FREE Outlook Express Spam Filter

By John Savage, Staff Writer

Big changes are in store for the OCCC Web Mail services, according to www. occc.edu.

The college is in the process of changing its domain name from okccc.edu to occc.edu.

Students and faculty will have to adjust by typing the right domain name at the end of their e-mail.

Instead of typing new student@po.okccc.edu, students will now need to type newstudent@po.occc.edu.

Students and faculty will not have to manually change their existing accounts.
E-mail administrators will make the change effective for all accounts at the same time.

Thunderbird, Mozilla and Outlook Express users will need to change the incoming and outgoing e-mail server names from po. okccc.edu to po.occc.edu.

Students and faculty must inform their contacts that the domain name is changing; otherwise, the e-mails will be sent back by the postmaster.

The change took place over the weekend of June 17 to 18, according to www.occc.edu.

Faculty and students who use the OCCC Web Mail services to subscribe to services online will have to re-subscribe with the new e-mail address.

Some students say they just use the OCCC Web Mail to send and receive e-mails, and appreciate the service.

“I just started using it,” said Steve Wallace, business junior. “I find [OCCC Web Mail] to be very convenient.”

Students and faculty can start to change the domain name now if they wish, even though the old domain name will continue to work until the weekend of June 17 to 18.

For some students, the domain name change eliminates some spam e-mails.
“That definitely could be useful,” said Jodie Potts, physical therapy junior.

Spam is annoying.”

The Web Mail page will display a message when the change has taken place.
Junk e-mails received after July 1 will be undeliverable if the domain name is ending with a po.okccc.edu.

In the past, some Web Mail users have reported that bogus administrators of the college e-mail systems have sent e-mails with the heading “Warning: your e-mail account will be closed and come from an address of mail@po.okccc. edu.”

These e-mails are fakes and the college has taken steps to eliminate the delivery of the bogus e-mails…

(more info…)

WE HAVE BEEN trialling the various beta programmes from the main online mail-behemoths since their respective inceptions.
In fact, we have been unfortunate enough to have to use each one daily and today we’re going to take a quick look at each service, comparing and contrasting each product’s offerings.

Yahoo! Mail beta
The original Yahoo Mail web-based client is now looking somewhat dated compared to offer newer offerings. Enter the new beta service from Yahoo, which is a giant step-up from the previous old, clunky interface. The new beta is fully Ajax‘d up and is easily the most immediately impressive out of the three products being examined here. The interface is very clear, easy to use, very quick to respond and is more reminiscent of a fully fledged desktop client than a browser-based utility. Its definitely a contender for an idealistic ‘Web 2.0′ product.

A clearly defined left-hand-side navigation pane, and a multi-tab viewing window that allows, for example, your inbox coupled with a preview pane or a newly invoked tab displaying an individual email, is easily one of the best interfaces for web-mail I’ve used to date. These sort of advanced Ajax features could be slow and unresponsive in a poorly implemented design – but Yahoo has ensured they’re almost as quick as a standard desktop application, with the added portability of a web-based client. It works perfectly with Firefox too (albeit Opera support is lagging).

All of these positive attributes add-up to ensure Yahoo is on to a winner with their updated mail service. Check out this link for a flash-based demo.

INQ RATING 9/10 Excellent ‘Web 2.0′ functionality, competently able to replace your desktop mail client on Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Google Gmail beta
Gmail caused quite a storm on its release, one gigabyte of storage (now over 2gb) shook up the online email market somewhat, and a slew of competitors quickly ramped up their offerings to stop the speeding up-take of Google’s brand new in-beta product. This coupled with their invite-only marketing ruse, which seemed to invoke furore on the internet, with everyone grabbling for invites and even purchasing them via eBay in an attempt to get a ‘trendy’ .gmail.com address.

Despite the over-the-top hype, Google’s offering is a very accomplished first stab at an online email service provision. Fully Ajax-enabled, the interface is very simple, quick and simple to use. Instead of folders ‘Labels’ are used, allowing the quick viewing of custom-labelled emails and items, through the label sub-menu. Removing labelled items from your main inbox to allow them only to appear in the labelled view, is only realisable by choosing to label, then archive an email – a slightly odd way of doing things. The archive feature is also useful – removing those emails from your inbox you’d rather not see day-to-day, but keeping them safe and searchable within the vast storage Gmail offers.

