Mailman 3 April 2003 - SpamBayes

RE: [Spambayes] Latest spammer trick stymied - QUESTION
by Moore, Paul April 1, 2003

April 1, 2003

From: Neale Pickett [mailto:neale@woozle.org] > So many, in fact, that I think there ought to be a FAQ on the web > page somehwere, to the tune of: +1 Can I also suggest: Q: I just got a spam, but the system said it was "unsure". Why couldn't it tell that it was spam - it's obvious? A: It may be obvious to you, but the classifier only works on the information it has been given. Maybe this is "new" (you've never seen this particular flavour of spam before), or maybe there aren't enough clues in the message which the system is aware of as strong spam clues. Q: OK, I trained on that message. But I just got *another* one, and the stupid system still thinks it's unsure. Why did it ignore me??? A: It didn't, but you may need to train on a few more of this type of message to get it classified as "spam". The classification algorithm weights its results based on the number of times it has seen a particular clue, so that clues unique to this type of message may need a few more instances to become "convincing". Paul.

1 0

Re: [Spambayes] Latest spammer trick stymied
by T. Alexander Popiel April 1, 2003

April 1, 2003

In message: <3E893DA7.31420.20D35DB@localhost> "Richard Jowsey" <richard(a)jowsey.com> writes: >> We have to be careful with this. It would be relatively simple to >> stymie, by simply adding two urls, the spam one, and an unrelated >> innocent site. Or three urls, or whatever... > >Spammers are simple folk. They won't be putting no innocent url's in >these spams... Spammers might be simple folk, but serious crackers (not the script kiddies) certainly are not. If there comes to be a widely deployed tool with this sort of fetch-what-I-tell-you-to behaviour, then it will get exploited by people wanting to do a denial of service attack or similar. Why bother sending out your own IRC-controlled worm, when there's already remote-controllable spamfilters ready and waiting to pound a site into the ground? After all, writing (and releasing) a worm is already recognized as a crime, but the legality of just sending out a not-as-innocent-as-it-looks email blast is still in contention... - Alex

3 2

Re: [Spambayes] Latest spammer trick stymied - QUESTION
by T. Alexander Popiel April 1, 2003

April 1, 2003

In message: <3E88CD74.4050405(a)parducci.net> bill parducci <bill(a)parducci.net> writes: >currently, does spambayes treat a URL as a single token or is it parsed >somehow? URLs are parsed with the following code: | urlsep_re = re.compile(r"[;?:@&=+,$.]") | | class URLStripper(Stripper): | def __init__(self): | # The empty regexp matches anything at once. | Stripper.__init__(self, url_re.search, re.compile("").search) | | def tokenize(self, m): | proto, guts = m.groups() | tokens = ["proto:" + proto] | pushclue = tokens.append | | # Lose the trailing punctuation for casual embedding, like: | # The code is at http://mystuff.org/here? Didn't resolve. | # or | # I found it at http://mystuff.org/there/. Thanks! | assert guts | while guts and guts[-1] in '.:?!/': | guts = guts[:-1] | for piece in guts.split('/'): | for chunk in urlsep_re.split(piece): | pushclue("url:" + chunk) | return tokens >take the example: http://check.myspam.com/ad/junk?random=fsldkjflksj That example would yield the tokens: proto:http url:check url:myspam url:com url:ad url:junk url:random url:fsldkjflksj >it would seem that the most accurate way to evaluate this would be to >parse using '/' (starting after 'http://'). that would allow spambayes >to evaluate the domain (check.mypam.com) while giving it the ability to >differentiate between directories (which may map to users on ISP >systems: http://user.aol.com/niceguy vs. http://user.aol.com/spammer). This already happens to some extent, though the I think there could be better handling of the composite hostname and directory path... to wit, I suspect that adding the following tokens would help: url:myspam.com url:check.myspam.com url:check.myspam.com/ad url:check.myspam.com/ad/junk I haven't tested this yet, but I further suspect that I will have Tim Peters' problem: my results are already good enough that I won't be able to say anything conclusive about it. - Alex

