Teletom — Reliable, Transparent Spam Protection

Why we don't trust algorithms to decide what's spam and what isn't — and how our three-layer protection system works.

The Spam Problem: How Major Providers Solve It

Spam has always been — and remains — a major pain point for the internet community. On one hand, unwanted mail and, worse, forged messages are frustrating and carry real risks. On the other hand, there's the question of how not to lose important emails in the race to block the unwanted ones.

Major email providers build global spammer databases, develop large-scale filtering algorithms, and leverage machine learning — yet no one has solved the problem perfectly. But providers have little choice: millions of users, billions of emails per day, and the provider is forced to adopt an "we'll decide what's spam" approach.

The problem with this approach: the algorithm inevitably makes mistakes. Some users lose critical business emails, others lose personal messages, and some simply stop trusting email altogether. While a major provider can afford this "cost of error" due to scale, for a local business or individual user, handing over filtering to someone else's opaque algorithms is entirely optional.

Teletom's Strategy: "We Don't Decide for You"

Teletom, like everyone else, has chosen its own spam-fighting strategy. And its motto is simple:

Our Principle
"We don't decide for you"

Instead of trying to guess what the user wants, we split the concept of "spam" into two fundamentally different types — and assigned each its own destination. This allowed us to build a reliable system without machine learning.

❌ The Major Provider Approach

  • One algorithm decides everything
  • Opaque algorithms and machine learning
  • Frequent false positives
  • Important emails get lost
  • User has no control over the logic

✅ The Teletom Approach

  • Spam split into two distinct types
  • Simple, understandable rules
  • No false blocking of important mail
  • User decides what matters
  • Transparent logic, no "black boxes"

Three Layers of Teletom Protection

Teletom's entire anti-spam system is built on three clear layers. Each layer handles a specific type of threat using its own tool. No magic, no complexity — just understandable logic.

1
Layer

🛡️ Forged Emails → SPAM Folder

When the sender or their mail transport fails basic authenticity checks — SPF and DKIM — the email is automatically routed to the "SPAM" folder. These are technically forged or compromised messages, leaving no room for doubt.

Automatic Blocking
2
Layer

📦 Legitimate but Unwanted Spam → SANDBOX

The second type of spam is legitimate email that is technically correct but unwanted by the user: newsletters, cold pitches, promotional mail. Such messages are not rejected — they're placed in a separate "Sandbox" folder. The user checks it from time to time and decides what to move to "Inbox".

User Decision
3
Layer

⛔ Aggressive Attacks & Break-ins → Network-Level Ban

If someone aggressively attempts to breach the mail system — password guessing, brute force, suspicious sessions — after several failed attempts, the source is hard-banned at the network level. Such connections are simply rejected before they ever reach the mailboxes.

Infrastructure Protection
Key principle: Teletom never rejects emails at the network level (except for obvious attacks). This means the user physically cannot miss an important email — it will always reach the server and land either in "Inbox" or "Sandbox".

How It Works in Practice

The entire system revolves around two concepts: allow list and sandbox. Their logic is simple and transparent.

Scenario 1. You Write First

  1. The mailbox owner sends an email to a recipient
  2. That recipient is automatically added to the allow list
  3. All future emails from that recipient land in "Inbox" (or whichever folder the owner assigned via filters)

Scenario 2. Unknown Senders Write to You

  1. An email arrives from an unknown sender
  2. If the email passes authenticity checks (SPF/DKIM are valid), it goes to the Sandbox
  3. The owner periodically checks the Sandbox and moves desired emails to "Inbox"
  4. At the moment of moving, the sender is automatically added to the allow list — and all their future emails will arrive directly in "Inbox"

Scenario 3. The Reverse Operation — "Remove from Allow List"

  1. Suppose you wrote to someone, and that sender landed on the allow list
  2. But then they start being overly pushy: spam, newsletters, unwanted pitches
  3. You simply move any of their emails back to the Sandbox
  4. The sender is automatically removed from the allow list — and their next emails will again land in the Sandbox, until you decide otherwise

Additional Filtering Tools

Beyond the core allow list and sandbox logic, the Roundcube mail client in Teletom provides additional filters for those who need finer control:

🚫
Address Blocking Manually block specific email addresses — their messages won't even reach the Sandbox.
🌐
Domain Blocking Add entire domains to a blocklist — useful when spam comes from many addresses at the same domain.
📡
Transport Blocking Block emails arriving via specific mail servers — effective protection against known spammer infrastructures.
⚙️
Flexible Rules Set up auto-replies, automatic forwarding, moving, and deleting of emails based on any custom conditions.
Conclusion: Teletom delivers a reliable, understandable spam protection system. Forgeries go automatically to SPAM, unwanted legitimate mail goes to the Sandbox, and aggressive attacks are blocked at the network level. Most importantly — the decision about every email always remains with the user, not with someone else's algorithm.

What's Next?

For details on how filters are configured in the Teletom web panel and how to build a convenient incoming mail workflow, see the upcoming articles in our Knowledge Base.

Knowledge Base