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Spam Filter

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Spam Filter
Found the answer to spam...
You gotta love the Americans.
You ever get those emails that start off with
"you are receiving this because you recently signed up with us or one of our affilitate sites"....
That says "I AM SPAM"...
So, that is what you put in as a filter phrase and auto delete anything with that in it.
Look at the logic of it. From any site where you are a member of any discussion forum or whatever, or indeed any legitimate email almost NEVER has that phrase in it. The odd legit one you trap that should not be such a problem...
spam has gone to absolute zero since putting that filter in..
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Re: [Gypsypup] Spam Filter In reply to
In Reply To:
You gotta love the Americans.

You should try tracing one of the originating IPs on your spam. I find that a good deal of mine come from overseas myself. Don't get me wrong, I do get my share from idiots here in the US but that is one hell of a generalization you make there.

Anyhow, SpamAssassin works wonders on spam:

Code:
Since Sun Apr 20 2003 12:00:00 AM (222 days)

Total number of emails processed 7,040
Number of Good emails processed 2,350
Number of Spam emails processed 4,690
Percentage of emails that matched whitelist rules 1.8%
Percentage of emails that matched blacklist rules 0.0%
Number of emails re-classified to Good 15
Number of emails re-classified to Spam 12
Percentage emails misidentified as Spam (false positives) 0.2%
Percentage emails misidentified as Good (false negatives) 0.2%
Overall accuracy 99.6%

~Charlie

Last edited by:

Chaz: Nov 28, 2003, 8:33 PM
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Re: [Chaz] Spam Filter In reply to
Hi

Thanks for the comments. I actually spent a lot of time on your site and liked it a lot. Got some interesting info from there. You have done well.

While my approach may seem quite blunt axe rather than the surgeons approach that spam assassin offers, the reults I know of is quite amazing. My belief is that I care not where the scumbag spammers live, or anything about them, as there is little benefit from all that as at the end of the day, what are you going to do to them. Take them to Court? I think not.

As an approach to the problem for those without hi-tech support, the simplicity of the concept and the results are second to none.

BTW, there is an essential difference in my site compared to many - I operate a free email service - similar to Gossamer mail. I cannot install "across the board" filters. I can only look after my own personal accounts.

Last edited by:

Gypsypup: Nov 28, 2003, 9:48 PM
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Re: [Gypsypup] Spam Filter In reply to
Most of my SPAM comes from Nigeria, India, Russia, and yep... China Frown

My SpamAssasin installation picks up about 300 spam emails a day :( It sucks.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
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Re: [Gypsypup] Spam Filter In reply to
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spam has gone to absolute zero since putting that filter in..

It seems unlikely that you can reduce spam so dramatically by filtering that one phrase - I'm sure (well infact I know through experience) spammers use many variations and they'd all slip through your filter.

Perhaps it worked for you personally, which is great, but in the wider scheme of things it would have very little impact on spam. If it was that easy someone would probably have thought of the idea already 8)
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Re: [Recall] Spam Filter In reply to
The idea is that simple..

I am sure that someone can correct me on a point however there is US legislation that states something about using that exact combination of words that makes apparent spam, not spam.

The spammers get around the laws by using that set of words. Thats why I say, you got to love the Americans - they introduced a set of Laws about labelling things that makes picking up spam very easy. You got what I meant wrong Andy - sorry about that mate.

It appears there is difficulty believing the fact that zero spam is the case actually surprises me. What, conceptually, is difficult about understanding the fundamental principle of a very low tech solution to a high tech problem

Last edited by:

Gypsypup: Nov 29, 2003, 11:52 AM
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Re: [Gypsypup] Spam Filter In reply to
very little of the spam I get has that tagline. however, most newsletters that I sign up for do. I use SpamAssassin to scan the mail and insert "***SPAM***" in the subject line, then in Outlook I simply match subject lines against that and many other keywords that shoud never appear in legit email.

Philip
------------------
Limecat is not pleased.
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Re: [Gypsypup] Spam Filter In reply to
Quote:
It appears there is difficulty believing the fact that zero spam is the case actually surprises me. What, conceptually, is difficult about understanding the fundamental principle of a very low tech solution to a high tech problem

The difficulty is not so much with understanding the concept, but more with it's practicality and effectiveness.

Thankfully I live in Europe:

http://www.financialdirector.co.uk/News/1135072