We are pleased to announce that our new anti-spam solution for NoLimit has just passed alpha testing. The results are literally unbelievable, so without further delay we would like to offer you the opportunity to participate in the first public beta test of our WEDOS Antispam.
Edit:
31. 8. 2018 around 14:00 we deployed an antispam solution on all emails. Testing continues with selected customers.
What is WEDOS Antispam
In the last year, we have focused mainly on developing new services and improving the performance of existing ones. Most of our people have been working on it and the existing anti-spam solution has gotten a bit “rusty”. So we had to decide whether to improve our existing solution or build something completely new. Finally we tried the second option and the result is WEDOS Antispam. WEDOS Antispam is built on open source solutions and some selected paid databases. We chose this solution because of the ease of implementation for customers and the possibility to use our own data, of which we have a huge amount. As the largest mailhosting operator in the Czech Republic, handling millions and millions of emails daily, we have enough data to run a reliable antispam solution. All you have to do is fine-tune everything. And that’s what we need you to do now!
We are testing several opensource solutions and will decide on the final state according to the test results.
Alpha tests
The alpha tests were very good. With the permission of one of the biggest e-shops in the Czech Republic , Nejlevnejsipneu.cz, we conducted extensive testing on their emails. Based on repeated data analyses and algorithm modifications, we achieved the following efficiencies:
- Verified emails: 55.843
- Regular mail: 31,216 (55.9%)
- Spam: 24,627 (44.1%)
- False positives: 3 (0.0054%)
The results do not include direct rejections of established connections based on blacklisting of a range of IP addresses, which numbered over 27,000 during the tests, and they do not include direct rejections of another 17,400 connections that we did not even accept on the server because they were spam or communications that did not meet the basic criteria. So in total, we dealt with almost 100,000 different connections (and at least that many messages) during the tests.
From the above, it follows that we delivered just over 31,000 emails in our tests, out of an estimated total of 100,000-150,000 messages. So for some domains, spam prevails…
We were very excited by these results, so we accelerated our preparations for the public beta test. You can get involved right now.
Public Beta Test 1.0
You have a unique opportunity to help us create a very effective anti-spam solution that can completely shut most spammers up in the future. Join us ;). In Beta Test 1.0, we are mainly interested in collecting more data and looking for false positives. Thus, we need to know whether and if so which regular emails are marked as spam. For this reason, our WEDOS Antispam will not delete spam, but will only mark spam in the subject line with the string [SPAM]. Of course, you can create a filter that will move these emails straight to the trash.
In the current test mode, we do not handle sorting and folding of messages at this time. This would be done by a subsequent modification, after the solution is deployed in live operation. Then we automatically put everything marked there in the junk folder. But now it’s not part of the test. The test is primarily to know whether we are diagnosing correctly or incorrectly what is and what is not mail. The question is whether we mark real spam with the string [SPAM] in the subject line and whether problem-free mails must remain unmarked.
So the point of the test is not to hit the roundcube or elsewhere, but to mark real spam [SPAM] in the subject line and what is not spam will pass cleanly.
How to join the Beta Test 1.0
The Beta test is only open to domains that are hosted on our paid NoLimit hosting and use our mail servers and mailboxes for this web hosting. The beta test cannot be used for domains that are not hosted on our paid web hosting, but use other services (VPS or redirecting emails to the domain for free).
To make testing as easy as possible, just follow these steps:
1. Send us via the contact form which domain you want to test antispam for. Only when we add your domain to our new antipsam, then proceed to the next step. It can take up to 24 hours to enroll in our beta program because it is done manually. Thank you for your understanding.
2. Once we tell you that we have added your domain to our new antispam solution, then add the MX record 1 antispam.wedos.cz and 2 antispam2.wedos.cz to your DNS record and lower the priority of the other MX records to 10
To do this, do the following:
2.1 In the customer administration, click on DNS.
2.2 Select the domain for which you want to test our antispam.
2.3 In the left menu, click on the DNS record and once the DNS records are loaded, click on the new record.
2.4 Select the MX record type and put 1 antispam.wedos.cz in the date.
In the same way, create a backup MX record 2 antispam2.wedos.cz (it is not necessary, antispam will work without it, but some spammers try to send spam directly to the backup mailserver and we will at least find out how many of them there are and what kind of spam they send).
2.5 Now you need to adjust the priority of the existing MX records or delete them (currently not recommended for the test). Click on the edit icon.
2.6 In case of editing, edit the value in Data from 1 to 10 (this is the priority of which mailserver to use).
2.7 Once you are done, click on apply changes.
2.8 If everything is correct, a blue Changes to domain have been saved message will appear within 60 minutes.
3. As soon as the DNS record is written and foreign mailservers start sending e-mails to antispam.wedos.cz, WEDOS Antispam will start working.
We can help you with DNS setup if you need it. Just write to us as an authorized user and ask our customer support for help with DNS settings for antispam testing.
What should I do next?
All spam that goes through antispam.wedos.cz will be marked in the subject line [SPAM]. Go through the emails marked as such to see if there are any that he doesn’t have. Our testing shows that it shouldn’t be, but to make sure we are doing this test. If you trust our antispam, you can use your own filter to put emails marked as such in the trash. If any spam gets through (not marked as [SPAM]), please check its source code to see if it actually went through antispam.wedos.cz or if it went through one of the mx.wedos.net. If it has passed through antispam.wedos.cz, email us information about the specific email via our contact form and we will check it and adjust the settings if necessary. Similarly, please let us know if some emails are marked in error.
Completion of testing
Public Beta Test 1.0 will officially end at the end of the holiday season 31.8.2018 – changed at least until 7. 9. 2018. Then you must delete the antispam.wedos.cz MX record and return the original MX records (if you delete them). If the beta test is successful, it will be followed by further beta tests. We will decide whether we will debug the algorithm and rules in Beta test 1.1 or start filtering mail in Beta test 2.0.
In case there are more people involved in the Beta tests, we will adjust all DNS records to the required value at the end. So you wouldn’t have to change anything anymore.
As soon as we decide to deploy antispam on all domains in our country, we will do it in bulk and you won’t have to set up and change anything anywhere.
Notice
Please note that this is a beta test. Anything can happen. Although antispam is set to mark only, unforeseen events can cause emails to not arrive at all. On the other hand, we are also testing this solution on our post office and several other domains, including the aforementioned e-shop nejlevnejsipneu.cz. So we can’t afford big problems.
Conclusion
We want to thank all the testers in advance for helping us with debugging. Thanks to you, the internet will be a little cleaner again :).
The Antispam service will of course be free for all web hosts.
You know that we also have DDoS protection for our services, we have special IDS/IPS protection for all web hosts and now we have decided to improve antispam.