spam filters

[bscott at ntisys.com]

On Fri, 14 May 2004, at 9:09pm, nsr at ptcnh.net wrote:
> I am looking for recommendations for spam filtering.

  As others have said, SpamAssassin is a very good foundation.  Even in the
untrained "factory install" configuration, I find it does a very good job.  
I just used the canned procmailrc rules linked to from the SA Wiki (see the
"Documentation" section of the SA web site).  I was already using procmail
extensively, which helped, but the canned rules are pretty self-explanatory
even so.

  Training SpamAssassin for better results is pretty easy in an environment
where people are familiar with *nix.  You train SA by giving it samples of
ham (not-spam mail) and spam mail.

  For the not-spam, I just ran it on my "saved mail" collections.  Since I
have well over ten-thousand saved messages, it had plenty of samples.

  For spam, it just meant that, rather then deleting spam, I moved it to an
"also-spam" mail folder.  Then I periodically run the SA learning program on
that folder.

  With regular training, SA does an absolutely fantastic job of separating
the wheat from the chaff -- or the ham from the spam, if you prefer.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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