Procmail

I am now 100% spam free, thanks to procmail. For one reason or another, I finally started getting spam in my BU inbox. It took 3 full years, but those relentless bastards found me. Thanks go out to those motherfuckers at EveSecretGarden.com, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back. What really pissed me off about this spam was that there way no way to be removed from the list and it had a fucking LEGAL disclaimer.

“Under Bill s.1618 Title III passed by the 105th U. S. Congress, mail cannot be considered spam as long as we include contact information and a remove link for removal from this mailing list. If this e-mail is unsolicited, please accept our apologies… Do Not Reply To This Message To Be Removed.”

So, what the hell is procmail? It’s a decade old email parsing Unix program, that happens to be installed on ACS. Anyone who has set up vacation email forwarding at BU has used it, indirectly.

The actual script is from Nic Wolff. It basically keeps a running list of people that you WILL accept email from. Anyone who I have not heard from before, including spammers, receives an email telling them how to add themselves to the list. Of course, everyone knows that most spammers would never reply to an email. They are not interested in assimilating individuals.

So, how does this affect you, my survey and chain-mail sending friends? It shouldn’t. I have already dumped my entire existing contact list into the accept filter file, so most of you won’t hear about this again. However, if I missed you, or if you get a new email, you will receive a nice personal message the first time you try to send me something. Just hit reply, and you’re done!

Consider this part one of how to get clean email onto your cellphone, which will be coming up next!