Mailman 3 September 2004 - spambayes-dev

RE: [spambayes-dev] 1.0 Build Testing (please!)
by Tony Meyer Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

> Looking at OE6, the filter conditions are: > > From: > To: > cc: > To: or cc: > Subject: > body > priority > size > attachment > secure > > > The filter actions are similarly anemic: > > delete > highlight w/color > flag > mark as read > mark as watched or ignored > mark for download And also (with the OE6 I have, at least): Move Copy Forward Reply with message Stop processing more rules Do not download Delete from server Most people will just want Move (and maybe "stop processing"), I suspect. I don't see how we could use: secure, attachment, size, or priority (unless we stole priority for only our own uses), and body is ugly, so that does leave us with subject or addresses. > If you want that, the .invalid TLD is reserved in the > RFC's as, well, invalid. I'm not sure exactly what it > buys you, It would be nice (in this context at least) if OE recognised it and offered (with a "do not ask me again" box) to ignore the address. Sadly, you appear to just get a regular bounce from the mailer (well, my mailer, anyway). > but classification(a)spambayes.invalid is by definition > not resolvable. I think this would be a reasonable method of notating the To: header. Given that Subject: and To: aren't (so we find) identical already, and treating them identically doesn't make much sense, this seems a reasonable solution. Anyone mind if I change (for 1.1) notate_to to do exactly this? =Tony Meyer

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Potential bug?
by Valkyrie Publications Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

I had the same problem - the reason I was uninstalling it in the first place was that outlook quit working entirely after I installed it. Since the folders and toolbars didn't disappear, I thought "what the heck" and installed it again. I learned something in the process: you MUST restart the computer after installing spambayes and before opening outlook. If you don't, outlook will not work, no matter how many time you restart!!! It would be good to tell people this beforehand - and also let them know beforehand that it works best with equal amounts of spam and ham (before they train it with 1500 pieces of ham and 15 spams, as I did :-p -- the spam is gradually catching up). Now spambayes is working so well on that computer that I am putting it on my other one. Found this forum because I gave up on the mirror sites for spambayes-1.0.zip - none of them had the file - so I looked for it on Google. I am now downloading the .exe version, which takes a while. Thanks! Shirley Starke _____________________________________ Valkyrie Publications www.valkyriepub.com

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RE: [spambayes-dev] crash from sb_imapfilter.py
by Tony Meyer Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

> I received a couple of junk mails that caused my sb_imapfilter.py to > crash. The problem was that the messages contained a space > inside the brackets of a Message-ID (even though that's probably > illegal). This caused the "id" of the message to contain a space, > and this gave difficulty in the IMAP SEARCH command in the Save method. > > I see two possible solutions: > - strip() the message-id before it is assigned to the "id" field, or > - properly quote the search command in the Save method. > > I think it's probably a good idea to do the latter anyway, so > here is a patch. I can check this in if there is agreement. Have you checked this in? (I don't recall seeing it). I was away when you posted the message, and I don't think there's anyone else here that cares about imapfilter <0.5 wink>, so you probably got no response. Anyway +1 from me for checking it in. =Tony Meyer

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RE: [spambayes-dev] 1.0 Build Testing (please!)
by Tony Meyer Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

> That makes sense. I didn't realize that having the > classification appear as a separate address was the original intent. I'm not sure what the original intent was, but I think this works ok. > Another possibility would be to provide configuration options > for both a prefix and a suffix for the subject modification. > This is what POPFile does. You could define the prefix as "[" > and the suffix as "] " (that's "]<sp>" in case it wraps > badly) and your modified subject would then look like > "[classification] original subject". I'm loath to add even more options, particularly for little things like this. What I would like is to get around to finishing up the autoconfigure script, with a nice little wizard (like the Outlook one), so that OE users can use that rather than have to change lots of settings all over the place. The wizard could then default to setting the classification names to "[spam]<sp>" etc, and let the user change them if desired. That could all be done with the same 3 options we have now. (I do like the idea of moving the space, or comma, into the classification name, so that we actually just add the classification and no separator for the notate_subject option. For notate_to, the classification name and whatever the RFC correct address separator is would be nice, IMO). =Tony Meyer

