Anti-spam filters

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 01:14 +1030, Tim wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 08:27 -0600, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> > But the primary emphasis to make SA better is a bayes based learning
> > proceedure. You tell the system about its mistakes and it learns. 
> 
> Unfortunately, the way most users get to play with that, using the /is/
> and /isn't/ spam buttons on their mail client, is a mystery how it'll do
> the assessing.  I don't think I've seen any declare what information is
> programmed into your anti-spam system when you use them.
> 
> I wouldn't want to mark several messages that came through a mailing
> list as being spam, and have it decide the mailing list is probably
> spam, rather than the type of information contained in the message.
> 
> Unless I know how a mail client is going to use its is/isn't spam
> buttons, I don't use them.  There should be some way for me to configure
> my client to take my pressing of the is/isn't spam buttons to mean that
> the sender should be blocked, or addressing should be ignored and other
> criteria be made use of.
> 
> Evolution, for instance, gives no clues in the documentation for what
> actually happens when you use its junk mail features.  Another of those
> don't look at that man behind the curtain situations.
> 
> -- 
> (This computer runs FC7, my others run FC4, FC5 & FC6, in case that's
>  important to the thread.)
> 
> Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
> I read messages from the public lists.
> 
It is clear to me now that evolution does not uuse spamd the way its
designed to be used in the documentation.Bust if you use the procmail
approach many characteristics of spam can be used to identify it.
Identifying mail from a client a spam is not done by training but by
using the blacklist feature. The opposite is done by the whitelist. 

In general it is the whole structure of the message  including contents
that are used to determine that spamassassin will identify the mail item
is spam. There are too many options to describe here. But when used
correctly spamasssassin works well. Even in evolution it works well. I
get less than 1 message that is spam included in my non-junk folder per
week.

--
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The future lies ahead.
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Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net