As you may know, Google have released their own chat client; Google Talk, which provides VOIP services as well as standard text-based instant messaging. Interestingly, once logged in, the Gmail homepage provides you with a brilliantly realised web-based chat client that can provide similar IM functionality to that of Google Talk – with the same contacts and contact information. This is easily turned off at the bottom of the page if people are pestering you every time you check your email. Its an incredibly useful implementation, allowing IM anywhere you have web access without having to install a client and mess around with the host’s ports. Its certainly the best webpage-embedded IM solution I’ve seen thus far.

Some of the more ‘advanced’ features are usually hidden in an attempt to make the service immediately easier to use, these can quickly be found, but some users may prefer than an option to keep them permanently viewable was present.

The only worrying thing about a Google product offering, is how they’ll use your personal data. Already adverts appear that are being served from keywords in your emails. If you can live with Google’s relentless stride towards owning all information, everywhere, and want a simple web-based email client that doesn’t necessarily mimic a desktop-equivalent, Gmail may be for you.

INQ RATING 8/10 A very quick, responsive service with a simple interface, bellying a more complex, useful online email client.

Windows Live Mail beta
A recent addition to Microsoft’s ‘Live’ initiative, the new Windows Live Mail which seems to be an attempt at replacing Microsoft’s Hotmail offering, is the last of the three services here, to have entered beta testing. Hotmail is already pretty clunky and painful to use compared to a decently Ajax’d equivalent and I was looking forward to banishing this interface to a distant memory. However, as an alleged ‘beta’ product I was shocked at the numerous bugs, errors, and not-so-trivial problems I had when attempting to use the product over several months. While the other reviews here centre on the quality of offerings from Microsoft’s competitors, this will inevitably centre on the poorness of the product from the Hotmail team.

Spam is still inherent within the Hotmail service, despite Microsoft’s sabre-rattling’s about spam. I get at least 10-20 spam’s a day that aren’t caught by Microsoft’s spam filter out of about 40 total spams. Compared to Yahoo’s (around 5-10 not caught from 200) and Gmail (1 from 50) statistically Live’s spam filter is seemingly the least effective. It also seems to catch a lot of ‘real’ emails – something that the other two services hardly ever seem to do. These aren’t hard statistics though, only a rough guide from an end-user’s point of view.

The interface is very simple, with a left hand navigation pane, a list of your email in the main pain, and a preview pane, analogous to the usual Outlook Express view. The Live mail team may wish to look at Yahoo’s mail for a much better interface look, feel and style.

The Ajax-based requests seem to be slower than either of the other two sites. Hotmail has always been very sluggish and prone to service problems and this seems to be compounded when moving to an Ajax-esque front-end – displays similar to ‘Your request is being sent’ seem to appear for long periods, sometimes without ever disappearing, forcing a new request by the user to be performed. Multi-selecting items to send them to a folder, or select them as spam, produces a ‘We were not able to complete your request’ around fifty per-cent of the time – albeit the function has usually been performed.

Originally the service didn’t support Firefox - a later build of the product which went live, attempted to fix this, but was subsequently pulled due to unknown problems with the rest of the service. Since its reinsertion I’ve not been able to view my inbox in either client, albeit I hear that on other people’s designated servers it seems to be fine. Thus other the last month, or so, I’ve had to resort to the ‘Classic’ view which forces the Live mail service to use a more Hotmail-esque display, without the many Ajax-based additions. The enhanced Live Mail service simply won’t load on any machine I try it on – Internet Explorer returns a JavaScript error and no inbox, Firefox produces an error page asking you to report the error to Microsoft – the link to perform the feedback…

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uSwitch.com warns that millions of household computers could be damaged by spam emails unless simple precautions such as filters and fire walls are put in place.

