best spam filter FOSS can offer

hook · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:05 pm Post subject: best spam filter FOSS can offer

The question is simple, the answer probably not so:

What is/are the best Free Open Source spam filters out there ...and please share the reasons for your choice,
_________________
tea+free software+law=hook

(deep inside i'm still a tux's little helper)

sbbeebe · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 9:19 pm Post subject:

First, I retreive email from remote pop3 accounts to a local mua. I don't use a mail server on my linux box.

I used POPFile for a while. It worked pretty well as filters go, and the classification of stuff was pretty good. I had 3 buckets set up - work, personal, and junk. Classification was about 98% accurate. What I didn't like about it was having to wade through tons o' email to verify the classification. I think this will be true with virtually any filter type program.

I now use ActiveSpamKiller. This is a challenge / response system. Now, I know, somebody out there is gonna start screaming about making the spam problem worse by spewing out confirmation messages... BUT, consider 2 things:

1) if everyone used a challenge response system, there would very quickly be no spam, because it would be entirely ineffective. It would never be delivered, AND

2) if you do a reasonable job on establishing an ignore list (building it over time), you actually don't generate that many confirmations. I do maybe 10 a day. I used to get between 50 and 60 spam messages a day.

Today I get no SPAM. None. Nada. Zero.

I like that. You do have to review your queue, but, with the majority of spam being "ignored" (ie I never even see it, it is deleted off the server) there aren't that many messages to wade through.

my $.02
_________________
"smell the color 9"
steve

dice · Guru Joined: 21 Apr 2002 Posts: 577

I don't like the challenge/response systems, once they become popular enough the SPAMers will just write software to parse the challenge and do whatever is asked for as the response.

I use SpamAssassin (it's in portage) and I like it. It's very customizable.

Zombie[BRAAAINS] · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 62

Bogofilter works very well for me.
_________________
RAWR! Brains, BRAINS! BRAAAINS! MUST EAT BRAINS!

int2str · Guru Joined: 29 Sep 2003 Posts: 362

DNSBLs (bind is open source

) and Spamassassin!

I wrote more about it here:
http://mail-abuse.info/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=34

Cheers,
André

hook · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 6:52 am Post subject:

Can you guys please name (if possible in detail) the reason why you prefere your blend of spamfilters?

Thanks, André, your spamassasin and DNS blacklisting link is great help

_________________
tea+free software+law=hook

(deep inside i'm still a tux's little helper)

Zombie[BRAAAINS] · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 62

I prefer bogofilter mainly because of the fact that it catches at least 99% of my spam (I haven't actually done a statistical analysis or anything, but I get over 100 spams a day and actually see like 3-4 per week) and in the year or so I've been using it I've had 3 false positives, and those were very early in the training process.

Also, after the initial training (and writing my own scripts to integrate it with qmail and courier-imap... that was a pain) I have to put basically no thought into it. If a spam gets through, I put it in my undetected folder and a cron job takes care of the rest. If I do nothing, it assumes it made the right decision and will treat messages that look like it the same way in the future.

Bayseian filters are GREAT. Since their databases are personal to you, you don't have to worry that some pre-written filter will catch your mail if say for instance you work in the penis enlargement industry. Not only that, but it works as an automatic blackhole, and recognizes particular hosts or MUAs as spammers, so even if they send a spam of a type you've never seen before... well, you usually don't see it

There are other spam filters that use a comibnation of things to blackhole, but bogofilter seems plenty for me. About the only thing I would like is if I could get it to reject spam instead of accepting it, maybe I'll get that going someday.
_________________
RAWR! Brains, BRAINS! BRAAAINS! MUST EAT BRAINS!

georwell · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:42 am Post subject:

For a mail server you can't go wrong with SpamAssassin and MailScanner. Then you just use Sieve to filter your spam based on spam scores. MailScanner can even be setup to use your personal spamassassin settings for your email account, ie Bayesean or what not. You can automatically delete all spam mails with a certain score for ALL users. Not to mention support for craploads of virus scanners that scanns incoming AND outgoing mail, stopping all those crappy windows viruses at the server has saved our clients lots and lots of grief. Sophos anti-virus seems to be the most integrated. And you don't even have to change your sendmail.mc/cf files.

MailScanner is one of the best mail products I have EVER seen and TOTALLY kicks some serious serious ass. Combine MailScanner with Cyrus-IMAP, Sendmail, Sieve, Squirrelmail, Sophos anti-virus, OpenLdap, Kerberos V, Jabber/w ldap auth, and SASL for central auth and you have an enterprise ready mail setup. Trust me I have seen this setup handle well over 50,000 email accounts and know some who handle over a 100,000 accounts. I also run the same thing at home for myself (minus the kerberos backend) Once Kolab gets up to par this is THE MS Exchange replacement. (IMHO)