rudis dot net

If you’re one of the few, cool folks who comment here @ RDN or have just been lurking, waiting for that perfect post to arise that was worthy of your €0.013, I wanted to make you aware that I installed the spam-filtering akismet module today.

Drop me mail (bob at my self-named hosted mail net address) if you get rejected so I know I need to turn it off or tweak it a bit.

Technorati Tags: 2008 akismet Drupal Site Info spam

Trackbacks are officially disabled. Props to those Drupal site admins who have diligently moderated trackback spam into oblivion, only to do it again…and again…and again…and again.

It’s a bit of hubris to expect to get a trackback to begin with - it’s just a podunk personal blog. The experiment of enabling them (about a month ago) was educational, however. There definitely are a gazillion zombie PCs out there, just watching the meta-aggregators, waiting for an opportunity to post trackback and comment spam.

If anyone running Drupal does read this, have you done the trackback enable/disable tango, or do you find it not a problem (if you have them enabled)?

Technorati Tags: 2007 Site Info spam trackback

If you attended the 2007 MACSA Technology Day, you’ve come to the right place for follow-up resources from the presentation on Internet & Email Content Filtering. If you want to see anything added to this, please feel free to drop a line in the comments.

Information on the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA):

• CIPA Home (direct from the FCC)
• CIPA Info from Universal Services (USAC) Site (comprehensive explanation on what you need to do to stay compliant to receive government funds)
• American Library Association CIPA Information (keep an eye on their From The Field section for reports on what has/hasn’t worked for various schools)

Email Content Filtering

Useful sites for statistics on spam and virus transmission via electronic mail:

• Postini StatTrack
• MessageLabs Threat Statistics
• Symantec Internet Security Threat Report

Client-side Email Content Filtering :: Free/Built-in Resources

• Outlook Junk E-mail Filter (via Microsoft, covers Outlook 2003)
• Outlook 2007 Junk E-mail Filter (covers configuration on Outlook 2007)
• Outlook SPAM Tutorial (covers Outlook 2003, Outlook 2000 and Outlook Express)
  
• Dealing with Junk E-mail in Thunderbird (applies to all platforms)
• Thunderbird Junk E-mail Tutorial
  
• Apple Mail’s Junk Mail Filter (via macdevcenter.com)
• & Junk Mail in Apple Mail">Tutorial on Spam & Junk Mail in Apple Mail
  
• MailWasher (Windows)
  

Client-side Email Content Filtering :: Commercial Offerings

• SPAMfighter (Windows)
• MailWasher Pro (Windows)
• CA Anti-Spam 2007 (Windows)
• Top 10 Windows Spam Filters (Windows)
• Mac Spam Filtering Tools (OS X)

Server-side Email Content Filtering :: Free/Open Source Resources

• SpamAssassin (NOTE: OS X Server comes with SpamAssassin; Can run on Windows Server)
• dspam (Can run on Windows Server)
• MailStripper (Linux/*nix only)

Server-side Email Content Filtering :: Commercial Offerings

• Plethora of Windows Server-side Spam Filters
• & Anti-Virus Tools">Exchange Anti-Spam & Anti-Virus Tools
• Barracuda Spam Firewall (appliance)
• IronPort Anti-Spam (appliance)
• SonicWall (appliance)

Email Content Filtering :: Firewall/Anti-virus Solutions with Email Integration

• Grisoft AVG (anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spyware, anti-spam, anti-phishing)
• Norton AntiSpam Solutions (server and/or workstation)
• McAfee Security Solutions (server and/or workstation)
• Microsoft Forefront Security (server and/or workstation)

Email Content Filtering :: Hosting/Outsourcing Services

• Google Apps for Education (free!)
• Postini (spam filter service)
• Sprint Hosted Spam Protection

Internet Content Filtering

Internet Content Filteirng :: Workstation-based

• SurfControl (commercial)
• ContentProtect Educational Edition (commercial)

Internet Content Filtering :: Server/Network-based

• Secure Computing Server/Appliance Offerings
• WebSense Enterprise (server software)
• DansGuardian (server-based, free, requires proxy server such as Squid Web Proxy Cache – also free, and can run on Windows or *nix); Squid can also be configured as a transparent network proxy with DansGuardian
• SonicWALL Content Filtering Service (appliance)
• BlueCoat (appliance)
• Fortinet FortiGuard (appliance/service, CIPA certified)
• Microsoft ISA Server

Internet Content Filtering :: DNS-based

• OpenDNS
• ScrubIT

Technorati Tags: 2007 anti-spam anti-virus conent filtering internet MACSA spam