The UK is officially internet crazy with 15.5 million homes now hooked up to the World Wide Web. However, uSwitch.com reveals that this internet explosion exposes 13.2 million homes to unsolicited, potentially harmful, emails known as ‘spam’. Despite Bill Gates’ prediction that spam would be a thing of the past by 2006 over 68 million unwanted emails infiltrate our personal inboxes every day. Although the vast majority of people delete spam emails as soon as they receive them, one in ten (1.6 million) open spam before deleting it – exposing themselves to viruses, ID theft and phishing.

The independent study by comparison and switching service uSwitch.com reveals the true extent of the spam epidemic:

85% of UK homes with an internet connection receive spam, with 1 in 4 bombarded by at least ten unwanted emails every day.

Over a quarter (28%) experience problems with their home computer after receiving spam, even though only 14% actually opened a spam email – despite this worrying statistic just 4% of people are aware that they use a spam filter.

More than 1 in 4 (28%) people are spammed at work with the total cost to UK firms reaching approximately £1.3 billion every year – or £22 per user.

People are ten times more likely to experience problems such as viruses on a home computer than at work.

Chris Williams, broadband product manager at uSwitch.com, comments: “Spam has been a problem ever since the internet became available to the general public in the late 80’s but as we’ve become an online nation, spam is an epidemic with potentially damaging consequences. Home computers are now the real target of spam attacks - 85% of personal email accounts receive spam compared to just 28% of work place email accounts. The first virus surfaced in 1986 but now there are over 70,000 different kinds and recent figures show that 1 in 20 people have fallen prey to phishing. It is more important than ever for consumers to take the necessary measures to protect their computers against the possible dangers of spam.

“Millions of UK homes experience computer problems after receiving spam making online security imperative, so it is worrying that just 620,000 claim that they are using spam filters. The majority of broadband suppliers offer a free spam filter so this should be part of the criteria used when shopping around for a new supplier. This is small step when considering the potential expense of replacing or repairing a damaged computer.”

What can you do to stop spam and protect your computer?

Most broadband providers provide spam filters as part of the product ensuring that customers do not receive unwanted spam emails. When shopping around for broadband connections try and find a package that includes these features.

Most email services such as Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail allow you to block messages from certain senders. They also have a free facility that enables a filter to block certain keywords preventing spam from appearing in your inbox.

Spam software is available from a third party which works in conjunction with your email service to help block spam emails from being delivered. Such anti spam software costs from £20 to £40 depending on the level of service needed.

Whenever you see an ‘unsubscribe’ link in a spam email do not use it. It’s highly unlikely that you will actually be unregistered from receiving spam email and a lot more likely that your details may be put onto other spam email lists. The answer is to delete the message and block the sender.

Anti-virus software is available for around £25-40 per year depending on the level of protection required however these need to be updated regularly to ensure you have the latest virus definitions. Some broadband providers have also introduced virus scanning of all emails so that any infected emails are…

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Despite a renewed and aggressive PR campaign by Microsoft, statistical analysis demonstrates that “Sender ID” is ineffective as an anti-spam solution.

Ann Arbor, Michigan (PRWEB) June 20, 2006 –- OnlyMyEmail, Inc. (www.OnlyMyEmail.com). Despite a renewed and aggressive PR campaign by Microsoft, statistical analysis demonstrates that “Sender ID” is ineffective as an anti-spam solution.

Research conducted by OnlyMyEmail, Inc. during the last 60 days clearly reveals that emails sent by a domain without a published SPF record are actually slightly less likely to be spam than those sent by domains that publish Sender ID information in their DNS records; opposite to the promoted value of Sender ID.

Further, emails that return a positive match for Sender ID (a “pass” result) are not significantly more likely to be legitimate emails than those without a published SPF record; again contrary to the perceived benefits of implementing Sender ID.

Finally, if Sender ID were relied upon for the blocking emails, (based on a SPF result of “fail”) this would result in a false-positive rate of nearly 8.6%.

Combined, these results qualify Sender ID as being one of the most ineffective and least accurate anti-spam tools available anywhere, producing results no better than first-generation anti-spam filters now a decade out of date.