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RE: [spambayes-dev] 1.0 Build Testing (please!)
by Tony Meyer Sept. 29, 2004

Sept. 29, 2004

> We may need to consider some changes to the format of the > information we add. The spec seems to indicate that the { and > } characters are legal in an e-mail address, but I've rarely > if ever seen them used. Maybe something like > "{spam}original@address" instead of the comma-separator? I would prefer to keep them separated, so that if you do reply, you just delete an invalid address, rather than have to modify one. (Or if you just send it anyway, at least the message gets through, as well as you getting a bounce). > It would obviously require people to modify their filter rules, This would be ok with 1.1, but not with 1.0.1 (i.e. the 1.0_release_branch branch. > but it doesn't appear that rules for the current format would > work correctly anyway. Well, it works. It doesn't deal well with mail that also has "spam" in the To: header, but then notating the subject doesn't work with mail that has "spam," in the subject, either. It's more a limitation than a bug, IMO. I think that this won't be so important once there's a release that fixes the bug that stops people using a different trio of classification terms. Then people can just select something that they know they'll never see, and the rest of us with decent mailers can just get on with things as normal. (If we were to change anything, I would replace the comma with a space. Then people could change the classification names to "[spam]", "{spam}", "{[(jjuunnkk)]}" or whatever, as they pleased, and it would look relatively neat). =Tony Meyer

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ANNOUNCE: SpamBayes release 1.0
by Tony Meyer Sept. 29, 2004

Sept. 29, 2004

The SpamBayes team is pleased to announce the 1.0 release of SpamBayes. As is now usual, this is both a release of the source code and of an installation program for all Microsoft Windows users. The Windows installation program will install either the Outlook add-in (for Microsoft Outlook users), or the SpamBayes server program (for all other POP3 mail client users, including Microsoft Outlook Express). All Windows users (including existing users of the Outlook add-in) are encouraged to use the installation program. If you wish to use the source-code version, you will also need to install Python - see README.txt in the source tree for more information. This release includes no changes from the successful (but now rather dated) 1.0rc2 release. However, we still highly recommend that existing users upgrade to the final version. Work has already begun towards the first 1.1 release, and we expect to release a (bug fix only) 1.0.1 release around the same time as 1.1a1. September 2004 is Spambayes' 2nd birthday, and (as many users know) we have gone through a very long release process, including 8 alpha releases, a beta, and two release candidates, all tested by a large number of users. As such, we are very confident that this 1.0 release is stable and suitable for regular use. We do welcome any and all contributions for improvements, of course! Get it via the 'Download' page at http://spambayes.org/download.html Enjoy the new release and your spam-free mailbox :-) Thanks to everyone involved in this release, particularly Richie Hindle and Kenny Pitt! Tony. (on behalf of the SpamBayes team) --- What is SpamBayes? --- The SpamBayes project is working on developing a Bayesian (of sorts) anti-spam filter (in Python), initially based on the work of Paul Graham. The major difference between this and other, similar, projects is the emphasis on testing newer approaches to scoring messages. The project includes a number of different applications, all using the same core code, ranging from a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, to a POP3 proxy, to various command-line tools.

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RE: [spambayes-dev] 1.0 Build Testing (please!)
by Tony Meyer Sept. 29, 2004

Sept. 29, 2004

> Well, the option is there and people are using it so I > thought we should at least make it work correctly. <wink> I > never cared for it, either, because it plays havoc with the > ability to reply to the message if it was in fact legitimate, > and I would have no reservations about simplifying the > configuration and eliminating this option. There is no good solution here, because OE is so limited. IIRC, you can filter on From:, To:, Subject: and the body, so we have to use one of those or the notation is useless. To: and From: are arguably less intrusive than Subject:, so I like that we offer two options. I doubt many people notate ham, so as long as there are no false positives (a reasonable assumption), and few unsure hams (likely for many people I think), then changing the To: doesn't hurt. I wouldn't have a problem with changing it so that it matched whatever the RFC says (maybe classification@spambayes or something like that which is an invalid address, but valid formatting?). =Tony Meyer

