Re: [Mailman-Developers] New SpamAssassin handler on sf.
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:22:22 -0400 Jeff Warnica <jeffw@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
Uh, because ISPs cant be deleting mail, ever?
Actually they can and do, constantly, now, today and for many yesterdays.
Tag everything and leave it up to something else to deal with.
This is quite possible with SpamAssassin installed at the MTA level.
Even if you want resonably scored spam not to reach Mailman by silently deleting it, it would be more trouble to scan everything except that destin for Mailman then to just scan everything.
It is relatively trivial to configure the MTA to selectively scan mail, be it only mail destined for Mailman, mail destined for local accounts, or whatever. Additionally there are side-benefits from scanning all mail, or at least scanning at a layer higher in the protocol stack: it requires less customisation, grants greater overview of cross-spool mail behaviours (esp statistical), and is less invasive to the mail system in general (not every tool then needs to be SpamAssassin or other-scanner aware).
<shrug>
I finally threw SpamAssassin in as a scanner (not teergrube) under Exim last night and am now wrapping up getting TMDA able to run properly on an account behind a POP3/IMAP account (which loses all the envelope information that TMDA depends on).
--
J C Lawrence
---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
claw@kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
On Mon, 2003-11-17 at 20:17, J C Lawrence wrote:
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:22:22 -0400 Jeff Warnica <jeffw@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
Uh, because ISPs cant be deleting mail, ever? Actually they can and do, constantly, now, today and for many yesterdays.
The default score for SA to decalre something as Spam is 5. Personaly I dont _ever_ check my spam folder which gets things in it based on that default, though I only ever do a puge by hand... 5 is a very low number to use for automaticly silently deleting mail however. At the ISP level, we delete mail silently for messages with a score above 15 (usualy), unless there seems to be a spam storm, in which case that is lowered to 10, but never below that for silent deletion. I dont monitor the tech support people too carefully, so I dont have a handle on how many people have chosen the 'delete' vs 'drop in different folder' filter options we have. But there is a non-zero value of paranoid people who would be very unhappy if we started deleting mail that moderatly scored.
Tag everything and leave it up to something else to deal with. This is quite possible with SpamAssassin installed at the MTA level.
"Something else", in the case of my patch, is my patch :) And the same logic applies; mail above a very high score is silently deleted, mail above some other score (5 by default) is held for moderation, <5 passes through. While I dont personaly (ever) check my spam folder, if I was moderating a list I would be checking things flaged as spam, especially if it is ie. a tech support list where people would be sending in reports of mail taged as spam for analysis by live people. Idealy whatever patch becomes the standard should be updated to allow per-list filtering options. Some moderators may be willing to live with silent-deletion on what other moderators consiter a very low score. But the generic patch is better then nothing; I dont think there would be a significant burden on the core Mailman developers to update it with any internal changes to Mailman.
or whatever. Additionally there are side-benefits from scanning all mail, or at least scanning at a layer higher in the protocol stack: it requires less customisation, grants greater overview of cross-spool mail behaviours (esp statistical), and is less invasive to the mail system in general (not every tool then needs to be SpamAssassin or other-scanner aware).
Yes, there is a definite advantage to having scanning done in one place; my patch/plugin deals with pre-taged mail. But I dont want to leave it up to the scanner to delete mail (well, it deletes very high scored mail..). Deleting moderatly scored mail is up to something else. Something else being..... Mailman! Or at least a list moderator using Mailman.
participants (2)
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J C Lawrence -
Jeff Warnica