on 6/13/03 8:44 AM, Michael Edwards wrote:
> [Jari Williamsson:]
>
>> Brad Beyenhof writes:
>>
>>> SpamAssassin works very well, actually...
> ...
>>> I got a ton of spam... and it was all but eliminated after I installed the
>>> SpamAssassin POP3 proxy....
>>
>> Thanks for the tip! I installed SAproxy yesterday, and only one single
>> spam mail wasn't caught (got a score of 3.4) and something like 120
>> spam mails was caught - and no false catches yet.
>
> False catches - do you mean flagging a legitimate message as spam?
> If I could continue this off-topic thread (which we all seem to be
> interested in again and again), may I ask a question about this, please?
>
> I am getting more and more spam, and would like to do something about it if
> I can do so safely - but I am concerned that any automated filters could catch
> and throw out legitimate mail that I want to read. It may not happen often if
> the program is very good at detecting spam; but I would feel that, until
> programs can understand words and sentences in a human-like way, it *could*
> occasionally throw out something I want to receive.
> It appears this scoring system in SpamAssassin is designed to look for
> features characteristic of spam generally, and I suppose a message is thrown
> out
> if it gets over a certain score.
> I wonder if someone could please point me to a web site that explains the
> scoring system in more detail. If a message scores high enough to count as
> spam, is it just deleted automatically, or just put in a subdirectory for spam
> for you to review at will? Or can you set it either way?
>
> Also, my service provider already scans incoming mail for spam and viruses,
> and the system lets the e-mail through (but removes virus-infected
> attachments),
> and flags them by inserting "{SPAM?}" or "{VIRUS?}" at the start of the
> subject
> heading.
> In that case, would a spam filter of my own that merely marks things or
> moves them to a subdirectory really add anything to what my service provider
> already does? And I have occasionally received legitimate mail that they
> flagged as spam - so false positives in detecting spam are of concern to me if
> I
> use a filter.
> In the end, it seems you have to either trust some software to detect and
> *throw out* spam without your okay, and take the risk it could be a legitimate
> message; or else, however you filter or sort things, you have to put the spam
> somewhere and inspect it visually, and press "Del" as appropriate. But I can
> already do the latter without a filtering program - and it takes a bit of
> time,
> though.
> I seem to be suggesting that the filtering program is not really much use
> unless you set it to delete spam automatically. Is it as simple as this?
>
> If anyone can shed light on this, or at least point me to a site that
> explains all this further, I would be grateful.
> Thanks.
Here is the URL that lists all of SpamAssassin's tests:
<http://au.spamassassin.org/tests.html>
And it doesn't get rid of messages outright, it just appends
"*****SPAM*****" to the beginning of the subject line. Then, it is your
choice if you would like to set up a filter in your POP3 client to move
those messages to the trash. Each message that is given a SPAM flag is sent
to your inbox with a breakdown of the point distribution, and the original
email is created as an attachment to the SpamAssassin report. I believe
that the exact behavior is configurable, but I like it the way it is.
Like I said, it has gotten rid of nearly all SPAM, and I have had absolutely
no false catches. Also, when I said that I didn't get that SPAM sent to the
list the other day... I probably did, and it was probably just caught with
this filter.
-------------
Brad Beyenhof
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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