[Spambayes] Standards for Filtering

[Bill Yerazunis]

   From: Yakov Shafranovich <research at solidmatrix.com>

   Daniel Quinlan of SpamAssassin suggested that I should contact you. I
   co-chair the Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) of the IRTF [asrg.sp.am]
   together with John Levine. The ASRG does pre-standards work and research
   for the IETF. We have been thinking about different ways that standards
   can help the filtering community and what we currently have on the table
   is standard headers and dynamic filtering updates (like anti-virus
   programs do). We also have a subgroup for filtering work which is
   currently being formed (see http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/filtering.shtml).

   What I am wondering, is whether the filtering community can benefit from
   standards and if filtering folks are willing to discuss such standards,
   and cooperate with each other.

Yes, and yes.  :)

There is already a RFC submitted to specify inoculations (that is, sharing
of new spams that got through a user's filter and were subsequently
judged spam by a human.  The recipients MTA automatically recognizes
these inoculations and trains them as spam, so the overall filtering
quality of the mesh goes up linearly with the number of participants.

Well, that's the theory.  :) )

There's also some hope of standardizing on an "I am spam" header.

      -Bill Yerazunis