Motino vs. SpamBayes [ e ]

Hey Gregg -

Have you also tried the SpamBayes plug-in?

I don't know which one was around first, but it seems that it is very similar to Motino...Any thoughts as to whether one has advantages over the other?  Do they both use the Bayesian method?

I have been having pretty decent luck with SpamBayes, but as you said, the time savings are lessened by having to check for false positives.

Still, when you're talking about 100 or more spams a day, I still feel like these types of filters do save a fair amount of aggravation.  Once the filters get to a certain level of accuracy, it really does take far less time to sift through the filtered crap and find the "gems" than it would to manually delete every incoming spam message.

Actually, this brings up an interesting point: Isn't it amazing how the human brain can sift through a big list of messages and spot all spams almost instantaneously?  No matter what tricks spammers try, it's always really obvious to human eyes when a message is spam.  I suppose no one will truly solve the spam problem until artificial intelligence is perfected!

posted by BionicRoachOctober 21, 2003 at 0:59

ORDB [ e ]

Does your mailserver blackhole open mail relays? If it doesn't, get one that does.

http://ordb.org

posted by dmaOctober 21, 2003 at 3:05

SpamBayes? [ e ]

I had not heard of SpamBayes.  I checked out the link and could not find docs on the OutlookPlugin.  I'm not really in the mood to try another right now so I can't really compare.

It mentioned one interesting feature which is it will sort e-mail into spam, ham and unsure.  Spam means it's like 90% it's spam.  Ham means it's good e-mail and unsure is somewhere in between.  So, **IF** you trusted it you might be able to let it just delete spam and you'd only have to deal with the unsure folder.

So far, after a few days with Motino it seems to be working around 98-99% accurate.  It seems like just within the last week my spam has jumped to 150 a day!!!  Ugh!

posted by greggmanOctober 21, 2003 at 11:14

[ e ]

The way I see it, anti spam software can be broken down into three main categories:

1. Server side filters, where the filter is installed on the mailserver and prevents any spam from even getting into a user's mailbox. These filters are often not completely effective because of the fear of false negatives, but they are effective in decreasing the amount of spam to a manageable level. Useless from an end user perspective unless the end user owns his own mailserver.

2. Client side filters, these filters sit on a user's PC and filters spam into a quarantine or spam folder. To me these are probably the most effective in terms of filtering spam away from the inbox as with a little bit of training, a high degree of accuracy can be achieved. Unfortunately, these programs do nothing to stop the spam from reaching the user. To me, it feels too much like a bandaid. Users will still be downloading the spam, they just won't see it.

3. Client side, mailserver filtering, the third type are filters that access the email like an email client, it filters and deletes the spam at the mailserver saving the user from downloading the spam. Some even have the capability to bounce a spam in hopes that the user's email address will be taken off a spam list if the spammer views it as invalid. This feature is controversial as its possible that you are bouncing the spam to an innocent mailserver that has been spoofed, therefore possibly choking it with emails. It is also a hassle to in effect run two email clients, the anti spam program and the real email client.

I think Motino comes under No.2, it clears up your inbox which is a good thing but unfortunately, that is only half the problem.

At the moment I am undecided on which method is the best. Hassle free, I would choose No.2, but to be really effective, maybe No.3.

posted by shardOctober 21, 2003 at 23:24

You can live without the preview [ e ]

1. Turn off preview! Viruses can activate themselves via that feature.

2. Are you using a "catch-all" on your domain? If so, turn it off and stick to specific email addresses and accounts. Why? Because spammers often spam generic terms like feedback@domain.com or "webmaster", etc. That's spam that should be bouncing with a "account doesnt exist", but damn catch-alls just send it all through.

3. Then set up a new email account, and over a month or two move over to it. Advise friends, colleagues of the change. Then set up an auto-responder on the old one to advise others of the change too. And then be very vigilant about using your address on the web.

I use a Hotmail account for anything and everytihng on the web, while my domain addresses are strictly for friends and business (NEVER used in a forum post for example).

4. Also I never use "mailto" anymore. Instead I use javascript that concatenates my email address when people click the link. That way HTML crawlers can't find it.

posted by anonemouseOctober 23, 2003 at 0:21

Preview vs AutoPreview [ e ]

Thank you for the suggestions.

