From kcirillo at c-map.com Wed Feb 1 05:31:01 2006 From: kcirillo at c-map.com (Kenneth J. Cirillo) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:31:01 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) Message-ID: <09C8A3D959F9324DB92BC3F7A41D289917B921C6@exchange1.usa.c-map.com> Just loaded the latest version of Spambayes, but now I am unable to sync my emails before exiting Outlook. Not sure what has been changed, any help is appreciated. Thanks. From nick at densoft.com.ua Wed Feb 1 18:01:50 2006 From: nick at densoft.com.ua (Nick Alexeyev) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 19:01:50 +0200 Subject: [Spambayes] Icons Message-ID: <004701c62751$328b44e0$46001e0a@nickxp> Hi! Here is my icons to use with Outlook addon. Maybe it can be useful? -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: it'saspam.ico Type: image/x-icon Size: 894 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060201/2a451b27/attachment.ico -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: it'snotaspam.ico Type: image/x-icon Size: 894 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060201/2a451b27/attachment-0001.ico From kris_kiran at vsnl.net Thu Feb 2 08:41:47 2006 From: kris_kiran at vsnl.net (kris_kiran at vsnl.net) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:41:47 +0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Help Needed Message-ID: <2933c14292e4ac.292e4ac2933c14@vsnl.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060202/42e5266f/attachment.html From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Thu Feb 2 09:16:19 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 21:16:19 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Help Needed In-Reply-To: <2933c14292e4ac.292e4ac2933c14@vsnl.net> References: <2933c14292e4ac.292e4ac2933c14@vsnl.net> Message-ID: > I need help in configuring spambayes for outlook express, kindly > advise. Please see FAQ 3.21: =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From Otoolecherub at aol.com Thu Feb 2 15:56:25 2006 From: Otoolecherub at aol.com (Otoolecherub at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 09:56:25 EST Subject: [Spambayes] Fwd: Update and Verify Your PayPalaccount***************** Message-ID: <19b.44bfe1cb.31137799@aol.com> i need to make a payment using paypal but my card has still not been verified -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060202/0e2dd60f/attachment.htm From PKirschner at metasolv.com Thu Feb 2 17:23:39 2006 From: PKirschner at metasolv.com (Kirschner, Philip) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 10:23:39 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Toolbar Not Appearing Message-ID: Hello, I just installed Spambayes 1.1 and the Spambayes toolbar is not appearing. I had a previous version of Spambayes and had all sorts of problems so I uninstalled it and deleted the toolbar. Now, after installing the new version, the toolbar does not appear. What do I need to do to get the toolbar to appear once again? Thanks, Phil Philip M. Kirschner Account Manager MetaSolv Software 5556 Tennyson Parkway Plano, TX 75024 Office Phone: 972 403-8518 Cell Phone: 972 523-1030 E-mail: pkirschner at metasolv.com ++++++CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE+++++ The information in this email may be confidential and/or privileged. This email is intended to be reviewed by only the individual or organization named above. If you are not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination or copying of this email and its attachments, if any, or the information contained herein is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender by return email and delete this email from your system. www.metasolv.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060202/ec0cb068/attachment.htm From jennyw at dangerousideas.com Thu Feb 2 23:40:46 2006 From: jennyw at dangerousideas.com (jennyw) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 14:40:46 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Warning: no dbm modules available for MessageInfoDB Message-ID: <43E28A6E.2010508@dangerousideas.com> Should I worry about the error message above? I get it when I train messages. FYI, I installed SpamBayes in my user directory and set my PYTHONPATH to include the lib directory. I'm running under FreeBSD on a shared server. Thanks! Jen From bposert at yahoo.com Fri Feb 3 05:34:52 2006 From: bposert at yahoo.com (bob posert) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 20:34:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited Message-ID: <20060203043452.52188.qmail@web50514.mail.yahoo.com> Back in http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/2006-January/018702.html , Tim Peters and I had a dialog about training on unusual ham - monthly messages from http://www.boldtype.com. I just got another one and it scored 50% on the spam scale. The clues follow - I'd really appreciate any help. Thanks, Bob Combined Score: 50% (0.5) Internal ham score (*H*): 1 Internal spam score (*S*): 1 # ham