mac user, some legitimate messages sent to me could be blocked - also not acceptable.

These days, a large percentage of spam is coming from infected Windows home computers whose individual ip addresses change frequently. So would you want Apple to block all mail coming in from Comcast because they have a bunch of home users relaying spam?

Then there are block lists. I've evaluated a lot of them over the past few years, and the only one I trust to give me good results with zero false positives is SpamHaus.

If SpamHaus gives a site a thumbs down, I block it, otherwise the message is filtered by our Barracuda spam firewall and either delivered or quarantined. We currently deliver only 3.9% of all messages received directly to the our user's Inbox, and some spam still gets through.

The best solution, IMO, is to protect your email address, but that isn't always possible. I've always protected my primary work and personal addresses, and after 5 years still only get 3 - 5 spams a week on one of them.

I would rather filter at my end than miss one message because my ISP chose to block it.

</2 cents>

- Wayne

PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Apple can filter that ip or range of ip's so that
they are blocked from sending emil through Apples
email server.

Which it already does, using the same network & software used by the largest U.S. ISP's. With all due respect, you are either ignoring or failing to understand the very considerable amount of information already supplied to you in this thread on this topic.

Is there something new you wish to discuss?

If a spammer in Singapore (to pick a totally random
country) decides to send out mail using an open
relay in Belgium (again, totally random), and puts
your mac.com address on the From line, in what way
can Apple do anything about it?

Apple can filter that ip or range of ip's so that they are blocked from sending emil through Apples email server.

I'm not sure why you don't understand and are not aware of this since you are a DNS administrator for a local ISP.

When a spammer "spoofs" your .Mac address or my .Mac address to appear as the sending email address for a bulk spam mailing, the spammer IS NOT sending the message through Apple's email server. .Mac's SMTP server requires authentication so it is not an open relay server. Mac's SMTP server has absolutely nothing to do with this. When spammers use a valid email address from their list of "known good" email addresses which can be from any domain, the spammer is not using that domain's SMTP server. They are using the email address to APPEAR as the sending email address ONLY and there is nothing the domain for the email address can do about it.

Apple can filter that ip or range of ip's so that they are
blocked from sending emil through Apples email server.

Oh man! Those messages are NOT being sent through any Apple server. Is there something that prevents you from being able to read what people here is telling you or what?

Filtering has absolutely nothing to do with whether

a

mail server is an open relay or not.

Filtering on Apples part keeps there mail server
save.

You're not making any sense at all here... and I'm not just talking about the atrocious grammar and spelling. Filtering has nothing to do with open relays or being listed in databases of open relays.