> Note there is nothing about spam in there. Nothing about content. > Nothing about consent. This type of test is different than a test > that tries to determine if a message is spam and thus has a > different definition of false positive.
Which is perfectly fine, if this were not a thread about accurate spam detection on a list peopled by many overworked and mail-inexperienced sysadmins of mission-critical MTAs. As with so many such wars, this one began with an offhand comment closed with a smiley: RMilner wished we could "figure out how to make this happen to the hundred of spam emails each day and not the legitimate emails from AT&T and Verizon." The solution given to this query was "subscriber network filter"--blatantly counter to the requirements! (Whether or not the problem was supplied in jest, the solution appeared straight-faced to me and others.) With such a mismatch in the context of the between post and reply, why stay within the same thread? This list would be more productive if we debated R&D results of experimental blacklisting measures in their own threads, rather than mixing-and-matching two very different topics. If not, the probability that sysadmins will be misled by the loop-de-loop redefinition of the term "false positive" remains too high to go without comment. FTR, though our clients would not accept single-criteria blocking without user-level *and* user-controllable (not just admin-controllable) whitelisting, we are not fundamentally opposed to it: our in-house systems actually bounce on a couple of single tests. But it would be absurd for us to claim that there are "no false positives." It's an anti-spam measure. It makes mistakes as an anti-spam measure. And those mistakes are, unequivocally, false positives. Perhaps there should be an additional term in there--"designed FPs," "lost-lead FPs," "pimp hand FPs," or suchlike--but they are FPs. On the other hand, if you frame your anti-spam measure as *not* subordinate to legit message content, then it's *not* primarily an anti-spam measure...it can be framed as an anti-DDoS system, a performance optimizer, a moral guardian, whatever, all of which have technical and business merit in their own right and in some environments overrule anti-spam guidelines, but should be revealed as such. Overall, there continues to be an inability for many to understand what it's like in jack-of-all-trades SMB IT, at a money-crunched regional ISP, and other environments. On the flipside, many cannot grasp what it's like to have the SLA-guaranteed freedom, or a statutory mandate, to be as draconian as you want and still keep your job. Though both are parts of the "real" world of IT, I think one should err on the side of those whose employment is on the line and explain the perspective of any highly charged recommendation. -Sandy ------------------------------------ Sanford Whiteman, Chief Technologist Broadleaf Systems, a division of Cypress Integrated Systems, Inc. e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
