Mailman 3 December 2003 - SpamBayes

RE: [Spambayes] bug, help?
by Tony Meyer Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

> I'm using Windows XP Pro. When I opened outlook, it > informed me that Spambayes had caused a serious problem > and wanted to know if I wanted to disable it temporarily. > I did so, and now I can't get it working again. Under the "Help" menu, choose "About Microsoft Outlook". In the resulting dialog box, there is a "Disabled Items" button. That's what you're after. If you happen to know any powers that be at Microsoft <wink>, you could point out that this is a silly place for it. =Tony Meyer

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RE: [Spambayes] Server-side setup for corporate usage
by Tony Meyer Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

> I've set up a server-side SpamBayes filter system. This is probably > breakable, and could use some improvement. It's also not done yet. > When things are complete, I'll stick the outline up somewhere > on the web. If you are willing to, that would be fantastic, thanks. If you don't mind, it would be great to add this either to the spambayes wiki (which you could do yourself) at http://entrian.com/sbwiki, or to the relevant page on our website (http://spambayes.org/server_side.html). If you'd rather the latter, just open a patch on sourceforge with the relevant information and one of the developers will add it to the site. =Tony Meyer

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RE: [Spambayes] offer of assistance
by Tony Meyer Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

[Tim] > Other weaknesses on our Outlook team (nice euphemism <wink>) > are that I expect we all run an English/American OS and an > English/American Outlook; all run in IMO (Internet Mail Only > configuration, for those Outlooks that have more than one); > don't get anywhere near an Exchange server (e.g., all my > email comes from a variety of POP3 accounts); and use few > other addins (I happen to use Outlook QuoteFix, but that's all). Everything Tim said is right, except that all my mail goes through an Exchange server (I download all the POP mail to it as well). I think Mark also has a little practice Exchange setup too, and I thought that there was someone else (Kenny?) that used Exchange as well. FWIW. =Tony Meyer

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C++ Compiled version of sb_client, with benchmarks
by Jeff Epler Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

sbcc is a C++ client for sb_xmlrpcserver, replacing sb_client.py. It uses the C++ library from http://xmlrpc-c.sf.net/ and is less than 40 lines long. (It took a little hacking to get xmlrpc-c to compile in the first place, so it may not be a good choice. It was the first C++ binding I found for xmlrpc) I wrote this because in SpamAssassin they say they get a substantial speed increase by using spamd/spamc, and the fact that spamc is written in C is part of the speed advantage. Having written sb_cclient, my own benchmarks did show some speed difference, up to a 43% decrease in wall time when processing messages in parallel. However, startup time of the C++ program was still significant on small messages. Setup ----- 1GHz Duron Fedora Core 1 python 2.2.3 spambayes 1.0a7 sb_xmlrpcserver.py running on a pickle database, also handling incoming mail Testing method -------------- I created a Unix MBOX file with a selection of ham and spam messages, 289 messages in 1.5 megabytes. I tested as follows: time formail [-n X] -s CLIENT < sample > /dev/null The "-S sb_client.py" line represents using python -S to avoid importing site to trim a small amount from Python's startup time. The "S" and "L" lines represent the time to process a single small (524 byte) or large (43920 byte) message 101 times. The "sb_ccclient101" lines represent doing this in a single invocation of sb_cclient with a loop on the xmrpc request. Results: Client Wall Time Mails/sec sb_client.py 44.230 6.5 100% -n 4 44.716 6.4 101% -n 4 -S sb_client.py 41.387 7.0 94% sb_cclient 31.876 9.1 72% -n 4 25.164 11.5 57% sb_client.pyS 12.106 8.3 78% sb_client.pyL 26.688 3.8 171% sb_cclientS 7.276 13.9 47% sb_cclientL 24.018 4.2 47% sb_cclient101 4.118 24.5 27% sb_cclient101L 24.377 4.1 159% Conclusions ----------- On small and moderately sized messages, a compiled-language version of sb_client can give a clear speedup, (sb_client.py vs sb_cclient -n 4) but the startup time is still a relatively large when messages are small (sb_cclientS vs sb_cclient101) and if messages are large then startup time is irrelevant (sb_client.pyL vs sb_cclient101L)

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bug, help?
by John M. Copacino Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

Hi, I love your program, and I understand the limitations of a freeware program. So if this online help is not available, no problem. I'm using Windows XP Pro. When I opened outlook, it informed me that Spambayes had caused a serious problem and wanted to know if I wanted to disable it temporarily. I did so, and now I can't get it working again. I deleted and reinstalled Spambayes, but no luck. I tried to go to the addin manager in Outlook, but no luck. I'm thinking of uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook, but would like to avoid that if possible. Thanks for your help. John

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Need a bit of Advice from a most PLEASED user
by Solovitz Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

