pop3 email header classifier?

Richie Hindle richie at entrian.com
Fri Sep 19 12:23:17 EDT 2003


[Robin]
> Hi, I'm getting vast numbers of fake upgrade emails containing some kind
> of virus. My rather old client can be made to reject these based on some
> patterns in the subject line. They're nearly all based on the word
> 'New', 'Latest', 'Microsoft', 'Patch', 'Pack', ... etc etc.
> 
> Is there a python tool that can be made to delete these from my POP3
> mail box rather than let my client reject?

I have a webmail application that can be made to delete messages based on
regular expressions, at http://entrian.com/cgi-bin/pop3.py

I wrote it in response to a similar problem, whereby a spammer used my
address as his From address, and I received a couple of thousand bounce
messages a day.

You can set up regular expression filters on To, From and Subject, and set
it to either mark messages for deletion (so you get to review them before
deleting them) or delete them straight away (via the "I'm either brave or
stupid" checkbox, TM 8-)  You can save your filters for later use.

Take EXTREME CARE with this, particularly if you check the "I'm either
brave or stupid" box.  8-)  There is no way to recover a deleted message.
Don't sue me if it eats your hamster's emails.

You probably need something like (untested):

From: microsoft|ms\b
Subject: patch|latest|microsoft|update|upgrade|pack

There's no SSL version of this, so your POP3 account details will pass in
plain text over the internet (in theory my provider has a scheme whereby
you can access the site over SSL using their certificate, but it doesn't
work for some reason - if there's any interest I'll see whether I can make
it work).

(And no, I'm not going to harvest your POP3 account details.  They never
even hit the hard drive.)

-- 
Richie Hindle
richie at entrian.com






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