What is SpamAssassin?

SpamAssassin is the name of a software program that filters or screens incoming E-mail messages. The purpose of the filter is to look for and flag or eliminate unsolicited/undesirable mail from your Inbox.

How does SpamAssassin work?

SpamAssassin screens each piece of E-mail for characteristics usually associated with junk mail. It looks for spam indicators – phrases, words and other items commonly used in junk mail solicitations. An example of this might be E-mail that contains the phrase "limited time offer" or an E-mail that contains a link to a Web site somewhere.

SpamAssassin evaluates each piece of mail against a lengthy list of possible spam indicators. For each spam indicator that it finds, it assigns a point value. When the points exceed a tolerable level, the E-mail is either flagged as [SPAM] and sent to your Inbox or rejected entirely – never reaching your Inbox.

SpamAssassin will not work if E-mail forwarding is active on your HWCN account.

How does HWCN decide which mail to flag and which mail to reject?

The settings on the mail filter are adjustable and use of the filter is totally optional. HWCN will not make any decisions about which E-mails you will receive or not receive. The choice is yours and yours alone!

How do I use SpamAssassin to filter my mail?

There are two ways in which you can use SpamAssassin – Flag Mode and Delete Mode. Either mode can be used in conjunction with a "Whitelist".

We strongly urge you to work in Flag Mode to begin with. In Flag Mode, E-mail that is suspected to be SPAM is still sent to your mailbox. It will come with the point score that was assigned to it by SpamAssassin and an explanation as to how those points were assigned. The system default for point score is 5.0. The point score can be altered by you to suit your individual preferences. If you find that at 5.0 points you are still receiving more junk mail than you care to, adjust the point score to a lower value. If you find that at 5.0 points some E-mail that you wish to receive is being marked as SPAM, you need to adjust the point score to a higher value.

Note:The lower the setting, the greater the chance that some legitimate E-mail may be marked as spam. The higher the setting the greater the volume of spam that will not be marked.

Once you are comfortable that SpamAssassin is filtering your mail in a manner acceptable to you, you may decide to change your preference to "Delete Mode". When you choose Delete Mode, all mail flagged as SPAM will be rejected by your E-mail account. Once mail is rejected in Delete Mode, it cannot be recovered. If you want to aggressively screen out and delete SPAM but are concerned that you will lose legitimate mail in the process, it is advisable to create a “Whitelist”.

Most members use their E-mail accounts to correspond with a regular list of people. A “Whitelist” is a list of those regular contacts. When a contact is on your Whitelist, you will ALWAYS receive mail from that address. You can, at any time, add new addresses to your Whitelist or remove old addresses. A Whitelist can also include a list of subjects that interest you. For example, you have subscribed to and want to receive a regular newsletter that comes from one of your favourite Web sites. You know that the subject line for that E-mail will always contain the word “health”. When you add the word “health” to your Whitelist, any E-mail containing that word in the subject line will be delivered to your Inbox.

How do I begin using SpamAssassin?

Read and agree to the following, then enter your User ID and password to proceed to the mail filter setup.