MA>> Unfortunately, it is my sad yet considered opinion the choice to do MA>> your own filtering is evaporating. My friend told me boastfully about MA>> how his Iowa (USA) ISP was "Filtering" his mail with a bayesian MA>> filter. I pointed him to a free bayesian filter he could operate MA>> locally, knowing exactly what was getting bounced.
> I politely beg to disagree. And I not only respect your right to do that, I yield to your well-earned position of respect within this forum. > I think simple self filtering of spam is easy for most people. More > than 95% of all my wanted email is both addressed to me and comes > from someone with whom I have previously corresponded in my address > book (2000 names), Agreed. Mail from prior correspondents is a cakewalk. A respectably large address book. > or comes from a dozen or so servers (eg. my University). Agreed. Filtering by server to allow makes wonderful sense. Filtering by server to disallow, in terms of unwanted commercial mail would be a full-time job for me. > Of the remaining 5% of wanted mail, it is difficult to imagine > anything that would fail to mention my name (Dear Mark, Hi Mark, > Mark, Hello Mark) or a few dozen keywords that any novel new person > approaching me would have to mention to be of any interest > whatsoever. Although an estimated 30% of my unwanted commercial mail does, in fact, mention my name, your suggestion to use phrases common to personal greetings and new-person approaches is valued. There are creative ways to do that as the wheat separates from the chaff. > Clearly this doesn't apply to everyone who uses email, but I would > guess it applies to 95% of us out there who use our email addresses > with a modicum of discretion. Your comment "a modicum of discretion" can be taken in this context of this public personal reply to be addressed to me and I appreciate this opportunity to comment. I personally exercise more than a "modicum of discretion" in my dealings with e-mail, and yet as a resident of the US deal with between 30 and 50 bits of unsolicited e-mail each day. I am an active member of the Flight Simulation and Train simulation communities. I purchase frequently on-line. I am a registered user of a dozen or more privately run on-line forums for exchange of information, simulation 3rd-party software support, and to share what I've learned. I do not use IRC, I never post to Usenet although I am capable of doing so without my e-mail address or identity visible or optainable except through the service providers I use. I never press "unsubscribe" and until very recently did not bother to try to "bounce" mail. As I wrote in a separate post, most spam replies themselves bounce, however that could easily be a contrivance to separate the live fish from the possibly dead or dying ones. I respectfully remind you that any e-mail which does not bounce will reveal to the sender a fish has been caught. You and I are powerless to change that and I would be very surprised to discover that fact yet to be exploited. While visiting the respectable German website representing FSNavigator, a brilliant program designed to augment the navigational aids within Microsoft Flight Simulator, I replied to a message posted in the site's "Newsgroup" never for a moment even *dreaming* the message would be copied and posted to Usenet with my full registered address fully visible and ripe for harvest. I communicated my displeasure straightaway to the company but the damage had been done and my Spam skyrocketed--just as anyone's would if some unhappy chap with an axe to grind were to add a personal address to a Usenet post in that most lucrative and rich e-mail mining district. I do not dash about the Web willy-nilly, and if using Google, I will switch to a very crippled and script-disabled Opera-3, whose abilities are wonderfully limited as to what it will and/or will not reveal. Does this profile and these comments fit one who uses poor discretion in how e-mail is used? No, it does not. And yet, the spam flows. For the record, I very much enjoy my on-line pursuits, to include the challenge of creative eradication of unwanted commercial mail from my personal mailbox. I am here to learn. I am here to share. I am here to exchange ideas. I am not an e-mail simpleton and am long in the computer tooth with what I feel are things to contribute. > A few simple filters help to ice the cake (not addressed to me, > multiple similar addressees, a few nasty keywords, foreign > characters in subject, and routings through a few countries > through which legitimate mail to me would never be sent). "Not addressed to me" does not work for me although it will return to my Alternatives arsenal at the first stop. "Foreign characters in the subject" does not work for me, because many I correspond with are overseas in both directions. There are brilliant bits of software coming from non-english speaking countries, and many of us correspond through Altavista's Babelfish. "Routings through a few countries through which legitimate mail would never be sent." In light of comments in the above paragraph, I would be most interested to see this list. > I really think it is OTT to suggest that The BAT! alone couldn't > suffice for most people. You mis-understood my comment. Missing from it was the fact I have been working on this friend for at least two years to consider TB! and retire from Agent--which was what I used for many years prior to discovering TB! Nowhere did I intend to imply that dynamic bayesian filtering was in any superior to what TB! can do. Quite the opposite, actually and in point-of-fact. I was merely revealing to that friend in Iowa that bayesian filters are not some hocus-pocus magic pill only a provider can use but rather something he could obtain for free. To think that you, Mark, as one of this venue's most respected and honored engines would openly suggest to readers I was being publicly critical of my beloved TB! especially in a forum designed of, by, and for TB! users is an outrage. No what Mark? That hurt, and perhaps this list is not my cup of tea after all if that's how the dialogue is set. > The critical aspect of spam detection is > *NEVER* to miss *IMPORTANT* legitimate mail and I think it is > unlikely I would. Letting a few spams through is hardly relevant. Impressive emphasis. We operate differently. If I *DO* miss *IMPORTANT* mail, no one will die. In fact, the sender will both be shown an avenue to get through and reminded in my bounce message (if inadvertently caught in a Spam trap of my doing) the Internet and e-mail may well *NOT* be the avenue through which to dispatch *IMPORTANT* mail--especially if the return address is robotic. May I remind you that *IMPORTANT* mail does not take the form of postcards which can be read by any kiddie with penchant for packet sniffing. May I also remind you that here in the US, even having PGP on your computer could compromise your appearance as a law-abiding citizen. Fact. I no longer dispatch encoded mail. Pity. It was the one thing that could have elevated these e-mail toy letters to "IMPORTANCE." Far too many people, some in domestic government now have e-mail as the cheap and inexpensive alternative to providing a *REAL CONTACT AVENUE* and have embraced the idea that e-mail can dispense with a telephone number and a staff to pick it up when it rings. *IMPORTANT* E-MAIL* let's see. Is that an oxymoron? Yes, it most certainly is in my household and after more than a decade of promoting it, encouraging people to use it, and trying to take it seriously, I have finally decided to step back and look at what it is, what isn't, what it has become, and the monster it is becoming. YMMV -- Regards, Mike Using The Bat! v1.62q on Windows XP 5.1 Build 2600 Service Pack 1 ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.62r | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