trained on: 1229 # spam trained on: 20331 150 Significant Tokens token spamprob #ham #spam 'policy:' 0.00858658 32 1 'url:dots' 0.0115681 19 0 'url:books' 0.0121951 18 0 'unsubscribe:' 0.0129932 56 9 'url:gif)' 0.0136778 16 0 'url:covers' 0.0180723 12 0 'respects' 0.0186053 32 7 'url:store' 0.019152 28 6 'url:ad' 0.0192872 19 3 'criticism,' 0.0196507 11 0 'pages:' 0.0196507 11 0 'url:func' 0.0196507 11 0 'url:grey_dot' 0.0196507 11 0 'c/o' 0.0206833 15 2 'list.' 0.0207364 51 15 'list,' 0.0211427 89 29 '10012' 0.0215311 10 0 '1212' 0.0215311 10 0 '594' 0.0215311 10 0 'anjuli' 0.0215311 10 0 'ayer' 0.0215311 10 0 'boldtype' 0.0215311 10 0 'boldtype,' 0.0215311 10 0 'boldtype.com' 0.0215311 10 0 'complies' 0.0215311 10 0 'email addr:boldtype.com' 0.0215311 10 0 'email addr:boldtype.com.' 0.0215311 10 0 'email name:subscriptions' 0.0215311 10 0 'email-based' 0.0215311 10 0 'flavorpill' 0.0215311 10 0 'from:addr:boldtype.com' 0.0215311 10 0 'from:name:boldtype' 0.0215311 10 0 'glei' 0.0215311 10 0 'graphical' 0.0215311 10 0 'handpicked' 0.0215311 10 0 'laster' 0.0215311 10 0 'magazines:' 0.0215311 10 0 'mangan' 0.0215311 10 0 'monthly,' 0.0215311 10 0 'npr' 0.0215311 10 0 'publishers,' 0.0215311 10 0 'sascha' 0.0215311 10 0 'subject: | ' 0.0215311 10 0 'submissions' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:108s877' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:392388' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:boldtype' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:boldtype_com' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:boldtype_logo' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:border-pixel' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:current' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:designby' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:earplug' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:editor' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:email_address' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:email_subject' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:flavorpill' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:issues' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:jcreport' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:job_id' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:listing_id' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:mail_list_id' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:other-pubs_culture' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:other-pubs_earplug' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:other-pubs_fashion' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:other-pubs_flavorpill' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:other-pubs_jcreport' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:other-pubs_music' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:partnerships' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:spamlaws' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:sublit' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:subscriber_id' 0.0215311 10 0 'url:}' 0.0215311 10 0 'weissman' 0.0215311 10 0 'nonfiction' 0.0215731 12 1 'url:monthly' 0.0215731 12 1 "insider's" 0.0220053 14 2 'url:mail' 0.0227833 41 13 'reviews,' 0.0233401 11 1 'url:archive' 0.0233401 11 1 'url:sub' 0.0233401 11 1 'publisher:' 0.0238095 9 0 'url:grey_separation2' 0.0238095 9 0 'url:zoom_in' 0.0238095 9 0 '1950' 0.97619 0 9 'abigail' 0.97619 0 9 'clifford' 0.97619 0 9 'handkerchief' 0.97619 0 9 'image.' 0.97619 0 9 'prospect,' 0.97619 0 9 'rogue' 0.97619 0 9 'belle' 0.978469 0 10 'boyle' 0.978469 0 10 'celluloid' 0.978469 0 10 'errol' 0.978469 0 10 'gritty' 0.978469 0 10 'mann' 0.978469 0 10 'overlooked' 0.978469 0 10 'beethoven' 0.980349 0 11 'cecil' 0.980349 0 11 'crafty' 0.980349 0 11 'examine' 0.980349 0 11 'whims' 0.980349 0 11 '1962' 0.981928 0 12 '1983' 0.981928 0 12 'alfred' 0.981928 0 12 'dismissed' 0.981928 0 12 'spanned' 0.981928 0 12 'gentlemen,' 0.983271 0 13 'jorge' 0.983271 0 13 'parish' 0.983271 0 13 'proximity' 0.983271 0 13 'readily' 0.983271 0 13 'chaplin' 0.984429 0 14 'comparison.' 0.984429 0 14 'dreamlike' 0.984429 0 14 'explodes' 0.984429 0 14 'stars,' 0.984429 0 14 'otto' 0.985437 0 15 '1985' 0.987106 0 17 'atom' 0.987106 0 17 'bourgeoisie' 0.987106 0 17 'reject' 0.987106 0 17 'sued' 0.987106 0 17 'temporarily' 0.987106 0 17 'imagined' 0.987805 0 18 'praise' 0.987805 0 18 'emperor' 0.988432 0 19 'syndrome.' 