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LMi.net Spam FAQ

1. What is spam?
2. How can I reduce the amount of spam that I get?
3. What does LMi do to block spam?
4. Someone has told me that they can't send me email because your filters are blocking them.
5. We use our own in-house email server. How can I be sure this server is not an "open relay"?
6. I don't want LMi to filter out ANY of my incoming email. Can you disable filtering for my account?
7. Is there anything I can do to get these nasty spammers to stop spewing forth all this junk mail?

At the simplest level, spam is any email that you receive that you did not ask to receive, and do not want. A more precise definition is available at the Web site of the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) [http://www.mail-abuse.org/standard.html]:

An electronic message is "spam" IF: (1) the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND (2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent; AND (3) the transmission and reception of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate benefit to the sender.

We at LMi.net hate spam. In our opinion, it is one of the most significant problems facing the Internet today. Sending out spam is actually against the law in some states, California being one of them. See http://www.spamlaws.com for more information on this. Spammers are criminals, and in our opinion they should all be prosecuted.

2. How can I reduce the amount of spam that I get?

First, use the right email program:

Look for a modern email client with "adaptive" junk mail filtering, We recommend Mozilla Thunderbird for Windows and Apple Mail for the Mac. These programs learn which mail is spam, and get better at filtering your mail over time. Eudora and Netscape are also well-regarded; Outlook and Outlook Express are not effective at identifying spam.

Second, use server-side filtering:

To block spam before it ever arrives in your inbox, request we install special filtering software for your account - SpamAssassin for individuals, SpamGauntlet for companies and domains.

Finally, take care with your email address:

Our "Tips and Tricks for Preventing Spam" page has more details about avoiding scams and controlling how your addresss is distributed.

3. What does LMi do to block spam?

Like most ISPs, we use a complex, multi-layered, and ever-evolving set of techniques for identifying and blocking spam - almost 2/3 of the email received by our mail servers is turned away at the gates.

One layer of protection matches the senders of emails against a number of public "blacklists" that contain addresses of known spammer relays. These include:

sbl.spamhaus.org - targets documented spammers
cbl.abuseat.org - spam spewing open proxies, etc.
dul.dnsbl.sorbs.net - list of dynamically assigned IP space

Additionally we maintain a "whitelist" of server addresses that may reside in one of the above-mentioned blacklists, but are specifically allowed to pass through our filters at the request of any customer.

4. Someone has told me that they can't send me email because your filters are blocking them.

What probably happened is that this person is using a mail server that was used by a spammer to send out bulk mail. A properly configured email server will not allow unauthorized users to send outgoing mail through it. Any legitimate ISP will only allow its own customers to use their mail servers, but many private companies are now running their own in-house mail servers for their employees using mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange. Unfortunately, many of these servers will by default allow anyone to use them to relay mail, even if they are not on the local network. This, of course, makes them very attractive to spammers - they abuse someone else's resources, and the owner of the resources + their ISP get the bounce messages and the blame. This is what is known as an "open relay". These servers can be configured not to do this, but the administrator of the server will have to know how to do this.

It is our general policy at LMi to unblock any server if one of our customers is not getting email they want. In order to do this, we need to know the exact IP address of the server sending this email. The easiest way to do this is to have the person that is trying to send you email forward the rejection error notice that they received to "mailhelp@imap.lmi.net".

5. We use our own in-house email server. How can I be sure this server is not an "open relay"?

Check out http://www.mail-abuse.org/tsi There are links there that explain how to do this for a variety of common mail servers.

Our spam filtering system covers our entire network, so we cannot disable the filtering for one particular mailbox. However, there is a work around: There are a number of free email providers (such as Bigfoot) that will allow you to setup free mail forwarding, so any mail coming into "youraddress@bigfoot.com" will get forwarded to your LMi.net mailbox. If someone is having trouble sending you mail, you can give them this alternate email address, which will then forward to your LMi address. This works because we do not block mail coming from Bigfoot.

7. Is there anything I can do to get these nasty spammers to stop spewing forth all this junk mail?

We're glad you asked! This is really how you can help put an end to spammers. If even 10% of the people that get spam were to take the time to complain about it through the proper channels, there would be a LOT less spam on the internet.

We have created a primer on what you can do so stop spam. Please try and find the time to read it... http://www.lmi.net/support/spamcomplain.php

For more information:
http://spam.abuse.net
http://mail-abuse.org
http://www.spamfaq.net
http://www.cauce.org
http://www.spews.org