During our transformation into Sprocket Logic we examined several other services offered by other internet service provided and asked ourselves, "how can we do it better?"

E-mail was one of the biggest areas of our focus. We wanted to make the e-mail process as simple and easy to use as possible for end users and administrators. But while we made sure everyone has access to e-mail, we also wanted to be 100% sure you were not receiving SPAM.

For the last three years we used a very powerful application called "SpamAssassin". SpamAssassin was good, but it did not perform of the essential tasks that it should have done: keeping the SPAM out of your inbox.

The mechanics of SpamAssassin does not block the SPAM. Instead it flags the questionable e-mail as SPAM and then delivers it to your inbox flagged as such. SpamAssassin relies on the end user to do what they wish with SPAM e-mail.

To us, this was not acceptable. We feel you should be concerned with operating your business rather than fidgeting with SPAM filters.

Enter ASSP, which means Anti-Spam-SMTP-Proxy. (Don't worry, there will not be a quiz on this. But you will get to know ASSP very well soon.)

ASSP examines the incoming e-mail and if it is deemed to be SPAM it blocks it before it ever gets near your inbox. Other companies using ASSP have seen SPAM reduction success rate up to 99.6% with only 3% false positives, compared to a 16% success rate using SpamAssassin.

We have researched common questions users have asked about ASSP and included them below to assist in this transition.

What if legitimate e-mail is flagged as SPAM?
If a legitimate e-mail is blocked the sender will receive an e-mail indicating their message was blocked as SPAM. The e-mail contains a link asking them to please visit https://www.spromail.com/ to add themselves to the ASSP whitelist.

What SPAM gets through?
If you receive a SPAM e-mail, don't immediately delete it! Simply forward the e-mail to "assp-spam@spromail.com". The system will then add the offending SPAM to a growing database.

How can I all of my contacts to the whitelist?
ASSP makes this task easy. Simply follow these steps:

• Create a new e-mail message and add ALL of the e-mail addresses in your Address Book/Contacts List to the BCC field of the e-mail.
• In the "To" field, enter assp-white@spromail.com
• Send the e-mail.

User emails included in the BCC address will NOT receive an e-mail.

How can I be sure e-mails from ASSP are not blocked?
spambot [at] spromail.com has already been added to the whitelist. Please make sure the "spambot" address is added to your local incoming e-mail filter.

How long will it take ASSP to become effective?
The truth is, ASSP has been running silently since around August 2006. In its current configuration, ASSP has been running 194 days and has processed 90435 messages, blocking 70.6% of those messages.

I'm still getting SPAM, will the filters be strengthened?
Yes. We do not want to start out with the tightest security possible or you would not get e-mails from your favorite candidate, Ann Taylor, Apple, eBay, etc. We are taking a slow, careful approach to the level of filtering we enforce on the server.

How does ASSP handle receiving out-office-auto-replies?
As long as the "headers" and sending provider of the auto-reply is legitimate ASSP will accept and deliver the message to your inbox.

How will using ASSP affect me when I set MY out-office-auto-reply?
This is where ASSP will become your best friend. As mentioned earlier, ASSP blocks the incoming SPAM before it is handed off to the post office manager. SPAM will never be informed you are out of the office.

How does ASSP fit in Sprocket Logic's commitment to Open Source?
ASSP is completely written in PERL and is freely available at http://assp.sourceforge.net.

Here are some helpful e-mail addresses you can use to help ASSP manage SPAM:

assp-help@spromail.com
Sends a copy of these help commands to your inbox.

assp-spam@spromail.com
Forward SPAM to this address to add it to the SPAM database.

assp-notspam@spromail.com
Forward e-mail incorrectly flagged as SPAM to this address to prevent future e-mails from this recipient being blocked.

assp-white@spromail.com
Adds any addresses CC'd or BCC'd on the e-mail to the whitelist.

assp-nowhite@spromail.com
Any e-mail containing addresses in the CC or BCC lines sent to this address will be interpreted as a request to remove addresses from the whitelist.

assp-red@spromail.com
Adds any e-mail addresses in the CC or BCC field to the Red List. The red list (think "stop" list) is a list of addresses that may never be added to the whitelist.

assp-notred@spromail.com
Removes an address from the Red list.

If you have problems with ASSP or need assistance please open a support ticket.

Thank you for your business and for allowing Sprocket Logic to be your choice in web application services!

(Apologies to George Lucas for the teaser)