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SpamBayes
May. 14, 2006, 06:46 PM
Post: #1
SpamBayes
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Quote:SpamBayes will attempt to classify incoming email messages as 'spam', 'ham' (good, non-spam email) or 'unsure'. This means you can have spam or unsure messages automatically filed away in a different mail folder, where it won't interrupt your email reading. First SpamBayes must be trained by each user to identify spam and ham. Essentially, you show SpamBayes a pile of email that you like (ham) and a pile you don't like (spam). SpamBayes will then analyze the piles for clues as to what makes the spam and ham different. For example; different words, differences in the mailer headers and content style. The system then uses these clues to examine new messages.

For instance, the word "Nigeria" appears often in spam, so you could use a spam filter which identifies anything with that word in it as spam. But what if your business involves writing a guidebook on Nigerian Wildlife Conservation? Clearly a more flexible approach is necessary. Additionally spammers will adapt their content over time and will no longer use the word "Nigeria" (or the words "Lose Weight Fast", or any number of other common lines). Ideally the software will be able to adapt as the spam changes.

So, that is what SpamBayes does. It compares the spam and the ham and calculates probabilities. For instance, for me, the word "weight" almost never occurs in legitimate email, but it occurs all the time in 'lose weight fast' spam. SpamBayes can then look at incoming email, extract the most significant clues and combine the probabilities to produce an overall rating of "spamminess". It flags the messages so that your mailer can handle the different message types. You might set it up so that ham goes straight through untouched, spam goes to a folder that you ignore (or delete without checking) and the unsure messages go to another folder which you can review for errors.

I've tried out POPFile, K9, and I prefer SpamBayes over them.

Spam is becoming a major issue for me, so I have created my own mini anti-spam system, where my E-Mail client checks all incoming E-Mail messages' headers, and checks if "X-Spambayes-Classification" has the "spam" value (set by SpamBayes). If it does have that value, it goes into the trash. I don't delete it right away since it may be a false positive.

Give this a try if you seem to be getting a lot of spam! It doesn't work with Web Mail though Sad
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May. 15, 2006, 11:32 AM
Post: #2
RE: SpamBayes
I don't like the idea of needing to "train" it...

for one, when I get SPAM, I delete it IMMEDIATELY, I don't let it sit in the Inbox for months on end to later "feed" to a spam-filter program in the name of "training"...

so with this "training" method, just how many e-mails with the header containing X-Mailer: The Bat!, or X-Mailer: imposingMail 8.06, or X-Mailer: gerundiveMail 5.398, or X-Mailer: bellwethersMail 1.17, or X-Mailer: MIME-tools, {or one dozen other X-Mailer's that I delete with no questions asked}, or X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang do I have to receive-and-train before this little training scheme tells itself, "oh, this guy wants to delete ALL of these, no guestions asked"?
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May. 16, 2006, 09:14 AM
Post: #3
RE: SpamBayes
ProxRocks;

Actually, this is a very highly regarded product in the anti-spam community. You could just wait and let it learn eventually, but the best results are obtained if you can train it one time. The larger the piles, the quicker it gets up to snuff. But even if you don't have more than a half-dozen spams for it to look at, no sweat, it'll still do you a world of good - it'll just take a bit longer to get there.

They claim it has a better than 97% success ratio after only one month in action. That's pretty impressive, to me at least. Smile! If you've got the patience to wait for that training period, this is indeed a good product.


Oddysey

I'm no longer in the rat race - the rats won't have me!
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May. 16, 2006, 02:21 PM
Post: #4
RE: SpamBayes
I use MailWasher and use it to delete spam from the server. I just check off the e-mails I wish to delete and then click process mail. You can add filters to it if you like. I don't really have a problem with spam though; I only get a few a week.
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May. 16, 2006, 04:47 PM (This post was last modified: May. 16, 2006 04:52 PM by ProxRocks.)
Post: #5
RE: SpamBayes
only a few a week? that's "excessive" in my eyes, lol...

my home e-mail runs on a whitelist - nothing allowed in except about two dozen pre-determined e-mail addresses...
anything not whitelisted is automatically deleted at the server - with no intervention needed by me...
haven't had ANY spam on that account for a good 6 or 7 *years* (and that was when I called up the ISP and told them to pull the plug because THEY THEMSELVES were sending me "informative" e-mails that THEY THEMSELVES "thought" I 'needed' - "You send me ANY e-mails EVER again and I close this account! DO I MAKE MYSELF UNDERSTOOD?!"... Haven't had ANY e-mails from my ISP ever since - no "your payment is due", no "your payment has been posted", no "special offers for our members", NOTHING... just the way I want it...)

