blocksmith™


Breakthrough technology from DTL
DTL's proven BlockSmith™ technology is an imposing barrier against spam, denial of service attacks, phishing exploits, viruses, and web spambots. BlockSmith literally creates a firewall between the bad guys and our systems that provide your Internet services. It works in conjunction with our email and web hosting systems, blocking malcontent intruders from repeated attacks against you and the Internet.

No more flooding
Since repeat spammers account for a large percentage of junk email - over 25% - we forged BlockSmith to enhance and protect all our hosting systems. By denying further access at the network level, one blocked attack against our servers protects all DTL customers from a source that might harbor many spammers.

That significantly reduces the load on our servers and the potential for "flooding attacks" -- a common denial of service tactic where spammers rapidly blast messages to random addresses through repeated connections to web and email servers. Aside from filling mailboxes with spam, such attacks can cripple servers, causing delays in receiving and delivering legitimate email. With BlockSmith, such attacks are detected instantly and stopped.

Protects your mailbox
Once a spammer is caught sending junkmail, phishing exploit or a virus, BlockSmith immediately locks them out and issues a warning. Subsequent attempts to connect to our servers will fail.

Protects your web site
Spammers hijack virus-infected computers ("spambots" or "zombies") to attack web pages, such as blogs and contact forms. This results in spam to your mailbox, harvesting email addresses from your web pages for future spamming, or worse, turning your site into a spam-relaying system.

These kinds of attacks against your web pages is challenging for most web site owners, web hosting companies, and web designers to defend against. However, DTL's integrated BlockSmith technology employs a comprehensive detection and scoring system that, in real time, identifies bad form postings from legitimate messages. Spam postings are rejected and subsequent attempts to connect to our servers are denied.

A high rejection rate is nothing to boast about
Many email service providers boast about their spam fighting effectiveness by reporting a high percentage of rejections -- as high as 90% or more being spam they detect hitting their servers. Before DTL developed and activated BlockSmith, we also saw rejection rates at this level. But after deploying BlockSmith, our rejection statistics decreased significantly, typically between 20% to 35%. (Lower is better in this case.)

The good old days
Because BlockSmith stops spammers from reconnecting to our network, they are not able to abuse our mail servers. It is as if the spammers simply didn't exist. The ratio of spam messages to valid email decreases dramatically, and as a result, rejections are far fewer. That's a good indicator, like the good old days when spam was the exception, not the rule.

Good email and web design practices can help
BlockSmith is one part of the fight against spam. Getting spammed is usually a result of poor email address practices and negligent web design. When your public email address is known to spammers (see the asking for spam sidebar), the spam never stops and usually increases. It disrupts business and puts you, your employees and customers at risk of computer viruses.

The most important part of our service includes providing helpful guidance and education to our customers to prevent email addresses from becoming spam magnets in the first place. Staying off the spam lists while benefitting from DTL's BlockSmith protection gives you huge advantage and improves the quality of your email.

A free service for our valued customers
Customers with email service from DTL all benefit from our BlockSmith technology. It protects our entire network, so businesses that use DTL's Business Email Gateway service as a front-line of defense for their own mail servers benefit from BlockSmith, too. Customers with DTL-designed web sites automatically are protected from contact page spam and email address harvesting.

Anyone can design. Anyone can host. But...
This is where DTL breaks away from the rest in offering a higher level of service. Web hosting outfits and web designers abound and their services individually are a commodity. But finding a single firm that can do both well is rare. Even more uncommon is the company that can rapidly integrate design and hosting logistics with appropriate technology to solve common and emerging issues. That's what DTL does with a high degree of competency.

  
 



asking for spam

Wonder why you receive so much unwanted junk email? Believe it or not, you may be the reason. Here's why.

Your web site

If your email address appears anywhere on the web, you have already given it away. Spammers automatically scour web sites harvesting every email address they find. BlockSmith's ChainMail web site encryption can safely hide your address from spammers but not from customers. Ask us about how you can protect email addresses on your web site and secure your contact forms against injection attacks.

Being careless

Web sites routinely ask for your email address before granting access to special areas. Often, an address is optional! If you can, omit your address or enter something completely bogus. If you can't, use a throw-away address from a free email service.

Protect it!

There are many ways people allow their email address to get into questionable hands. If you don't take measures to protect it, you may be asking for spam. For more help, see DTL's Ten Email Savers.