– Sender ID Analysis Results:
The data amassed during the last months reveal the spam-probability of emails based on SPF results:

SPF Fail 0.914 Sender fails to match SenderID
Softfail 0.885 IP addresses not specified
- - - - 0.500 Spam/Not-Spam midpoint
None 0.495 SenderID not published
SPF Pass 0.174 Positive Sender ID match

Translated into real-world terms the implications are both surprising and of significant importance to all email administrators:

* An email that fails Sender ID verification only has a 91.4% chance of actually being spam. If relied upon to accept or reject an email, 8.6% of emails rejected would be “false-positives” – causing a great deal of legitimate email to be blocked.

* On the other end of the spectrum, 1 out of 6 emails that “pass” Sender ID verification will actually be spam.

* The spam probability of an incoming email from a domain that does not publish Microsoft’s Sender ID data is almost a coin-flip, at 49.5% just slightly favoring the probability that it is actually not spam.

* This means that non-compliant domains are actually less likely to be sending spam than those networks who do publish SPF records within their DNS, though by an insignificant measure.

* Because the spam probability for emails sent by servers without SPF records is only 49.5% but rockets to 88.5% for those that return “softfail’ results, administrators who publish Sender ID/SPF records that are not specific regarding their sending IP addresses are increasing the likelihood that their outbound email will not be delivered by almost 79%.

These results translate into exceptionally bad news for email administrators who are actively relying on Sender ID in order to make decisions on whether or not to accept or reject inbound emails as even older “first-generation” spam filters were considerably more accurate than Sender ID is today.

Further, it’s clear that publishing SPF records for domains you manage could be disastrous to your outbound deliveries, unless you are specific regarding permitted sending IP addresses for your domains.

– Why Sender ID Failed

In what is very much a Judo-like technique, spammers now commonly publish SPF entries for their sending domains. In effect, spammers are using Sender ID as a weapon to increase spam delivery rates, made effective because of email administrator’s over-reliance on Sender ID.

For the spammer, the only shortcoming of publishing Sender ID information is that the spammer will have to abandon the domain within a few days as filters begin to correctly identify their sending domain as being one used for distributing spam.

This limitation is easily overcome by spammers who register thousands of “throw-away” domains for less than $10 a piece at Godaddy.com (where we observe that a great deal of these Sender ID compliant spam domains have been registered) and then aggressively rotate through these domains, discarding any domains whose rejection rate becomes too high.

Additionally, those spammers who rely on the use of infected and compromised personal computers and internet servers to send their spam messages won’t typically have any difficulties in passing SPF checks as those machines are quite often sending from their own network without any deception of the sending domain.

On the other hand, the problem of exceptionally high false-positives is exacerbated by two main factors:

* First and foremost, end-users do not understand Sender ID and will commonly have their email software configured to claim to be sending from their work or home addresses, even when they are not actually connected to those networks, causing their perfectly legitimate email to fail an SPF check.

* Additionally, many email administrators publish inaccurate SPF records without taking all possible legitimate sending servers (including business partners) for their domain into consideration; or they fail to update their domain’s Sender ID information when new servers or locations are added to their systems.

As a recent example, a mass mailing sent on the behalf of Network World failed SPF checking because the sending server was actually one belonging to a third-party business partner (mBlast.com) and their servers were not included in Network World’s published SPF records.

While these obstacles can be overcome in theory, doing so would require a vast amount of effort and expense, and substantially more end-user diligence than can be expected given the number of users who are still infected by obvious viruses, fall for internet get-rich-quick cons, and are too often duped by countless Phishing fraud emails.

How Sender ID Could Work
Sender ID has two Achilles’ heels that will continue to prevent this standard from being effective as an anti-spam solution.

First, because complying with Sender ID is not required, checking a sender’s SPF record does not provide the type of consistent data necessary in order to be reliable. As a pre-requisite to being effective, the Sender ID standard would need to be mandatory.

However, making Sender ID compulsory is not necessarily
desirable for the Internet, and is unlikely to occur given that it would require vast agreement throughout the world; would require substantial capital investments and would also cause disruptive change to the way many users and networks currently send email.

