maney.org

Unsolicited Commercial Email (aka UCE, UBE or "Spam")

Unsolicited Commercial Email (aka UCE, UBE or "Spam") is not accepted at this site.

Why Was I Directed To This Page?

While some people have found their way here through other means, most people who find this page, do so after they have recieved a bounced e-mail telling them that their mail to someone at this site was rejected.

If you have received a bounced message directing you to this page, then you have the dubious pleasure of using either the IP address or domain name of someone who has, in the past, sent UCE to one of the users of the domains hosted on this mail server from, or through, your IP address or domain name.

If you believe that you have been incorrectly identified as a spammer, or if you have corrected the misconfiguration that allowed your machine to be used as an Open Relay, you may request to be removed from the filters in place on the maney.org mail server. To do this, you will need to send an email (from somewhere else on the Net, obviously) containing the IP address or domain name that is listed in the filters to: no_spam@maney.org.

What Is UCE?

Basically, Unsolicited Commerical Email is exactly what the name says. It is a (usually) commercial email that is sent to you without your prior permission. It is much like the advertisements found in your local newspaper, on the local radio or television station or in your mailbox. The difference though is that, unlike in other media, you are the person who pays for the advertisement, not the advertiser.

Can We Stop UCE?

UCE is rapidly becoming as ubiquitous as graffitti in urban areas. So much so in fact, that the term "spam" has actually been introduced into the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Unfortunately, due to certain technical details of the way that the Internet was designed and built, it is impossible to stop all UCE without completely disassembling the Internet.

Since that isn't really an option, we must do what we can to minimize how much UCE we must tolerate. We have chosen to take a layered approach that utilizes several different tools and strategies to accomplish this.

How Do We Limit UCE?

Our first line of defense is through the configuration of our mail server software. We, like the majority of the Internet connected servers in the world, use the latest version of Sendmail, which contains many anti-spam features. The main ones of interest are: FEATURE(access_db), FEATURE(dnsbl) and FEATURE(local_procmail).

FEATURE(access_db) allows us to do some very handy things. One of those is to maintain several lists of known spammers and then to REJECT (for domains and IP addresses) or DISCARD (for user accounts) all future emails that match an entry in these lists.

If we recieve a UCE, the sender is immediately added to our Deny By User list. Since some domains are havens for spammers, we also maintain Deny By IP Address, Deny By IP Address Range and Deny By Domain Name lists to block all email coming from those domains and IP addresses.

FEATURE(dnsbl) enables us to .

We use the MAPS^SM (Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC) RBL^SM (Realtime Blackhole List) through

FEATURE(local_procmail) is our final line of defense against UCE. We use it to proccess all messages that have passed the above tests.

Many of our procmail filters are actually pulled directly from other sites and incorporated into our configuration.

May I Use Your Filters?

Periodically we recieve requests from people at other sites that want to use our filters. We have no problem with this (in fact, we encourage it!). You may use them for any purpose that you want (except for trying to find ways to circumvent them), but please remember that you do so at your own risk. Since these filters are maintained on a purely voluntary basis, and since we incorporate filters from other sites, we must disclaim any and all responsibility for the consequences of your using of these filters.

Also, if you do decide to build a similiar system to ours using, or even just incorporating our filters, you may need to grab a copy of the support files isp.txt, ordinary.txt and siteban.txt.

If you have suggestions for new spammers (or spam-sending/relaying sites) to add to our filters, forward the original UCE messages (full headers please!) to spammers@maney.org.

More Information

Want more information on what you can do to limit the amount of UCE that you recieve? Check out Fred's UCE Avoidance Guide.