Spam/Virus Filtering

Introduction to Email Filtering

Hometown Computing uses the Postini Mail Filtering system to provide spam protection for every dial-up customer and virus scanning for those customers who request it.  Every message received by an htcomp.net address is first scanned using Postini's proprietary spam-spotting technology.  If the message is determined to be spam, it is placed in quarantine for the end user to review.  If mail is stopped by Postini, a periodic message is sent to the user reminding them they have mail waiting to be reviewed.

To check quarantined mail, login to the Postini Mail Filtering system at login.postini.com.  The following screen should appear:

Logon using your email address and the password for your email account.  Clicking on Log In brings up the next screen:

This screen shows that I am logged in as user@htcomp.net.  The top portion shows a message that has a virus and has been trapped.  You may or may not have virus scanning enabled on your account and therefore may not see that part of the screen.  The bottom part of the screen shows the list of junk mails that have been trapped for my review.

Skipping down to the bottom of the screen, I see:

This indicates I have 126 total spam messages trapped of which the first 25 are being displayed.  I can click on Select All and Delete to Delete them, or I can individually select messages and deliver those that I find interesting.  This way, I can very quickly deal with the spam while keeping it out of my inbox.

The system is highly configurable as to what types of mail are filtered and how aggressively.  Please note that the more aggressive your mail filters are, the more likely you are to trap legitimate mail.  The more lenient your mail filters are, the more spam that will get through.

Clicking on Junk Email at the top of the screen brings up the following page:

From this screen, I can click on Filter Categories to select what types of email I want to filter and Filter Sensitivity to determine how aggressively I want the filters applied.

The Filter Categories screen looks like this:

There are five categories of mail that can be filtered: Sexually Explicit, Get Rich Quick, Racially Insensitive, Special Offers, and Bulk Mail.  Note that Bulk Mail is always filtered.  Select the checkbox beside the categories you want filtered and click on Save Changes.

Clicking on Filter Sensitivity brings up this screen:

I set my filters to the most aggressive setting. If you find too much legitimate mail getting through, you may want to try a more moderate setting.

Clicking on Save Changes activates your new settings.

If at any time you need help with the settings, click on Help at the top of the screen.

More information about how the system works and answers to most of the questions we encounter can be found at the  Message Center Help Site.