0.988432 0 19 'balfour' 0.988998 0 20 'escaped' 0.988998 0 20 'finalists' 0.988998 0 20 'anxiety,' 0.989978 0 22 'raging' 0.989978 0 22 'tucked' 0.989978 0 22 'apt' 0.990798 0 24 'francis' 0.990798 0 24 'face.' 0.991159 0 25 'marie' 0.992091 0 28 'respectful' 0.99236 0 29 'dose' 0.992611 0 30 'nineteen' 0.993469 0 34 'disliked' 0.994572 0 41 'awesome' 0.99505 0 45 'ego' 0.996397 0 62 'ladies' 0.99676 0 69 'projection' 0.997168 0 79 'broke' 0.997512 0 90 'accordance' 0.998921 0 208 'discreet' 0.999019 0 229 From jennyw at dangerousideas.com Fri Feb 3 07:28:10 2006 From: jennyw at dangerousideas.com (jennyw) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:28:10 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] What version of SpamBayes are you using? Message-ID: <43E2F7FA.6060106@dangerousideas.com> I noticed that the last released version, 1.1a, came out in April of 2005. Are people having luck with CVS versions? If so, is there a particularly good revision to use, or is it safe to use the latest? FYI, I'm using this on FreeBSD (using Procmail to send messages to SpamBayes for classification). Thanks! Jen From WileyMichele at aol.com Fri Feb 3 17:47:31 2006 From: WileyMichele at aol.com (WileyMichele at aol.com) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 11:47:31 EST Subject: [Spambayes] Retrieve a deleted/noted SPAM email Message-ID: <257.5c93d0f.3114e323@aol.com> how can i retrieve an accidentally deleted email in the spam folder. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060203/486eee8b/attachment.htm From hlbleacher at esn.net Fri Feb 3 19:37:21 2006 From: hlbleacher at esn.net (Heather Bleacher) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 13:37:21 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] emails in outbox Message-ID: <027c01c628f0$def973f0$7300000a@skills.local> Everytime I forward a large email it keeps popping up an error message everytime it sends/receives. I have not had this problem until I got SpamBayes. I love the program other than that. Is this a problem with my computer or with SpamBayes. Thank you! Heather Bleacher, Purchasing Agent Skill Creations, Inc PO Box 1636 Goldsboro, NC 27533 hlbleacher at esn.net 919-734-7398 extension 216 919-735-5064 fax Privacy/Confidentiality Note: This message is intended for use only by the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information which is privilege, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication or any attachments is strictly prohibited. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060203/ec08025f/attachment.htm From dima_bondarenko at mail.ru Sat Feb 4 04:38:48 2006 From: dima_bondarenko at mail.ru (Dmitry Bondarenko) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 06:38:48 +0300 Subject: [Spambayes] Let's change site links Message-ID: Hello! Let's change site links for optimization of our business. We sell MS Outlook add-ins. OUR LINK: Stanford Trident Thank you for cooperation. Bondarenko Dmitry (Stanford Trident, inc.) From frank at spade.de Sun Feb 5 22:16:43 2006 From: frank at spade.de (Frank Spade) Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 22:16:43 +0100 Subject: [Spambayes] Translation into German anywhere? Message-ID: <000f01c62a99$77359140$0200a8c0@frank> Hi folks, I have been using SpamBayes for less than a month now and I am convinced this is the best thing that happend to me since sliced bread. What makes me wonder is that there are no translations available. A short look at the source made me wonder how hard it would be to create a version that is more suiteable to translations? Unfortunately I don't know python and I don't feel like learning it. But I know english and german and could help translate. Any interest? Kind regards, Frank >> The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. - Niels Bohr -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060205/e82b53bd/attachment.htm From boris at bshor.com Mon Feb 6 04:44:54 2006 From: boris at bshor.com (Shor, Boris) Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 22:44:54 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] No spambayes outlook toolbar Message-ID: <683318ED655E884D8416A3B18FC137FCED03C5@ntxbeus04.exchange.xchg> Hello, I am running Spambayes 1.0.4 successfully on my laptop for quite a long time, as well as a desktop. Recently, the desktop outlook/spambayes combo stopped working -- clicking "delete as spam" did nothing. I tried installing 1.0.4 again, no go. I tried deleting the toolbar in outlook, then uninstalling, then reinstalling. It appears to install successfully, but no familiar spambayes toolbar. I uninstalled and reinstalled 1.1. Still nothing. And all this time Spambayes works like a charm on my laptop. My desktop is running WinXP SP2, 1Gb RAM, Outlook 2003, Exchange server. Same exact settings for the laptop. Any ideas? Boris Shor From mjjhoj at chartermi.net Tue Feb 7 03:32:48 2006 From: mjjhoj at chartermi.net (Harry & Mary Jane) Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 21:32:48 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) Message-ID: <000801c62b8e$ca611bf0$7baef718@COMPUTER> All msg go to 'unsure' [please help -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060206/7874148e/attachment.htm From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Tue Feb 7 20:13:50 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 08:13:50 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <000801c62b8e$ca611bf0$7baef718@COMPUTER> References: <000801c62b8e$ca611bf0$7baef718@COMPUTER> Message-ID: <33216CA8-921D-46D3-8056-C31EE2B32961@ihug.co.nz> > All msg go to 'unsure' [please help You need to train SpamBayes before it knows how to classify your email. Right-click on the little SpamBayes icon in the tray (next to the clock) and select "Review Messages". In the page that opens, correct and classifications, and SpamBayes will start learning. