[K12OSN] Spam help...

[Keith Olson]

Shawn Powers wrote:

> Would someone that is successful using spamassassin to filter most  
> spam be willing to contact me offlist for some help?
>
> I've tweaked spamassassin, added rulesets (rulesdujour), lowered the  
> required_hits to 4.0, and I'm still having 2nd grade girls getting  
> junkmail regarding male pills...
>
> I have angry parents, angry teachers -- and I understand why!  (Yes,  
> I know spam is a fact of life on the internet, but I'm doing  
> something wrong I think, because it's really ridiculous the amount  
> that is getting through)
>
> I'm using:
>
> K12LTSP 4.2.1 as my mail server
> Spamassassin 3.0.4 (latest in the updates from k12linux)
> sendmail
> /etc/procmailrc (yes, I know not the most efficient, but I haven't  
> had time to get a milter to work)
> RulesDuJour -- to get a ton of rules (I added this on Friday, didn't  
> help much)
>
> I have not set up bayesian stuff -- because I believe that I'd have  
> to get thousands of spam and ham to make it work -- and I don't have  
> the resources to do that (resources = time).  Is that my only chance  
> to filter all the crap that's coming in?  Should I invest in a 3rd  
> party solution?
>
> Thanks for any insight,
> -Shawn 

If you need a lot of spam in a hurry, create a dummy email account and 
spam it across Usenet(yes, I know - bad netiquette, but it's in a good 
cause).  I accidentally posted my unmunged email address /once/ in a 
posting and started receiving spam within five minutes. <SIGH>  That's 
why I created a script that adds bogaddies to my sig.  I'm probably 
clogging spammers' email lists with 200 bogus addresses a week! <GBEG>

Keith Olson
K-Soft Consulting