Very little unfortunately, so I've dropped off of it. I sent my new rules in, but doubt that they will be included. I'm not sure why this is so.

KS

Kickstart: Thanks! I found user_prefs_template, installed your rules,and saved it as user_prefs. Does most of the rule-swapping take place on the email list?

Craniac: Those are the general rules, but you can create a .spamassassin directory and create a file with new rules in a file called user_prefs. You may actually already have this directory and file.

Loading time isn't an issue -- it takes a LOT of text to make a difference there. It's more an issue of convenience in seeing things when paging up and down on Boing Boing... I regularly don't follow links the first time I see something here; come back later and find it to do so; check discussions for new entries (yes, I know I could subscribe); and otherwise revisit recent entries in fairly random order. A single entry multiple screens long makes that more difficult. That's why I have the preference I stated.

I dislike saying anything complaintish about volunteer projects whose results I enjoy. So let me repeat myself: Boing Boing rocks and I'm grateful for your and Cory's and David's work in making this one of the best places on the web. Thank you.

And that's a story I'll stick to regardless of whether you're persuaded to use 'more' links for very long entries.

Were you responding to my post? I don't understand the reference to "more".

Edited by author 06-13-2002 04:45 PM
Well, I like running the whole thing at once, without a "more." That way, you can just read it. But what's the problem? Take too long to load? Or something else?

Edited by author 06-13-2002 04:25 PM
http://www.simsonsays.com

Kickstart 70: my recently installed version of SpamAssassin stores the sorting rules in the /rules directory, a bunch of files that end in .cf

None of those files have the line beginning with "score" that you include. Which .cf contains these rules? Thanks.

rawbody GW_NEW_NIGERIAN /Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation/i
score GW_NEW_NIGERIAN 5.00

That would be this, ChakaTodd:

http://boingboing.net/2002_06_01_archive.html#85165134

and ditto cypherpunks' suggestion. For something of this length, it'd be nice to split the article and use a 'MORE' link.

Edited by author 06-13-2002 04:13 PM
http://www.streettech.com has a link to the original article on one of their frontpage blogs. Simson also has an email list you can subscribe to.

"Why not just use procmail " sayeth Charo.

SpamAssassin uses Procmail to work its magic. It seems to be more nuanced.

It would be nice if the article could be viewed by itself, so that I could pass a link to managers without them being distracted by the other boingboing content, as fine as it is.

Chaka - That *IS* the original Simson article. Original publication right here on boingboing.

Could we get these put in a sub-page somewhere and just an excerpt on the main page? It takes up too much room to have the whole article sitting there.

Is there a link to the original Simson article?

Anyone here know how spamassassin compares to junkfilter(http://http://junkfilter.zer0.org/)? I've been using junkfilter, and while it works very well, i still get approximately 10 spam e-mails daily.

Edited by author 06-13-2002 12:14 PM
Another great way to reduce spam is provided by http://www.spamgourmet.com - they give you the possibility to create new email addresses on the fly wich only accept a certain number of mails and then stop forwarding to your main mail address.

Why not just use procmail like peolple have been doing for years? I do, and I never get spam anymore. There's tons of info on the web on how to configure it. Like this ass-assin it works on your Unix server, but is a part of Unix.

First Bruce Sterling plugs Spam Assassin *twice* in his blog, now Simson & Cory. Guess I'd better look into it.

Just posted: Ben Trott's the man behind the Spam Assassin on OS X solution. The how-to is here and extremely complete (I did it this weekend and it works). It is not supported by Ben (so don't ask for help), but he is interested in hearing if something is genuinely busted. Don't sweat it though; if you follow his directions most folks shouldn't have a problem.

Thanks a million to Ben. He is, as always, the man.

Could someone post or link to a good tutorial on setting SA up on a OS X iMac? Thanks.

merlin if you're talking about an os x mail client that will read a local unix-style mbox mail box you might try looking at pine or mutt... they're command-line but should work on os x.

cypherpunks you can minimize the number of false positives by setting up a good whitelist. i've got whole domains in my whitelist which i know spammers won't generally spam 'from'. false positives are very rare in my spam filter. i go thru the 'spam' box every month or so.

i also keep the amount of spambox mail down by filtering easy to identify spam right to /dev/null, and thus never have to look at it (for example, anything (not on my whitelist) which has the word 'viagra' in it, deleted instantly :)

i use a homebrew procmail filter tho, not spamassassin.

Thx, Bob! You rock.

Yeah, I'm already a 7-year user of Eudora (now on OS X), and I haven't had any luck setting up a UNIX account. It's the one thing Mail.app actually does really well and easily, and Eudora doesn't seem to do it. :-(

Maybe I'm missing the "Esoteric Settings" or something. BTW, I'm [quicktopic at undisclosedlocation dot com] if this is OT.

Hey Merlin--use Eudora. It reads POP mailboxes and IMAP ones too, and it just went final for OS X.

My company is beta testing SA even as I type this. I signed up for the test 3 weeks ago, and so far it's given me only one false positive out of about 300 pieces of SPAM. Now I have to figure out how to get my local preventers of information services to enable procmail filtering on our local server so I can dump it all to /dev/null before it hits my inbox.

