Mailman 3 September 2004 - SpamBayes

RE: [Spambayes] Important: new feature!
by Tony Meyer Nov. 2, 2004

Nov. 2, 2004

> I understand what you're saying, and I've re-trained > spambayes on equal numbers of HAM and SPAM, 300 each. Yet, it > still has a tendency to classify some HAM as spam. A > significant percentage is like maybe 25% of my regular > announcement mail gets spamflagged... Something is definitely not working here - a 25% false positive rate is extraordinarily high. You shouldn't even get as high as 2.5%. Perhaps you could send the spam clues report for one of these messages (before any training on it) to the list? We could take a look at it and see if there's an obvious reason that it's failing to be classified correctly. > Perhaps I have a better > solution: I have a lot of mailtraffic from the local > university network and a lot of correspondence, announcements > etc arrive from addresses with the "phys.uu.nl" suffix. > Surely it must be possible to exclude messages whose > returnaddress contain that string (or other certified > addresses) from further processing by spambayes? This is called "whitelisting", and SpamBayes does not do it. For a lengthy explanation, please see FAQ 6.6: <http://spambayes.org/faq.html#why-don-t-you-add-whitelisting-blacklisting-t o-spambayes> You ought to be able to implement some sort of whitelisting with Outlook's rule system, however. =Tony Meyer --- Please always include the list (spambayes(a)python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. This way, you get everyone's help, and avoid a lack of replies when I'm busy.

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RE: [Spambayes] Spambayes stopped working?
by Tony Meyer Oct. 4, 2004

Oct. 4, 2004

[Ian] > Yes I've been using http://localhst:8880. And I've been > using the same shortcuts, etc. for many months without > trouble, until a week ago. > > Following your suggestion, I tried http://127.0.0.1:8880 > to no avail. Again, I get the HTTP error 500 internal > server error message. I know Richie has suggested this before, but I don't recall seeing an answer: it really looks like it's your (also new) firewall that is blocking the page. If you're using the default 'protocol level' of 'nervous' or 'paranoid' (according to the BlackIce manual) then port 8880 will probably be blocked. Try adding 127.0.0.1 to the trusted list in BlackIce: [I haven't used BlackIce, but this is what the 3.6 manual has] 1. From the Main Menu, select Tools->Edit BlackICE Settings. 2. Select the Intrusion Detection tab. 3. Click Add. The Exclude from Reporting window appears. 4. Type the IP address (127.0.0.1) in the IP box. 5. Click OK. Or just specifying the port as unblocked: 1. From the Tools menu, select Advanced Firewall Settings. 2. Click Add. The Add Firewall Entry window appears. 3. Type a name for the port (e.g. "SpamBayes web interface") in the Name field. 4. Type the port number (8880) in the Port field. 5. Select the port type (TCP) in the Type field. 6. In the Mode area, select Accept. The BlackICE application opens the port. 7. In the Duration of Rule area, select the length of time to unblock the port. [I presume there will be an 'unlimited' option, or something] 8. Click Add. BlackICE adds the entry to the list in the Advanced Firewall Settings window. =Tony Meyer

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RE: [Spambayes] Using sb_upload.py
by Tony Meyer Oct. 3, 2004

Oct. 3, 2004

> The problem is, I don't want to have to kill the proxy in > order to train from my drag-n-drop application. If I were to develop > a means for sb_server users to train from the command line and > provide a patch, which approach would you prefer? I was wondering > if a patch providing -s and -g for sb_upload would be the right thing. I suppose so. Skip wrote (and uses?) sb_upload, so I guess he would have the definitive answer. FWIW, all you should need to do is change "/upload" on line 134 to "/train" and add in whether it's ham or spam ('?which=Train%20as%20Spam' or something like that, I think) and that should do it. Plus the extra command line arg stuff, of course. =Tony Meyer --- Please always include the list (spambayes(a)python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. This way, you get everyone's help, and avoid a lack of replies when I'm busy.

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Question about the ratio of Spam to Ham you should train on...
by Furrh, Andrew Oct. 3, 2004

Oct. 3, 2004

Sorry if this is asked all the time, but I couldn't figure it out from the FAQs. I know you're supposed to train Spambayes on a roughly equal amount of Spam and Ham. Does that mean you should try to train on one new Ham for every Spam you train, even if all your Ham is already being correctly identified by Spambayes? I get VASTLY more Spam than good mail, and in the last month of using Spambayes I've ended up training on over 200 spams, and only 33 hams. I started out trying to keep the numbers equal, but there's no way I can do that without training on Ham that Spambayes already easily classifies correctly. I'm using the Outlook plug-in if that matters. Overall Spambayes is doing a good job. It don't think it's ever classified any Ham as Spam, which is really the best thing about it to me. But I still end up with maybe 10 spams a day Spambayes marks as junk suspects. Thanks for any clarification you guys can give me!

