On Tue, Mar 04, 2003 at 12:09:25PM -0700, Vernon Schryver wrote:
I don't know of any text filtering that works reliably and reasonable.
Do you know about the DCC, SpamAssassin, Brightmail, or Postini? I
may be somewhat biased, but I think all of those are reasonably reliable
and reasonable. (I've some reservations about SpamAssassin, but only
because I wonder about Perl for filtering more than 50,000 messages/day.)
Brightmail is not filtering as I normally consider it. They have live
humans identify spam attacks, and then publish tools to detect those
particular attacks. Thus no false positives.
To my mind the problem with filtering is it goes after a side issue.
I believe any good solution goes at the root causes of spam -- abuse
of easy bulk mail.
Talking about Viagra isn't he cause of spam, but that is what general spam
filters test for.
Commerce is the most common motive for spam, but not the only one, but
that is what laws go after.
Being at an ISP where people spam does not mean you are a spammer,
but that is what blacklists test for.
Being an open relay isn't the cause of spam, but that is what relay
blacklists test for.
Being a stranger isn't the cause of spam, but that is what whitelists
test for. However, it is one of the key components, so this is more
on target, as long as there is a way for the strangers sending person
to person mail to get their mail through.
Free bulk e-mail is one of the causes of spam, so attempts to put
a cost on e-mail are going after the root problem, but they are
very difficult to implement and have other consequences.
Attack the root cause, not the symptoms.
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