How does email filtering work???

[mol3000]

Wanted to know exactly how email filtering works??? how does the email server knows what is spam and what is not??? Can someone break down the whole process to me???

[thecoalman]

Well I'm no expert on exactly how it works but I can give you an idea. Much of what it filters depends on the e-mail header which contains information such as what domain it was sent from, country, reply-to address..... etc. I know my server has different settings for the amount of filtering.

The low setting for example will only filter out e-mail coming from domains that are known to be spammers. Trouble is that this info can be altered in the header. The high setting will take into account the content of the e-mail, the trouble with this method is that legitimate e-mail can get bounced too.

Exactly how it works depends on your ISP or server. There's different filtering programs and they vary. No filtering program works perfect because the more filtering you do the higher the chances are that legitimate e-mail will get bounced.

At one point I had mine set to bounce anything from known spamming domains and out-of-country domains. Since joining VH I've removed the out-of-country filter. From there I have my e-mail client configured to filter by words and phrases which seems to be the best way since it's a custom list and there's no possible way that any of the words or phrases would be contained in a legitimate e-mail. There's only so many ways you can spell Viagara.

[Baldrick]

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/spam4.htm

[HillJack]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Spam_filtering

[mol3000]

well to tell the truth i want a way to buy pass email filtering for one reason is that there is times i send friends and family emails (basically at their jobs) and some gets filtered and some dont. So im trying to find different ways around that.

[Shard92]

If you mean the email you send them is getting filtered there isn't much you can do. Especially at their jobs. that is all up to the company they work for. IF you mean what they are sending you is getting filtered you'll have to figure out what type of filtering your email is using. With yahoo if you add the person to your address book then they won't get filtered. ( as an example )