PDFassassin is a module for SpamAssassin that allows for the scanning of PDF files in email message attachments. Email bodies are scanned upon connection and checked for PDF attachments. Text is extracted from the PDF via pdftotext and scanned by SpamAssassin. Should the PDF contain images, the gocr program is called to extract the text content. The total spam score of the PDF is compared against the global required_score setting; if it’s higher, a score equal to the one specified in pdf.cf is appended to the overall score of the email message.
With the recent torrent of PDF spam, we created a module for SpamAssassin that allows for the scanning of PDF files. The module, linked below this post, works in the following way:
Email bodies are scanned upon connection, and checked for PDF attachments.
Text is extracted from the PDF via pdftotext, and scanned by SpamAssassin.
Should the PDF contain images, the gocr binary is called to extract the text content.
The total spam score of the PDF is compared against the global required_score setting; if it’s higher, a score equal to the one specified in pdf.cf (default of 10) is appended to the overall score of the email message.
This approach is a departure from the usual method as it scans the content against the SpamAssassin engine, instead of using a word list filter.
I just succeeded in applying Aol Feedback Loop(FBL) for my company a few days ago, and today I got about 9 “Email Feedback Report for IP xx.xx.xx.xx”, and “to” are all “redacted@aol.com”, I was confused who is “redacted@aol.com”? so I search google, and got a very important message from a forum, so I backup it here.
I just sent out my newsletter to my subscribers. A lot of them are AOL members so I signed up for the feedback loop with AOL so I know when someone marks my message as spam so I can remove them from my list. I can also contact them and ask them why they chose not to unsubscribe but marked it as spam instead.
So this is where my question comes in; who is redacted@aol.com? Is this some kind of aol bot? Because this email address has marked my message as spam like 15-20 times but when I tried to delete him from the list- I have no record of that email address.
Does anyone have a clue as to what is going on?
Thanks,
-Chris
Hi Chris,
It’s an aol bot. You get it whenever one of your recipients click the ever so convenient “this is spam” button displayed on every AOL message.
Another thing you should know -
Effectively mailing into AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail is not easy. Each mail server is different. AOL for example will automatically black list your IP Address (without telling you about it) whenever you send more than 3 email messages from the same IP address within 60 seconds and all messages have the same hash code (bulk mail).
If you’re sending less than 5,000 emails you should be okay, but anything above that number, go with an Email Marketing solution
(Disclaimer: That’s what we do)
So theres no way I can actually find out which users are flagging my message as spam?
There are wayyyyyyy too many people that are spam trigger happy. Its just as easy to click an unsubscribe link as it is to click a spam button.
I have a list of ~44,500 subscribers… 12k are yahoo, 9k are hotmail, and 8k are AOL.
Ive been looking into an email solution but I havent been able to find one that integrates with my vbulletin registration. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for the response Mike- I appreciate it
-Chris
Chris,
You can easily find out WHO is clicking on the this is spam button. That’s the whole purpose of the feedback loop. It’s designed for you to identify which ones of your users are reporting the message as spam so that you can remove these users from future mailings and identify the source (how they got on your list) so you can avoid it in the future.
With every message AOL sends you, they hide the recipient emailaddress but they include an ID of the message from your mail server. Depending on the mail server software you use, you can easily pinpoint that message based on the unique message ID and identify who the target recipient was.
If you ignore those messages, AOL (and Yahoo and Hotmail) will quickly blacklist your IP address. Yahoo does it for undeliverables. In other words, if you ignore Yahoo’s undeliverable messages and keep sending to these email-addresses, very quickly Yahoo will block messages coming from your IP address (without telling you about it) or automatically flagging them as spam.
We provide an API for bloggers and forum owners such as yourself, where instead of calling the local php mail() command, you call our API with the message from/to/subject/header/body. We transmit the message from our white-listed IP addresses certified by bonded sender and we handle all removes, undeliverables and spam complaints for you. We do have a plugin for vbulletin. The cost is one penny per email delivered. There is no cost for bouncebacks. Let me know if you’re interested.
If it’s above your budget, I would recommend installing a mail server that supports easy lookup of message from/to by message ID and manually removing users who report your messages as spam from your mailing list by taking them off the list.
PM me if you have any other specific questions and I’ll be happy to help.
Even though the email industry is moving toward authentication and certification to separate spammers and phishers from legitimate senders, “whitelists” and “blacklists” are still the first line of defense for many ISPs and individual users.
They use both lists to determine whether your email gets delivered as you intend, to the inbox instead of the junk folder and with images intact instead of blocked.
Essentially, the whitelist allows your email in, and the blacklist keeps it out.
This month, we’ll show you how to get on a whitelist. Check back next month to learn how to stay off or get off a blacklist.
How to Seek ISP Whitelisting
ISP whitelists usually include these kinds of data:
Email addresses listed on their users’ personal whitelists
IP addresses, domain names or email addresses from senders certified by third-party agencies such as Bonded Sender, Habeas or Goodmail
Senders who apply and qualify for a whitelist after following a set of instructions or protocols
Desktop clients such as Outlook and Eudora rely on individual users to compile whitelists. However, Web clients AOL and Yahoo! Mail allow you to apply for whitelisting status. MSN/Hotmail uses Bonded Sender data to determine whether and where to filter email.
For other ISPs, look on their corporate Web sites for “postmaster” or bulk-email information and see if they offer whitelisting. Whitelisting doesn’t guarantee that your email will be delivered the way you want, but it improves the odds.
Yahoo! Mail:
In addition to individual whitelists based on the user’s address book, Yahoo! Mail operates a general whitelist.
Go to the Delivery Problems page in Yahoo! Mail’s online support. Fill out the form and submit it.
In about 15 minutes or so, you will receive a detailed questionnaire that asks you about your sending policies, procedures, etc. It could reveal some gaps in your email program. Fill out the form as best you can and submit it.
You might or might not hear back from Yahoo! about whether you have been whitelisted. Open a free account and send a test message to it from the address you normally use to send bulk email. Did the test go to your bulk folder? If so, use the form on the Delivery Problems page again to ask about your whitelisting status.
AOL
Like Yahoo!, AOL has a systemwide whitelist. It doesn’t guarantee that whitelisted senders will always get their messages delivered to the inbox instead of the junk folder. But, whitelisted senders who meet stricter volume and complain criteria might qualify for AOL’s enhanced whitelist. Email messages from those senders show up with hotlinks and images enabled instead of blocked.
Read the Conditions to Bulk Sender Status page first. Check the box indicating you accept AOL’s guidelines, and press the Accept Guidelines button.
You will be taken to a form asking for contact information and the IP addresses you use to send bulk mail. Fill out the form and submit it. This will also set up a feedback loop that will send spam complaints to you for action.
Note: You can’t apply for the enhanced whitelist. AOL adds only a small percentage of senders who meet limits on volume — how many messages sent at one time to its servers — and spam complaints in a rolling 30 -day period. You could be on it one day and off it the next. Keep monitoring volume and complaints, though.
How to Get on Individual Whitelists
You probably have a line in your email message near the top, asking the recipient to add your sending address to his or her address book or contact/safe-sender list. But, that’s almost too late in the process.
Also, putting the line at the top means readers who read only a portion of your message in the preview pane are not getting the information they need to decide whether to open your email to full size or even scroll through the preview pane.
Include a whitelisting request right at sign-up, on your subscription or site-registration page. You need to get into that address book even before you send out the subscription confirmation.
Move the whitelisting-reminder email in your email message to your email-administration center farther down in the message.