Secondly, because there is no cost or fee associated with publishing Sender ID information, spammers can obviously afford to send email that is fully SPF compliant, and many already do so today. In addition to requiring mandatory compliance, Microsoft, (who maintains patent rights to Sender ID and has existing licensing requirements) or some other entity, would need to establish a fee that is high enough to be prohibitive to the spammer’s business model.

While an annual Sender ID registration fee of perhaps as little as $100 per domain might be sufficient in this regard, it would have significant consequences.

Such a fee structure would no doubt drive a great number of domains off the Internet as many personal, family, hobby and activist related sites would be lost; and a great part of what makes the Internet so valuable to so many would cease to exist

Further, such pricing could create the potential for monopolistic domain registration practices. For example, if a dominant technology company were in a position to bundle free domain name…

(more info…)

Wolfgang Gruener
June 16, 2006 12:08

Santa Clara (CA) - Microsoft’s recent release of the Windows Live OneCare security offering has reset the rules of the security software business: Traditional security software developers are forced to upgrade their products. McAfee is among the first to answer with a beta version of its next-gen security suite that addresses new and emerging threats such as identity theft and rootkits.

It’s no secret that competition, at least in most cases, is a great benefit to the consumer. It drives innovation forward and pricing down. And if you haven’t seen competitive effects in the past years because of locked situations in traditional IT market environments, than these days are true eye openers: Google successfully changed the Internet search and advertising business, Firefox has changed the way we look at web browsers and AMD is causing more than just a headache for Intel, just to name a few.

In more recent developments, Microsoft has brought some new ideas into the security software business with its Windows Live OneCare package. And it may be more than just coincidence that we suddenly see an accelerated development pace and more innovation in how users will be able to protect their computers from security threats.

A first glimpse of what to expect from the security software industry was provided today by McAfee with beta versions of its upcoming packages “Total Protection” and “Virus Scan Plus.” It’s not just about virus protection, anti-spyware and firewalls anymore. McAfee’s software will defend users by virtually any common and currently emerging security threats - and go beyond the functionality of OneCare.

McAfee claims that its software will safeguard users not only against viruses, worms, trojan horses and spyware, but will also detect phishing scams to prevent identity theft and identify and kill rootkits, which are typically used to hide the existence of malware. Also new in the package is “Safe Search,” which promises to warn users about potentially dangerous Web sites that have engaged in “social engineering” attacks such as spyware, adware, spam and online scams.”

Just like any other modern security software applications, McAfee’s software does not require any user interaction to protect a computer system. However, the company claims that manual scans, live updates and patches now can be handler in an easier way than before. And, also in a direct response to OneCare, which can run on up to three computers with one license, McAfee as integrated “network-aware capabilities” in the new package to “manage all the PCs on the home network, providing automated, encrypted security capabilities and allowing families to easily share printers and files.”

The “Total Protection” package also comes with features to protect a Wi-Fi network from attacks, increase system performance by cleaning clutter off of…

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By Robyn Peterson

As Bill Gates announced his plan to resign from his role as chief software architect at Microsoft in 2008, tears rolled down his cheeks. What does it all mean? Our expert team of reporters and analysts went to work, on the phones and inside their heads, and delivered news, analysis and insight. What happened? What does it mean for the Redmond software giant, and for the world of technology at large? Our stories below detail what we know, and what we think.

John Dvorak, our chief curmudgeon, thinks Gates’ resignation is long overdue. Dvorak writes that since Bill hasn’t had fun for years, he should indeed leave, and dive headfirst into philanthropy. Gates has become unbeatable, he says, because we can’t criticize someone whose sole purpose is to give away his own money to charity. Sounds like John will miss one of his favorite targets … er, subjects.

Gates has been halfway out the door for years, agrees Lance Ulanoff, our reviews editor and longtime columnist. With Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, in the role of chief software architect, we should see the company regain its footing as a leader by reacquiring its laser-like focus on innovation. That’s something the company sorely needs.

