Mike Gaskins wrote:
You can "pull" POP3 mail into a system to process it further.

I'm guessing you're running a Windows system, and most of these are
Unix utilities, but IIRC most have Windows versions out there. My
home setup is to use fetchmail on a cron-job. Every 5 minutes it goes
out, checks my two POP3 servers for new mail, and grabs if present. It
then hands the mail off to Postfix via SMTP for processing and at this
point it behaves just as if you were running your own mail server.
Postfix uses Amavisd-new along with SpamAssasin and ClamAV for
spam/virus filtering.

Messages that fail these tests are quarantined and I never even see
them unless I specifically go and look. Messages that pass are given
to procmail for local delivery and sorting. I then run Dovecot as an
IMAP server so that I can access the mail with any mail program of my
choosing.

This not only affords good spam protection, but I can also check my
email from any computer in the house and pull up the same set of
messages. I also have setup a webmail system (Roundcube) that accesses
the IMAP server, so that I can also check my email remotely just as
easily. You don't have to go quite this elaborate (if I'm not mistaken
fetchmail can hand directly to procmail which can invoke SpamAssasin if
you like), but the tools are out there to help. All of the ones
mentioned here are also free of charge, as well as open source so you
can make changes to the program if you like.

Mike Gaskins


Now that is helpful information, Mike. Thank you.

Yes, this is a win98se box with Netscape 7.2 for browsing.

Postfix sounds like what I've wanted/needed for quite a while.
Will snoop around for a win version.

I'm also considering moving to Linux; damBillGatestosoftwarehell.

In the mean time, though, I think I'm going to leave the shields up.
Too many Romulans among the Klingon crowd.


A few years back, when I was on FlashNet I had an "experience".

One of those critters managed to get through and took up residence
on my computer. None of the AV utilities detected it.

But anytime the phone line was open, the poor computer spat email
viruses all over the place. (it WAS a clue...)

I finally got it cleaned off - but went back to the stone ages to
do it.

With a clean machine, I got back on the net, and found I was being
flooded with email containing viruses. FlashNet had 11 meg inbox -
which was filling up in 45 minutes flat.

Man, talk about feeling picked on!


Richard

I know I'm a little paranoid,
but am I paranoid enough?