work e-mail, now that's a different story...
been using MailWasher, but the three or four spams I get in a week (most often always on a Sunday) are EXTREMELY irratating - one of many pet peeves, I think I'm up to 3,672 pet peeves...

of course, those three or four are only what isn't blocked by "automatically" deleting e-mails with the header "X-Mailer: The Bat!" [among a few others, but "The Bat!" is the major offending X-Mailer that I have seen] (may a thousand fleas infest their armpits, I do *not* care how "legit" they claim their e-mail proggy to be) and any and all e-mails containg "Re:" and "your" or "my" in the subject line...

the work e-mail at least offers a "web mail" interface that allows "limited" spam filtering, but I don't particularly care for retrieving POP3-retrievable e-mails via HTTP (number that one 3,673)...


if it weren't for the personal perception of three or four in a week being EXTREMELY EXCESSIVE, than "training" SpamBayes wouldn't "scare" me so much - 'cause I'd be "inviting" many, MANY more than three or four per week just to get the d@mn thing "trained"...

although, having said that, I have downloaded the three files required to install SpamBayes... haven't quite convinced myself to actually do the install, but hey, one step at a time...
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May. 17, 2006, 12:43 AM
Post: #6
RE: SpamBayes
I've noticed that I've rarely had to manually 'train' SpamBayes lately. I have yet to see a false positive Smile!
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May. 17, 2006, 05:58 AM
Post: #7
RE: SpamBayes
I like Mailwasher. I have it set to filter content-type. Anything that is text/html or multipart/* is marked for deletion.
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May. 17, 2006, 01:17 PM
Post: #8
RE: SpamBayes
I used Mailwasher for a while but I did not care for it for some reason ; then I found Spampal which uses several filters similar to SpamBayes . Very good program but wouldn't work with Hotmail ; now I'm on Poppeeper which is really neat . It can show all your email accounts and delete all the junk at the server .
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May. 18, 2006, 08:32 AM
Post: #9
RE: SpamBayes
Ralph Wrote:...now I'm on Poppeeper which is really neat . It can show all your email accounts and delete all the junk at the server .
But can it filter by content-type?
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May. 18, 2006, 09:17 AM
Post: #10
RE: SpamBayes
Siamesecat wrote :
Quote:But can it filter by content-type?
No , Poppeeper can not ; but I found using Spampal a lot of mail was marked as spam which was not . White lists work nicely . Spampal was a very nice program however there were frequent errors , mistakes and occasional freeze ups ; probably my fault since I was using the beta version . With Poppeeper all your mail accounts are visible , you see what you've gotten , if it's obviously spam , delete all at the server . You are the filter . Also PP seemed to use less system resources . I think my ISP , Adelphia , was the main problem by letting all the crap through in the first place ; but my complaints to them were futile and the only other alternative was 56k dialup .
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May. 18, 2006, 11:02 AM
Post: #11
RE: SpamBayes
Ralph Wrote:...and the only other alternative was 56k dialup

know what'cha mean...
my home computer is on dial-up for the very reason that I haven't found another local ISP that has a "whitelist" scenario for e-mail - nothing in unless I pre-allow a given e-mail address...

and if a non-whitelisted e-mail address attempts to e-mail me, my ISP replies with a "you are not pre-allowed, click here to request to be allowed" (or something to that effect)... no spammer, none, is going to "click" a link to request addition to the whitelist... for one, the spammers use forged e-mail header info and the ISP-reply never makes it to them in the first place (and besides, the office high-speed internet connection is a short bicycle journey from home)...

sure, the pre-allowed whitelist method is a bit of a nuisance for the first-time sender trying to e-mail me, but I would much rather the nuisance be on the sender than me, the recipient...


as for SpamBayes, does this thingy (haven't installed it yet) merely add a couple of folders to Outlook (since I have to use Outlook at the office)? one folder for spam, one folder for questionable...

and if the spam is merely being "shifted" to another folder, is that doing anything to block the "annoyance"? I mean, the cr@p IS still sitting in your e-mail client...
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May. 18, 2006, 11:16 AM
Post: #12
RE: SpamBayes
ProxRocks Wrote:if the spam is merely being "shifted" to another folder, is that doing anything to block the "annoyance"? I mean, the cr@p IS still sitting in your e-mail client...
Spampal moves Spam to another folder which you can empty whenever . Another step in the process . At least when I look at the mail in Poppeeper when I see garbage it's gone with one click .
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