RE: [vps-mail] Feedback requested - filter on [hormel luncheon meat] in subject?

["Steve Yates" <steve@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Matt Cohen wrote on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 11:04 PM:

> i've seen it happen where my email was labeled as spam by
> a recipient's server, and that put a [spam] in the subject line, and
> then they responded to my (tagged) email.

	We have as well.  That's why we suggest clients use:

1) An anti-spam utility that puts its tags in the headers, not the
subject.  K9 can do this...unfortunately Outlook Express can't filter on
custom headers but Outlook and most POP clients can.

2) A learning program that works off Bayesian filtering.  K9 can do this
as well, and I think SpamAssassin 3 can?  (not too familiar with SA, so
I'm not sure how easily users can correct it).

With #2 the presence of one spam word will not trigger the filter, but
the overall content of a message can.  Earlier versions of SA used rules
to score based on keywords...K9 works on the same principle but the
program learns based on *all* words in *each* good/spam message.  Since
11/1/04 I'm at 99.85% accuracy at home...our recent move at work to
Exchange - no more POP - is painful for this reason alone.

Andy McKell, FOCUS Internet wrote on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 11:20
PM:

> Last count this was 800 a day.

	Ow.  Is that with a DNS block list?  If not you should look into
Spamhaus's SBL and XBL (spamhaus.org) which together block about 65-75%
of incoming messages on all our servers as spam from "known bad"
sources.  We have had very very few incidents of complaints (two in ~7
months?), despite referring senders to a custom page on our web site via
the Sendmail error message.  If nothing else a DNSBL will reject the
message before sending it through procmail/spamd.

 - Steve Yates
 - ITS, Inc.
 - Programmers don't repeat themselves, they LOOP.

~ Taglines by Taglinator 4 - www.srtware.com ~

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