The problem with these systems is the false positives. Everyone talks about how much spam they catch, but not so much about the crucial messages that you miss because they got filtered. Sure, you can save all of the spam to a file, but unless you know to paw through it all, you won't be aware that you have missed anything.

With a little help from a magnanimous perlmonk, I was able to get SA running locally on OS X (where perl scripts hit yr ISP's POP account then SA does its dirty bidness right on yr mac!).

And, yeah, it's difficult to describe how magically delicious the service is.

My question is whether you folks can recommend an OS X mail program that can handle UNIX mail accounts (not IMAP) besides Mail.app. Non-MS is preferred, but, man, that two days using SA has already spoiled me.

One of the cool benefits of SA is that you can define your own rules, and so a market in rule-trading has sprung up. Here is my gift to you...a ton of them that I use and are helpful in removing those spams that do get through. Some of these could be grouped and cleaned up, but they will work as is.

rawbody GW_NEW_NIGERIAN /Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation/i
score GW_NEW_NIGERIAN 5.00
rawbody GW_LDSERVICE /long distance/i
score GW_LDSERVICE 1.30
rawbody GW_GANGBANG /gangbang/i
score GW_GANGBANG 4.50
rawbody GW_FREEPHONE /free cellular phone/i
score GW_FREEPHONE 5.00
rawbody GW_FREEPHONE2 /free cellphone/i
score GW_FREEPHONE2 5.00
rawbody GW_1 /receive special offers/i
score GW_1 5.00
rawbody GW_2 /ZYBAN/
score GW_2 5.00
rawbody GW_3 /MySecretAdmirer/i
score GW_3 4.50
rawbody GW_4 /promotion code/i
score GW_4 5.00
rawbody GW_6 /cam-hosting/i
score GW_6 5.00
rawbody GW_7 /Bank of Nigeria/i
score GW_7 5.00
rawbody GW_8 /INVESTMENT OFFER/i
score GW_8 3.00
rawbody GW_9 /Instant Credit Check/i
score GW_9 5.00
rawbody GW_10 /no setup fee/i
score GW_10 3.00
rawbody GW_11 /click here to apply/i
score GW_11 3.00
rawbody GW_12 /FREE airline tickets/i
score GW_12 3.50
rawbody GW_13 /Suzan Kabila/i
score GW_13 3.50
rawbody GW_15 /(Amway)|(NuSkin)|(Quixtar)|(BigSmart)|(SkyBiz)|(Herbalife)/i
score GW_15 3.50
rawbody GW_16 /FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION/i
score GW_16 3.00
rawbody GW_20 /INITIAL INVESTMENT/i
score GW_20 2.00
rawbody GW_22 /thisfreestuff/i
score GW_22 3.75
rawbody GW_23 /Limited Time Offer/i
score GW_23 2.00
rawbody GW_24 /free membership/i
score GW_24 2.00
rawbody GW_25 /sign up today free/i
score GW_25 2.00
rawbody GW_26 /cannot be considered Spam/i
score GW_26 3.50
rawbody GW_27 /UNION TOGOLAISE DU BANQUE/i
score GW_27 5.00
rawbody GW_28 /(submit your site.*search engines)|(Top 10 placement)/i
score GW_28 5.00
rawbody GW_30 /meet people in your local area/i
score GW_30 3.00
rawbody GW_33 /000\.000\.00 Million Dollars/i
score GW_33 3.00
rawbody GW_34 /Federal Republic of Nigeria/i
score GW_34 4.00
rawbody GW_35 /no obligation/i
score GW_35 2.50
rawbody GW_36 /legal in .* countries/i
score GW_36 1.50
rawbody GW_37 /regardless of your past/i
score GW_37 1.50
rawbody GW_38 /DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO/i
score GW_38 2.50
rawbody GW_40 /US\$\d+\.\d+M.*trust/i
score GW_40 2.50
rawbody GW_42 /If you don't want to recieve.*e.mails/i
score GW_42 2.50
rawbody GW_43 /internatonal drivers license/i
score GW_43 4.50
rawbody GW_44 /Bad Credit.*No Credit/i
score GW_44 4.50
rawbody GW_WHATADEAL /(great|amazing|fantasic|incredible|unbelievable
|exceptional|competitive)(offer|offers|deal|bargain|price|opportunity|rates)/i
score GW_WHATADEAL 4.00
rawbody GW_47 /xxxtreme|(extreme adult content)/i
score GW_47 5.00
rawbody GW_48 /(\.BIZ.*\.INFO)|(\.INFO.*\.BIZ)/i
score GW_48 5.00
rawbody GW_MORTGAGE /mortgage (broker|provider|lender)/i
score GW_MORTGAGE 1.50
rawbody GW_MOREPORNWORDS /(fetish|fetisch|fisting|assplay|scatplay|watersports)/i
score GW_MOREPORNWORDS 1.00
rawbody GW_CAREER /thecareernews/i
score GW_CAREER 4.50
rawbody GW_CLICKS /(preapproved|pre\-approved)/i
score GW_CLICKS 2.50
describe GW_CLICKS "They used the word preapproved"
rawbody GW_MBG /money back guarantee/i
score GW_MBG 4.50
describe GW_MBG "They promise a Money Back Guarantee"

I love spam assassin. It easily nails 95 percent of the crap.