It’s the end of an era, says Michael Miller, Ziff Davis’ chief content officer. Gates has been involved in every major product release that’s come out of Redmond. But the company’s software is in the midst of a major transition, moving from the desktop to the Internet (i.e. Windows Live). Perhaps Bill’s transition is part and parcel thereof.

But ExtremeTech’s Loyd Case isn’t buying it. Case doubts that Gates is really removing himself from Microsoft, pointing out that Bill is so emotionally involved in Microsoft, he will not be able to stand down. Plus, the ability of Bill’s foundations to generate capital is reliant upon the continued success of Microsoft. So perhaps Bill can’t get away that easily, after all.

The Word from Microsoft’s Leaders
With pundits pontificating left, right, and center, stress is running high in Redmond. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive officer, each sent out memos to all of the company’s 70,000 employees in an attempt to ease their collective nerves. “We have a solid transition plan,” writes Ballmer, “and Microsoft is well-positioned to make this transition … .”

Gates, in his memo, heaps praise on his management team, ” … my day-to-day responsibilities will shift to a team of incredible technical leaders who are already doing amazing things at the company.” He singles out Ozzie and Craig Mundie, another Microsoft chief technology officer, and assures staff that these two leaders ready for the challenge.

eWEEK’s Peter Galli and Microsoft Watch’s Mary Jo Foley caught up with Mundie yesterday, asking him about his thoughts on Gates’ resignation and how it will affect Microsoft. “After 31 years, Bill has put a fairly indelible imprint on the company,” he said. “A lot of people have ‘grown up’ inside this company and, to some extent, we do what we do the way we have grown up doing it. I don’t expect there to be any abrupt change as a function of this transition.”

Over the Years
We’ve covered the exploits of Bill Gates, for better or worse, quite closely. Back in 2003, we talked to Bill about the ill-fated SPOT watches, and the oddball Xbox Live challenge with Shaquille O’Neal. (”I’m a little worried,” Gates conceded, regarding the face-off with Shaq.)

In a 2004 interview, we asked hard questions about Windows security, or, put more frankly, the lack of security. At the time, Bill explained: “We’re not having security problems because Microsoft is lazy or sloppy or anything like that. Empowerment in personal computing is what we’re all about. Spam and security—with security being number one—just really stands in the way of that. And our systems are subject to these attacks because of our popularity. Ironically, people try to attack our newest versions, even though our older versions have a bigger…

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Cobb County filter blocks telco’s eMail
By Robert Brumfield, Assistant Editor advertisement

A telecommunications executive claims a Cobb County School District spam filter cost the district the chance to save $250,000 a year in telephone service. After the filter blocked Mike Russell’s response to a request for more information about his bid for services, Russell was disqualified from consideration because he seemingly failed to respond in time. The incident highlights the imperfect nature of spam filters–and serves as a lesson to vendors and school leaders not to rely solely on eMail for important communications.

June 5, 2006—According to a telecommunications executive in Atlanta, Georgia’s Cobb County School District missed a possible opportunity to save $250,000 a year in a telephone services deal, because the district’s spam eMail filter captured his bid information before it reached officials’ desktops.

District officials admit they never received the eMail message in question from Mike Russell, president of Elite Telecom Services. However, they say they have time-stamped evidence suggesting that Russell’s bid would not have won anyway–and that he has taken belated advantage of the situation to claim he should have.

Regardless of whether that is true, the episode underscores the imperfect nature of spam filters–and serves as a warning to school officials and vendors about the danger of relying solely on eMail for important communications.

It has become routine–almost a clich￩–in school districts and the workplace to criticize spam filters as being almost as annoying as spam itself. The filters are difficult to calibrate and often capture eMail messages from legitimate senders in efforts to weed out pornography, internet scams, and other unwanted solicitations.

Russel was bidding to get a lucrative local and long-distance telephone deal with the district. When Cobb County officials sent him an eMail message to ask some questions about his bid, his return message was eliminated as spam. District officials, who say they have no way to retrieve the message in question, say their spam filter likely caught Russell’s use of the term “long distance,” a common product spammers attempt to sell, and rejected the eMail as junk.

