From: Aron Roberts (aron@socrates.berkeley.edu)
Date: Mon Jul 30 2001 - 15:01:02 PDT
Bob Tidd asks:
>If anyone develops a good spam filter rule-set for Eudora, please
>pass it on to us, as Eudora is used by many.
Since it's often easier to start with an existing set of filters
(or filter ideas) and customize it, rather than starting from scratch,
you might look at StarNet's filters at:
http://www.azstarnet.com/service/mail/spam/eudlight/index.html
IMPORTANT: The suggested installation procedures appear to overwrite
one's own existing filters, if any. The author(s) do not offer
instructions for merging these with your existing filters. I have
not tested these personally and do not know if the filter formats
provided will work with any particular versions of Eudora, such as
the latest versions. Finally, having hundreds or thousands of
campus-affiliated Eudora users each spending many hours keeping
individual spam filters up to date might not, in some cases, represent
the highest or best use of their work or personal time. I am most
emphatically *not* recommending that any campus Eudora users download
and use these filters or any other similar filter sets.
Nonetheless, it might be instructive and perhaps even valuable to
look at what these filters do, which can help you understand both their
capabilities and limitations. (From a quick look, it appears that
for maximum utility, you might need to periodically revise these
filters over time, which might involve considerable work.)
You can view the filter rules at:
http://www.azstarnet.com/service/mail/spam/eudlight/filters.pce
or
http://www.azstarnet.com/service/mail/spam/eudlight/EudoraFilters
In summary, these filters -- which are used to automatically transfer
incoming messages matching certain characteristics to a mailbox named
"Spam", which you will first need to create -- look for:
- A sampling of Subject headers commonly associated with spam
(you can always add to these).
- A set of phrases and strings (including automatically-added message
footers containing certain text or URLs) which, when encountered in
the Body of e-mail messages, often are associated with spam.
- A set of domains, found in the From: or Received: headers,
which are often places from which spam is sent or through
which spam-containing e-mail messages are transmitted (relayed).
Some of these are prominent domains which offer free e-mail
accounts, such as hotmail.com and yahoo.com. Obviously,
some of your legitimate correspondents may have such accounts.
You can also find other links to spam filtering techniques,some
of these focusing on setting up filters in Eudora and other e-mail
clients, at about.com's "Spam Filtering" site (and probably many
other places on the 'Net, as well):
http://email.about.com/cs/spamfiltering/index.htm
Finally, there are other approaches for dealing with spam, such
as server-side filtering tools and services, about which other
Micronet'ters might wish to comment.
Aron Roberts
Workstation Software Support Group
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