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RE: [spambayes-dev] 1.0 Build Testing (please!)
by Tony Meyer Sept. 28, 2004

Sept. 28, 2004

[As an aside, given the positive response from Richie, Kenny and me, I've gone ahead and done the release. I'm around tomorrow & Thursday if there needs to be a very quick 1.0.1. BTW, SpamBayes' 2nd birthday quietly passed three weeks ago! Here's hoping that the next stable release doesn't take another 2 years <wink>] [VMWare description snipped] Thanks for that. If I had more use for it, then it sounds like it could be quite useful (or something like VirtualPC, as Kenny mentioned, although I'm not sure how well Microsoft is treating it since they acquired it). For the moment, I'll have to make do (unless I can convince work that something like that might be useful ;) > I've tested the new build and it all works fine for me, except for > uploading an Outlook Express mailbox for bulk training - it > only trained on one message out of the mailbox. Has anyone else seen > this? I've done very little with the OE mailbox stuff. I tested it here now and got an interesting result. With the first folder I chose it only trained one message, but when I opened OE to take a look at how many there should have been (I was pretty sure it should be more) I realised that I had chosen an IMAP folder (which it wouldn't have been able to connect to) so maybe an error occurred when trying to train. If I just used my regular inbox, then it trained on all 11 messages that were there. I wonder if maybe when something goes wrong it only trains one and then silently fails? Was the dbx you used odd in any way? > My other problem is probably not our fault (and probably the result of > trying to make by brain work first thing in the morning) but > I set up an Outlook Express filter for To: "spam," and it didn't fire, > even though SpamBayes was correctly prepending "spam," to the To: header. > Am I missing something? The filer was set to work on the Inbox, > and to move messages to a "Possible Spam" folder, but they are staying in > the Inbox. This is something I had never noticed before (I very seldom actually use OE for anything but testing). It seems that although we add "unsure," (etc) to the To list, OE strips the comma off the end. If you look in the preview pane, it has "unsure; ta-meyer(a)ihug.co.nz" (etc), with no comma. If you change the rule to just look for "spam" it'll work (but I think it will also fire for spambayes(a)python.org, too). The comma definitely stays if you notate the subject, rather than the To: header. This is a documentation error, then, I guess. The next release will include the fix that lets you change the classification words and still use the notate options, so people can use "fibbledegook-spam" and avoid this. I'm not sure what else we can do. =Tony Meyer

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Anti-spam measures for the SpamBayes Wiki
by Richie Hindle Sept. 23, 2004

Sept. 23, 2004

Hello all, Because the SpamBayes Wiki has been repeatedly defaced by spammers, it's now necessary to create an account and log in before editing any content. Hopefully the spammers are using automated tools that aren't bright enough to create accounts. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this causes, but it's a quick and painless process. Many thanks to everyone who's been quietly keeping the Wiki spam-free, especially Skip and Seth. The latest version of MoinMoin has some anti-spam measures built-in, and also makes it easier to revert malicious edits. When I get the chance, I'll upgrade to that version and we'll see whether relaxing this new policy is possible (note to ThomasWaldmann if he's listening - thanks for the heads-up!) -- Richie Hindle richie(a)entrian.com

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RE: [SpamBayes] Thunderbird Extension?
by Kenny Pitt Sept. 22, 2004

Sept. 22, 2004

Gerrans, Matt wrote: > I'm wondering if anyone has started a little SpamBayes Thunderbird > Extension project yet. If so, let me know -- I'd like to help! I was about to refer you to this feature tracker: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=498106&aid=793478&group_id= 61702 However, I see your name on the last comment so I guess you already found it. <wink> I've not seen any additional discussion of this here on the developer list beyond what is already in the tracker. If you have interest in working on this, by all means please do! All contributions are welcome. Once you get a decent start on it, you could update the tracker to let people know about your efforts and tell them how to contact you if they want to contribute. We'll be glad to provide you with as much assistance as we can over on the spambayes-dev(a)python.org list if you have questions about the implementation of SpamBayes. I'm sure you can probably find some Thunderbird discussion lists somewhere, as well, where you can get help with Thunderbird Extension issues. -- Kenny Pitt

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