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RE: [Spambayes] Spambayes Ports
by Tony Meyer Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

> I have 2 email servers but I don't know what value > to add to the Spambayes Ports for my second email > client and as a result it doesn't work. Just pick another number, like 111, or 1110, and put that in. So in the servers option you'd have something like "pop.example.com,pop2.example.com" and in ports something like "110,111". Then in your mailer (Outlook Express?) open up Tools->Accounts, click on the Mail tab, and then double-click the (eg) pop2.example.com account. In the Advanced tab of the properties dialog that opens there is the port to connect to, which will default to 110. Change this to (eg) 111, and click OK/Close all the way back. That should be all you need to do. It doesn't matter what port number you choose, as long as it's one that isn't already in use. 111, 112, 113, 1110, 1111, 1112, 1113 are all unlikely to be already in use. =Tony Meyer --- Please always include the list (spambayes(a)python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. This way, you get everyone's help, and avoid a lack of replies when I'm busy.

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Spambayes stopped working?
by Ian Wigle Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

Not sure what i've done, and I confess that my technical skills are fairly modest. Running Win 98SE I am runnig the source code version of Spambayes 1.07a After some problems with my Cable ISP, my Spambayes installation has stopped behaving. (coincidence or not, I can't be sure) When attempting to load HTTP://localhost:8880, I receive HTTP error 500 - not found. I had been using Spambayes for about a year and have made not intentional changes. When launching sb_server, the display on the console seems normal until it reports "user interface url is http://localhost:8880/" At this point a cursor simply flashes on the next line. I have the sense something else normally appears on the next line, but cannot recall. As I say, if I launch a browser pointed at localhost:8880, I get error 500. I attempted deleting the databases (message_info_database.db and statistics_database.db), which has helped cure non-scannig problems in the past, but that did not help. I downloaded Spambayes 1.0 and installed overtop of 1.07a, but I got the same result at the end of the day. I have looked through Troubleshooting.html, to no avail. I cannot report any error messages from the console, because none appear. Does any of this sound familiar? I have found reference somewhere that perhaps port 8880 is in use, and I should choose another one. I don't know how I would check for that, and if that is what happened, I am also concerned about how that might have come to be. Perhaps this is relevant: I am also running Norton antivirus (up to date) and also Black Ice firewall v3.6.cnr. Come to think, that was also a recent install, but I can't recall enough specifics to establish a cause/effect relationship between the two. Has anyone got an idea of what might be happening here? Many thanks, Ian Wigle iwigle(a)rogers.com Toronto

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Spambayes Ports
by Rose Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

Hello! I have 2 email servers but I don't know what value to add to the Spambayes Ports for my second email client and as a result it doesn't work. Please help! Rose

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Some details that could be better
by Otto, Michael Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

I have just installed SpamBayes orc-1 on top of Outlook 2003 (I used to use it with outlook 2000) and now even though I have checked "Mark spam as read" it does not do so. When I check "Mark suspected spam as read", it does that correctly, but that is not what I want. I want it to mark items as read when I delete them as spam from the suspect spam folder or from my inbox. Interestingly, it does mark spam as read if it detects it as spam (spam score over 90%) and automatically deletes it as spam. I only have the problem when I use the "delete as spam" button. This is not what I was getting with Outlook 2000 before upgrading to 2003. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks michael

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RE: [Spambayes] Disabled SpamBayes?
by Robert Mezzone Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

Help, About Microsoft Outlook, Disabled Items button. You may have to go into the Spambayes Manager program and Enable Spambayes. hth. _____ From: spambayes-bounces(a)python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces@python.org] On Behalf Of Mark Lewandowski Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 10:33 AM To: spambayes(a)python.org Subject: [Spambayes] Disabled SpamBayes? At home the other day, Outlook seemed to hang when starting. Often, since installing SpamBayes, it takes a moment or two to open Outlook. This time, though, it hung for about three minutes. I closed Outlook and re-opened it. When I re-opened, it gave me a warning that the Add-in SpamBayes had not opened properly and would be disabled. I could re-enable it through Outlook. Since I figured I knew how to do that, I didn't look carefully where that function was located. I didn't worry because I wasn't checking my mail, just needed a quick print of an e-mail. The next day, I tried to re-enable SpamBayes (to deal with the plethora of spam!), but cannot find the function. The tool bar is there, but nothing happens when I click on it. I cannot find it under a list of Add-in under Tools-Options-Other-Advanced Options,. I checked the Outlook Help to no avail. I even did a quick on-line search, but found nothing. Before I try to re-install, is there a simpler way (not that re-installing is hard...) Mark

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Disabled SpamBayes?
by Mark Lewandowski Sept. 30, 2004

Sept. 30, 2004

At home the other day, Outlook seemed to hang when starting. Often, since installing SpamBayes, it takes a moment or two to open Outlook. This time, though, it hung for about three minutes. I closed Outlook and re-opened it. When I re-opened, it gave me a warning that the Add-in SpamBayes had not opened properly and would be disabled. I could re-enable it through Outlook. Since I figured I knew how to do that, I didn't look carefully where that function was located. I didn't worry because I wasn't checking my mail, just needed a quick print of an e-mail. The next day, I tried to re-enable SpamBayes (to deal with the plethora of spam!), but cannot find the function. The tool bar is there, but nothing happens when I click on it. I cannot find it under a list of Add-in under Tools-Options-Other-Advanced Options,. I checked the Outlook Help to no avail. I even did a quick on-line search, but found nothing. Before I try to re-install, is there a simpler way (not that re-installing is hard...) Mark

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