Comments on: Postini: Google's take on e-mail security

At the search giant's e-mail security unit, globally distributed automated systems and Zero-Hour software keep spam and viruses out of inboxes.

[mike.gw]

Whether it's an update in SMTP protocols or migrating to TCPIP v6, this problem needs to be attacked in a comprehensive and thorough manner. Stopping spam dead would be the IT equivilent of preventing breast cancer or HIV... a blockbuster! Microsoft, Sun, Apple, Intel, 3Com, Cisco, IBM, Novell... all the relevant players need to put their heads together on standards that will put an end to this plague once and for all.

[CTO_Dude]

Is it just me or this "article" just one big advertisement for Google? There is no review here. It's essentially a paid endorsement with no commentary. It's basically just like Google handed them a script and said... "here, post this".

[myles taylor]

Actually, maybe someone is actually just giving a news article on the spam filtering system that's the best out there for enterprise.

[CTO_Dude]

To be clear... there is no article here. It's simply a marketing slick rebranded as an "article".

[elinormills]

This article was intended to provide a behind the scenes look at how Postini operates. If you want a product review go to http://reviews.cnet.com/.

[myles taylor]

Postini is pretty awesome. It's was used by the ISP I used to work for and it works out.

[skygrid]

"Personally, I get maybe one spam message in my personal Gmail account every two weeks or so, which is tolerable, but I end up removing dozens of spam messages each day from my Outlook inbox at work, which is not tolerable."

so Postini is using is eating their own dog food.

[RompStar_420]

Every time I log into my account in Google, I have tons of new spam awaiting in the spam folder, there is so much of it that I just select all and delete, page after page. I never used my email in any questionable way and i get SPAM.

[kieranmullen]

It gets deleted automatically like it says on the page when you load it.

[yacahuma]

if you dont want spam
1. dont talk to strangers
2. create email aliases for new emails account when you dont know the company. DOES NOT MATTER IF IT LOOK LEGIT.
3. advise your stupid friends. if you have a friend with no antivirus, create an alias email just for him.

[idfubar]

So... you're saying you can get rid of the default "Spam" folder and "Spam" settings on each and every mail account for which I sign up?

[Tom Grezek]

Definitely reads pretty biased-wonder why their technology doesn't work to protect their enterprise-doesn't sounds enterprise ready if it can't keep spam out of the outlook folder-somebody's definitely putting the spin on this article. Thanks for the creative content cnet-

[mdeley]

So far I've not been impressed by Postini. My company just switched from an internally managed filtering system and my SPAM levels have gone through the roof. In almost 10 years I received maybe 2 SPAM messages per year that got through the filters, and never lost a message that I knew about when we managed it internally.

Since we adopted Postini, I get daily messages telling me how much SPAM Postini has filtered. Most of this is obvious crap that should never even be acknowledges. Given the fact that it also trapped a number of legit messages, I'm glad I can go back and fix it.

My major issues with the process are:
- it's not integrated into outlook which is our corporate email. I have to go into a separate web based system to manage by black/white lists. No such thing a a right click in the daily report to ban/filter/or white list messages. Stuff that Postini doesn't filter, gets into the MS Outlook filter successfully - why not just use MS Outlook - it seems to have a better track record, and easier IF (first time I've praised Outlook over something else ;-).
- inconsistency on letting a message through one day, then filtering it another day. It let a customer mail in once, then somehow decided a follow up mail on the same thread was SPAM. Even after I manually white listed this address, it still decided it knew better.
- given the amount of time I spend per week looking at Postini filters to be sure I get my mail now, times the number of world wide employees, I'm sure we blew the budget on savings when we likely shot the internal IT folks that did such a great job.

Even my ISP does a better job now than Postini. A year ago I was getting 10:1 SPAM to legit mail on my ISP mail. They've since figured out how to filter, now that ratio is reversed, and their SPAM folder filter has been almost perfect in not picking up legit mail. I only hope Google fixes their SPAM reputation quickly, because if I was the IT manager, I'd be looking for a different service already.

[jeffreyjhardy]

I suggest a comprehensive set of techniques outside of a specific device or application. Most anti-spam devices use a set of software and sniffing techniques cloaked within a device box. The anti-spam voodoo is not in the hardware, but in the collection of software techniques and services that it employs.

This blog post gives a good listing and rationalization for the different methods that employed:
http://www.smartertools.com/blog/archive/2009/07/10/taking-email-to-five-nines-spam-protection-why-commtouch-with-smartermail.aspx

That's my two cents,

Be well,