The Bottom Line
(STEVEN) blocks a lot of spam by making sure only mail from authorized senders with a valid From: address gets through. It still suffers from challenge/response problems, though.
Pros
- (STEVEN) kills most spam by challenge/response
- Avoids many unnecessary challenging messages
- Works as POP proxy and can forward via SMTP
Cons
- (STEVEN) has a weak authentication mechanism
- Spammers using authorized addresses get through
- Lists, newsletters must be whitelisted manually
Description
- (STEVEN) is a challenge/response anti-spam tool.
- (STEVEN) works either as a POP proxy server or delivers filtered mail via SMTP to your account.
- Only whitelisted mail is accepted by (STEVEN).
- (STEVEN) sends a challenge to new senders. If the return address doesn't exist, it is blacklisted.
- Challenged senders can authorize by replying. You can also authenticate senders manually.
- Additionally, you can whitelist subjects (for mailing list messages, for example) in (STEVEN).
- The challenging and delivery receipt messages can be customized freely.
- (STEVEN) can block certain attachment types.
- (STEVEN) supports Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/3/XP and requires the .NET framework.
Guide Review - (STEVEN) 3.7 - Spam Filter
Anti-spam tools using a challenge/response technique usually generate a lot of unnecessary mail. (STEVEN) is a bit smarter. It tries to deliver the challenge directly.
Since spammers rarely use valid addresses, (STEVEN) can immediately detect that the return address doesn't exist, blacklist it and junk the original message. Senders that do exist must reply to the simple challenge by simply replying. Since the "senders" of newsletters often do not accept mail, you'll have to manually add them to the whitelist or you'll stop receiving them.
While (STEVEN) can either work as a POP proxy or deliver the good mail flexibly via SMTP it only supports POP accounts for incoming mail, and spammers using whitelisted addresses get through easily.