Viruses could activate themsevles on the Preview Pane (which I am not using), they cannot activate themselves via AutoPreview Lists (which I will not turn off, that is the most useful feature there is)

All of the other things I do though to one degree or another.  For example, since I have my own domain, whenever I sign up for something on the web I make a new e-mail address for it. That way I can tell if someone company has sold or given away my e-mail address.  But, so far, that hasn't happened.  All the spam is arriving at my main account.

posted by greggmanOctober 23, 2003 at 23:56

A couple of other interesting approaches [ e ]

SpamGourmet provides a way to create "self-destructing" temporary email addresses for when you're unsure about giving them out.

Or spam.la, for when you are absolutely sure a given party is going to spam you, but you have no choice but to give them an email address.  (for instance, when you want to download a trial of some software, but in order to get the download link, you have to provide an email address)  All you do is make up an email @spam.la, such as "biteme@spam.la" and then go here to see what was sent.  Kind of neat.

As far as docs on the SpamBayes plug-in, did you check out the FAQ?  I think that's pretty much all the documentation that is available.  I sort of doubt that there would be much of a performance difference from Motino as they sound like they're using similar algorithms.  Unless the spam/maybe spam distinction seems valuable to you, it's probably not worth switching as there would still be the issue of having to "trust" the results.

I, too, usually get spam in the 100's per day, and SpamBayes seems to be getting better and better with each release.  Once I passed the 3-4 day period to train the spam database, I have never once noticed any false positives on anything that got a 90% or higher "spam" rating, but this could probably vary from person to person, depending on what type of spam you're getting.  I find that the porn/penis enlargement type spam NEVER gets through the filters, but a lot of general marketing/debt relief type of crap still does, presumably because it looks a little more like something legitimate...

posted by BionicRoachOctober 26, 2003 at 18:45

スパム対策　その一 [ e ]

　Spam Mail Killer

posted by DoszilaOctober 27, 2003 at 6:51

スパム対策　その２ [ e ]

「Norton AntiSpam 2004」

posted by DoszilaOctober 27, 2003 at 7:42

スパム [ e ]

以前、私もスパムの攻撃に遭った。ホームページにメールアドレスを載せていた。

あの時は困り、いろいろ手を打った。最終的に、ホームページのメールアドレスの横に、「スパム、DM　おことわり」と書いておいた。だけど

スパムの攻撃数は相変わらず変わらなかったなぁ～（笑）　結局、メールアドレスを変更して、スパムとの戦いは終わった。

posted by DoszilaOctober 28, 2003 at 8:31

スパム対策　その４ [ e ]

ある日　突然、スパム、DM、が届いたら、次の事を考えるべきだ。

いったい誰が、スパム業者に自分のメールアドレスを登録したのだろうか？？？？？

1 掲示板でメールアドレスを書いたことから、

2 ホームページにメールアドレスを載せたことから、

3 メールアドレス収集ロボットから

4 知人がスパム業者に載せたことから、

5 アンケートに答えた時、メールアドレスを書いたことから、

まず、どこから自分のメールアドレスの情報が漏れたのかを考えるべきだ。そして今回の場合は、たぶん2番目だろうーと思います。一度、メールアドレスがスパム業者のリストに登録されてしまうと、永遠に迷惑メールは来ると思われます。スパム業者に登録されたメールアドレスを消すことは、不可能と思います。つまり　「スパム対策　その３」の方法か、もしくは、「メールアドレスの変更」になると思います。

スパム対策　その５に続く。。。。。。。。

posted by DoszilaOctober 29, 2003 at 6:48

Spam Bayes [ e ]

I've been using SpamBayes since May.

http://www.danchan.com/weblo
g/daypop/65396

The Windows add-in is here.

http://spambayes.sourceforge
.net/windows.html

I rarely see any spam in my Inbox. But, I do get valid messages outside my Inbox. I think all of the miscategorized messages have been in my "Possible Spam" folder so I had a chance to recategorize them correctly. What scares me is how many valid emails were miscategorized in my Spam folder, never to be seen again? I'm not about to wade through 10s of thousands (!) of messages.

posted by danchanNovember 6, 2003 at 22:56

so far... [ e ]

I haven't had many false positives with Motino.  Maybe 5 since I started using it except for the first 2 days or so when I had to mark the first few as good or bad.  I get 1 or 2 false negatives each day it seems out of 150 spams.

So far I still wade through the Quarentine folder everyday.  The only real advantage from not having it is now 99% of the spam is all together in one list so it's faster to skim it for false positives than it was when I went through it all by hand mixed in with the good stuff.

posted by greggmanNovember 7, 2003 at 8:08