[pmmail-list] Spam filtering - popfile et al

[Andrew Pitonyak]

On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 06:00:26 -0600 (CST), Maynard Riley wrote:

>Hi Dave,
>
>I'll take this opportunity to say [again] how much I appreciate Luko's
>code for checking RBLs with PMMail.
>[http://www.willms-edv.de/freesoft/pmmail/blacklist.zip]

>I'll add a comment that there are several valid reasons why NOT to
>filter on content, which is what the baysean tools do. Content
>filtering is frought with error. Spam is not about content. The same
>content may be spam to you and joy to another. Reading and analyzing
>all the body content (and attachments) is considerably more effort than
>just analyzing headers. No need for bolus; no need for maintenance
>tuning, ....

I agree, content is probably not the best method of determing spam because I always MUST verify that email marked as SPAM is not spam. I use the baysean content filtering. Well, really, I start 
with a front end white list and then I filter on content. 

in the last two days I received 124 SPAM messages. Four of the messages were not marked as SPAM. Of these four, two were very simple and plain. The other two messages had a "s p a c e" 
after each letter so there were no words against which to filter.

I rarely see false positives but I still see them every now and then. Messages from APC usually are marked as spam even though I want them. 

Spam Assassin has so far never had a false positive for me but has had more false negatives.

Andrew Pitonyak




>The good news is that the RBLs do a darn fine job of catching 95% of
>the spam with fewer false positives than content filters.
>
>my oh-two,
>
>-- Maynard
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