5 6

[Spambayes] [ spambayes-Bugs-712480 ] Outlook 2002 (XP) installation fails
by SourceForge.net April 1, 2003

April 1, 2003

Bugs item #712480, was opened at 2003-03-31 17:47 You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=498103&aid=712480&group_i… Category: Outlook Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 5 Submitted By: Paul Marrero (pmarrero) Assigned to: Mark Hammond (mhammond) Summary: Outlook 2002 (XP) installation fails Initial Comment: I use office XP with the Outlook client. It appears that the registration was successfull but I cannnot find any menu buttons. XP clipboard does appear to have the Icons. The command line train works. Not sure where to go from here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >Comment By: Tony Meyer (anadelonbrin) Date: 2003-04-01 14:48 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=552329 Actually, I get this too. I've just switched to Outlook XP, so I'm not sure if this is the reason, or just that I'm doing a fresh install. The log includes the following traces: SpamAddin - Connecting to Outlook Failed to load bayes database Traceback (most recent call last): File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 310, in LoadBayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 118, in open_bayes AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'DBDictClassifier' Loaded message database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\tameyer\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_message_database.db' Either bayes database or message database is missing - creating new pythoncom error: Failed to call the universal dispatcher Traceback (most recent call last): File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\universal.py", line 170, in dispatch File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\server\policy.py", line 322, in _InvokeEx_ File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\server\policy.py", line 601, in _invokeex_ File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\server\policy.py", line 541, in _invokeex_ File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\addin.py", line 655, in OnConnection File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 475, in GetManager File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 165, in __init__ File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 329, in LoadBayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 378, in InitNewBayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 94, in new_bayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 118, in open_bayes exceptions.AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'DBDictClassifier' SpamAddin - Connecting to Outlook Failed to load bayes database Traceback (most recent call last): File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 310, in LoadBayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 118, in open_bayes AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'DBDictClassifier' Loaded message database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\tameyer\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_message_database.db' Either bayes database or message database is missing - creating new pythoncom error: Failed to call the universal dispatcher Traceback (most recent call last): File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\universal.py", line 170, in dispatch File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\server\policy.py", line 322, in _InvokeEx_ File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\server\policy.py", line 601, in _invokeex_ File "E:\src\pythonex\com\win32com\server\policy.py", line 541, in _invokeex_ File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\addin.py", line 655, in OnConnection File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 475, in GetManager File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 165, in __init__ File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 329, in LoadBayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 378, in InitNewBayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 94, in new_bayes File "E:\src\spambayes\Outlook2000\manager.py", line 118, in open_bayes exceptions.AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'DBDictClassifier' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Tony Meyer (anadelonbrin) Date: 2003-03-31 18:05 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=552329 Which version of the Outlook plugin are you using? (a) the latest CVS, (b) the 001 stand-alone installer, or (c) the 002 stand-alone installer? I know that the 001 installer has been known to have this problem (although it appeared to be fixed in 002). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=498103&aid=712480&group_i…

1 0

RE: [Spambayes] Latest spammer trick stymied - QUESTION
by Meyer, Tony April 1, 2003

April 1, 2003

[Neale] > I think there ought to be a FAQ on the web page somehwere, to the tune of: > > Q: Hey! Why don't you implement cool tokenizer trick X? I think it > would really foil those spammers! > > A: Have you run your tokenizer trick against a set of messages to see if > it actually works? Many times what seems like a good idea turns out > not to help much, and sometimes even hurts. If you have a good idea, > you've run it against a batch of messages and can prove that it > helps, paste the code for your technique and the proof to the mailing > list. Otherwise, you will likely get a message from Tim Peters about > why you need to test your idea :) +1 I would also suggest that if they are not coders, and don't wish to be, then they could try posting a feature request via the sf system. =Tony Meyer

2 1