SpamBayes Project, I am an independent programmer and Systems Analyst who was receiving over 66% JUNK (not all "officially SPAM), and Mark Hammond's program, SpamBayes, has made IT life worth living again. Thank you. I use it as an Outlook plug-in for Office 2000; on my workstation using Windows XP professional. According to "sourceforge", I am using version 1.53 I have recently purchased Office 2003 System, and came to your site to make certain it would work with Outlook 2003. It says to make sure I have all of the latest Windows updates, and "better yet, upgrade to final version now available." Where do I get the latest version? It is most important to me that SpamBayes works in Outlook 2003 (not BETA), so much so, that I would not install the Outlook 2003 program when I install the Office 2003 System Suite. I would prefer using Outlook 2000 with SpamBayes, than Outlook 2003 without it !!! Thank you very much, And please respond to the following address ASAP: ms(a)protovista.com

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I would like to display the field that is used for the scoring. I am using Outlook 2002
by Bruce Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

I saw one of the FAQs had something about showing SPAM and mentioned it was a userdefined. But when I when to look for it, I saw USER DEFINED, but did not see the SPAM (ther were no userdefine fields) Also, is it possible to have spambayes score, but not move? Thanks Bruce

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Server-side setup for corporate usage
by Christopher Jastram Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

Hello, I've set up a server-side SpamBayes filter system. This is probably breakable, and could use some improvement. It's also not done yet. When things are complete, I'll stick the outline up somewhere on the web. Here's the platform & stats: Pentium 700 MHz, 128 MB Ram, 1 IDE HD SuSE Linux, Postfix, Cyrus Roughly 10 to 20 thousand emails / day, mostly spam :( Load average: 1.5 to 4.0 (never below 1.2) Postfix queue limited to three days main.cf: mailbox_transport = cyrus master.cf: smtp inet n - n - 12 smtpd -o content_filter=spambayes: smtp unix - - n - 12 smtp cyrus unix - n n - 12 pipe user=cyrus argv=/usr/lib/cyrus/bin/deliver -e -r ${sender} -m ${extension} ${user} spambayes unix - n n - 12 pipe user=nobody argv=/usr/bin/hammiefilter.sh $sender $recipient The third line of the "cyrus" entry belongs at the end of the second line. Note the process limits of 12. Default is 100, which brings the system to a crawl (load average: 80+ without spambayes). YMMV, esp. with SMP. To newbies: note the different "smtp inet" and "smtp unix" lines. That one threw me for a couple days. The instructions in the FAQ (?) on the SpamBayes website show the smtp inet line. Don't edit the smtp unix line, because it won't work. hammiefilter.sh is attached. It is an adaption of the hammiefilter found in the server-side setup instructions on the SpamBayes website. To populate the user-specific databases, I use a Perl script (also attached). The way it works: 1) Postfix receives an email This next part I'm not quite sure about, but anyway... 2) Postfix uses the 'cyrus' transport, 3) which calls "deliver" 4) which uses the "smtp inet" transport 5) which calls smtpd -o content_filter (which filters mail text through an external filter) (I'm pretty sure about the rest) 6) which uses /usr/bin/hammiefilter.sh to call sb_filter.sh 7) which uses /var/spambayes/hammie-$username.db to add an X-SpamBayes-Classification header to the email. 8) Something magic happens, and the mail arrives in my inbox. For training: 1a) User receives spam 1b) User receives ham 2a) User forwards said spam to spam(a)domain.com (domain is the client's mail domain -- i.e., if I set this thing up for python.org, said user would forward to spam(a)python.org) 2b) User forwards said ham to ham(a)domain.com 3) Perl script runs every 10 minutes, checks the ham and spam accounts, and trains each messages appropriately against /var/spambayes/hammie-$username.db. Make sense? Me neither. I'm sure it will, though. I've had the standard excellent results (with the notable exception of aforementioned identity theft scams, except they're well-done Ebay scams, rather than paypal.) As I side note: I set up Mozilla Thunderbird to label messages with different colors based on the value of the X-SpamBayes-Classification header. Thus, it's trivial to train on unsures (they show up orange), false positives, etcetera. Question: Will extra data resulting from forwarding (such as the "---Original Message---" line placed by Thunderbird) poison the database? If I train with equal spam and ham, it *shouldn't* -- am I correct? Chris

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Exceptionally well-done identity-theft spam
by Tim Peters Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

If you get something like the attached, don't go to the website and "update" your PayPal account information. I just got this, and my classifier scored it at 1% (0.01). It looks a lot like real email from PayPal -- both to me, and to my classifier.

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Congratulations
by MARLIN Dec. 30, 2003

Dec. 30, 2003

Hi I was given your book as a gift for Christmas – I care for my Husband. I can relate to a great deal of the contents although it is a little easier for me as my Husband is very mentally alert. Congratulations on being brave enough to express our problems as Carers. Regards Linda --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.545 / Virus Database: 339 - Release Date: 27/11/2003

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