Dear MX Backup Users,

I am contacting you today to let you know about changes to our free MX Backup service. We have implemented a new feature that automatically detects if your normal server is active and will return a 4xx error on the backup server if it is. We only accept and store email for your domain if your primary server is down. The advantage of doing it this way is that it reduces spam that might sneak through or backup servers when spammers try to use us as a back door to get to you.

In addition to our free MX backup service our black lists and white lists are also still free. In fact if you use our backup service we are harvesting spam but data from viruses that would otherwise be attacking your servers and our blacklists are optimized for your domain(s). Here’s information on using our blacklists:

http://wiki.junkemailfilter.com/index.php/Spam_DNS_Lists

Why is this free?
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People ask why we at Junk Email Filter are giving these services away for free. There are several reasons. The first is that in giving away the free backup service we collect data on virus bots trying to spam you and it builds our black lists that we use in our commercial spam service making it a better service for our paying customers.

We also spend no money on advertizing. Our business is word of mouth and having valuable free services is a good way to generate good word of mouth. To that end if you like the free service we are providing we would appreciate links to us so that we get better index positions on search engines. Our advertizing model is – we make you happy, you tell people how happy you are. We save ad costs and pass the savings on to our customers in affordable pricing.

Spam filtering along with many open source projects is very cooperative. We have created a culture among competitors in this business where we share a lot of technology. That allows all of us in the spam filtering business to provied better products and services allowing the world to get the good email and block the junk. Much of the technology we use we got for free from other people. We therefore feel that we should give services away for free to compensate those who we receive from for free and support the spirit of Open Source and shared technologies.

Outbound Filtering
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We have a new product. In addition to inbound spam filtering we are now offering outbound filtering and relaying. Who needs outbound filtering? If your email server has been blacklisted because someone in your office got a virus you might need it. If your IP is in a dynamic range and you need to relay through an IP with better RDNS we can be that solution. If yo are an ISP and your users are getting hacked due to weak passwords we can detect the stream and intercept it early so that you don’t get blacklisted.

Some people ask how we do outbound so accurately. It is based on two principles. First – spammers never send spam slowly. So if the messages are coming slow – it’s not spam. If it’s coming fast then we look at the ration of bad recipients and if it’s high – it’s likely a spam stream. In reality it’s more complicated than these two rules but it formed a basis for our system that is working really well.

Governments and your email
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One of the biggest threats to your email isn’t from spammers or hackers, but from governments who want to pass laws to control the Internet. We at Junk Email Filter believe the Internet should be free, private, self regulating, and that your email privacy is something we consider next to sacred. We support the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) to protect online freedom and privacy from unnecessary government intrusion. I personally worked for EFF for 2 1/2 years as their first full time sysadmin.

EFF is moving into a new building and they are looking for donations to help them remodel and expand. I would like to encourage you to give generously to them as they are extremely effective in protecting our online rights. I consider it critical to the future of humanity to keep the Internet protected and hope you feel the same way.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/double-your-impact-take-eff-mission-challenge

Holiday Wishes
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happy Holidays from us at Junk Email Filter wishing you and yours a good fortune in the coming year.

Marc Perkel
Fearless Leader
Junk Email Filter Inc.
http://www.junkemailfilter.com