Spam Filter ISP Forums : Percentage Formula Question

Percentage Formula Question : Hi Roberto,Thanks for the quick...

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:44:40 +0000

Author: Chas
Subject: 6974
Posted: 08 August 2011 at 7:44pm

Hi Roberto,

Thanks for the quick reply, the explanation(s), and the offer. I won't take you up on the offer right now, for it just seems like it would be busy work, and time is just too valuable for all that stuff.

I know we're blocking/catching/stopping more spam than our last old and dated solution, and we're very pleased with the product, and as time allows we'll fine tune it a bit more here and there.

The reason the question was asked was because I have seen a post or two on the forum of SpamFilter users claiming a 90+% catch rate, but was uncertain how they were able to figure this out.

On our older dated system, we just entered the numbers that were presented on the statistics screen into a quick equation and came up with the blocked/caught/stopped percentage.

It was based on that number and all the spam that the boss and other users were obviously receiving that gave us the metrics that provided the leverage for the purchase of SpamFilter.

Love the products, love the forums, and the support. Wish there was an easier way to come up with this percentage for the powers that be, but easy come, easy go.

Who knows, perhaps a new feature or enhancement some day.

Thanks again for everything,

Chas.

Percentage Formula Question : Chas,This stats can be a bit deceiving...

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:39:36 +0000

Author: LogSat
Subject: 6974
Posted: 04 August 2011 at 7:39pm

Chas,

This stats can be a bit deceiving due to the multiple ways that SpamFilter blocks emails. For example, senders can be blocked at an IP level when they connect (via the greylist filter or the blacklist cache filter for example), or they can be blocked during the SMTP session. In addition, someone may be just be "poking" at the SMTP port to see if it's open without actually sending an email. And worse... a spammer in single connection can try to send multiple emails.

Specifically:

The "Total Inbound Connections" counts any connection made to SpamFilter, even if it's just a probe.

The "Email Attempts" counts all email attempts that resulted in a "MAIL FROM" command issued by the sender. If a sender's IP is blocked by the greylist filter or the blacklist cache however, they never get to this point and so, while the email was blocked, it's not counted under this counter.

The "Emails Blocked" counts the emails that were blocked by the various filters *except* the ones that work at the TCP level (greylist/blacklist cache).

If you'd like, if you can zip and email us one of your SpamFilter's logfiles, we can run thru it to give you a more detailed "view" on the number of spam emails that were actually blocked.

Percentage Formula Question : Hi, We're trying to figure...

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:09:39 +0000

Author: Chas
Subject: 6974
Posted: 04 August 2011 at 1:09pm

Hi,

We're trying to figure out the percentage of the effectiveness of some of the settings we currently have in place. I'll leave the settings selected out of this note for the question is really regarding the statistics provided.

Can anyone please give me a quick explanation on the numbers below, or better yet the formula for figuring out the percentage of efffectiveness. (I understand the defintions of the terminology, but am hoping to clear up if any of the numbers are a subset of the other numbers.)

Would it be:

1) Emails Forwarded: 1754 / (Emails blocked: 6246 + Email Attempts: 5814) = % rate of

2) Emails Forwarded: 1754 / (Emails blocked: 6246) = % rate of

or something else?

Total Inbound Connections Served: 6127

Emails blocked: 6246

Email Attempts: 5814

Emails Forwarded: 1754

Thanks for any info.

Chas.