BellSouth Corp. ultimately won the telephone services contract, to the tune of about $670,000 a year for five years. That price is about $250,000 higher than what Russell, who was acting as a representative to the district for the telecom provider ITC Deltacom Inc., claimed to be able to offer, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which first reported on the incident.

Russell’s eMail message was a follow-up to a formal hard-copy bid already in possession of district officials, according to the Atlanta newspaper. When officials needed to get some questions answered, which is standard in most bidding arrangements, they contacted Russell via eMail and asked that he respond…

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By Graeme Wearden, ZDNet UK
02 June 2006 12:29 PM

E-mail filtering is a tricky balancing act, especially when dealing with subjects such as ‘erections’, as a UK regional council’s planning department found out.

An errant e-mail filter caused Rochdale Council to ignore an objection to a planning application because it contained the word “erection”.

Ray Kennedy of Rochdale sent three e-mails outlining his objections to a neighbour’s proposed house extension. However, the first two e-mails were automatically blocked by the council’s security software, apparently because he described the planned work as an “erection”.

By the time Kennedy’s third e-mail arrived, he was informed that permission had already been given for the extension.

It appears that Kennedy’s e-mails fell foul of the council’s keyword-based e-mail filter, and the episode highlights the difficulty in tweaking filters to reduce the number of false positives without letting through too much junk.

“The word erection on its own should not have been enough to get the e-mail blocked,” a Rochdale Council spokesperson told ZDNet Australia sister site ZDNet UK. The council’s IT staff are investigating, and have corrected the filter so e-mails that contain “erection” alongside terms such as “planning application” will no longer be blocked…

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Friday May 5, 10:25 am ET

WASHINGTON, May 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CYIOS Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: CYIO - News) announced today it has completed an agreement with SPAMfighter for spam control integration and customization within XO Office along with cross-marketing opportunities between the companies.

In our agreement, SPAMfighter will collaborate with CYIOS in the development of leading-edge spam filtering technologies that work seamlessly within XO Office. Scott DiStefano, CYIOS’ Director of Software and Support stated, “After several months evaluating spam software, SPAMfighter clearly demonstrated the best results in its ability to remove unwanted email spam, which is critical for our integrated XO Office email component and its unique ‘email-to-project’ management and storage feature.”

XO Office will soon be upgraded to a new version of SPAMfighter that will include individual white-list capabilities that enables individual users, and not just entire organizations, to create their own custom white lists of email addresses that would otherwise be blocked. In addition to this new feature, the company is planning to integrate SPAMfighter’s new picture blocker, which will be the first software in the marketplace that identifies and blocks spam- based email images.

SPAMfighter and CYIOS are also in discussions for cross-marketing opportunities centered on advertising strategies and could lead to new foreign language versions of XO Office. SPAMfighter currently has over 1.2 million customers worldwide. For more information on their products please visit http://www.spamfighter.com.

For more information about the company please visit http://www.cyios.com. For more information about XO Office…

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This sharp-looking free personal firewall outperforms many you’d pay for.

Neil J. Rubenking - PC Magazine

May 30

Last summer, PC Magazine rounded up free personal firewall products from Agnitum, Kerio, Sygate, and Zone Labs. (Symantec has since purchased Sygate and pulled it from the market; Sunbelt has purchased and rebranded the Kerio product.) They all did a decent job, though none was up to the standard of the best for-pay personal firewalls. Comodo Personal Firewall 2.0 brings excitement back to the free-firewall category with a spiffy interface and impressive performance. It protects any Windows 2000 or XP SP2 system from hack attacks, and it blocks unauthorized programs from using the Internet—even programs whose malware-style trickery fooled the other free firewalls.

Comodo Personal Firewall 2.0 installs inside the Comodo Launch Pad, a control center that pulls together various free and free-trial products from Comodo. Among the free offerings are Comodo Antispam (a challenge/response-based spam blocker), Comodo BackUp (a traditional file-based backup utility), and VerificationEngine (an antiphishing browser add-in). You may want to give these a whirl; to date, I’ve tested only…

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