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From michael.bertrand at unisys.com Tue Feb 7 19:30:16 2006 From: michael.bertrand at unisys.com (Bertrand, Mike A) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 10:30:16 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Spambayes toolbar not viewable in Outlook Message-ID: Hello, I have tried several installations, and still cannot get the Spambayes Configuration Wizard to run when I re-open Outlook after installing Spambayes. I have had Spambayes installed previously and it worked very well. The only difference I have this time is "Google Desktop" installed. Could this be the problem with installing the Spambayes? Any workaround? Best Regards, Mike Bertrand Senior Product Marketing Manager ES3000 Server Series N656-4989 (949)380-4989 UNISYS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060207/936dfe73/attachment.htm From michael.bertrand at unisys.com Tue Feb 7 22:35:43 2006 From: michael.bertrand at unisys.com (Bertrand, Mike A) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 13:35:43 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Google Desktop effects on Spambayes Message-ID: Hello, Does having Google Desktop installed prior to installing Spambayes keep the installation from finishing? I seem to have a successful Spambayes installation, but the Spambayes Configuration Wizard never appears and I cannot activate the Spambayes toolbar. Regards, Mike Bertrand Senior Product Marketing Manager ES3000 Server Series N656-4989 (949)380-4989 UNISYS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060207/15eac936/attachment.html From georgeg at newportpros.com Tue Feb 7 22:53:39 2006 From: georgeg at newportpros.com (George Goyette) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 15:53:39 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Recover email erroneously sent to spam manually Message-ID: <8E5DC4E580903E4BAEB2F30F9A22160A8AAE74@newport01.newport.local> I have inadvertently sent a message to spam. How do I reset the sender as a non-spam sender? From drose at nla.gov.au Tue Feb 7 22:43:58 2006 From: drose at nla.gov.au (Daniel Rose) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 08:43:58 +1100 Subject: [Spambayes] Google Desktop effects on Spambayes Message-ID: <3F8819281E85774CA6CE6F4FB842874F01FAC0DA@gimli.shire.nla.gov.au> In my experience at a dept. of about 500 PCs, I am confident that google desktop search causes problems on some machines in some applications in an apparently haphazard manner. I strongly recommend removing GDS first just to test. Our biggest problems were with MS Word, but other programs could not work properly while GDS was running either. Secondly, I have also seen the SB problems you describe -- double check that you are an admin, that you installed SB as an admin and that you are running outlook as the same user that you installed SB with. Also make sure that you are running Outlook, not Outlook express. Cheers! ________________________________ From: spambayes-bounces at python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Bertrand, Mike A Sent: Wednesday, 8 February 2006 8:36 AM To: spambayes at python.org Subject: [Spambayes] Google Desktop effects on Spambayes Hello, Does having Google Desktop installed prior to installing Spambayes keep the installation from finishing? I seem to have a successful Spambayes installation, but the Spambayes Configuration Wizard never appears and I cannot activate the Spambayes toolbar. Regards, Mike Bertrand Senior Product Marketing Manager ES3000 Server Series N656-4989 (949)380-4989 UNISYS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060208/ad78ba0b/attachment.htm From bc_tan at yahoo.com Wed Feb 8 21:15:13 2006 From: bc_tan at yahoo.com (BC) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 12:15:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Spambayes] Spambytes folders Message-ID: <20060208201513.21427.qmail@web52412.mail.yahoo.com> Hi There Spambytes created 2 folders "junk e-mail" and "junk suspects". I have accidentally deleted the first folder. I have tried uninstalling the software and installing it again. Somehow it doesn't create the "junk e-mail" folder again. I would appreciate it very much if you could let me know how I could solve this problem? cheers BC __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Thu Feb 9 00:37:50 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 17:37:50 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: <20060203043452.52188.qmail@web50514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thursday, February 02, 2006 10:35 PM -0600, Bob Posert wrote: > Back in > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/2006-January/018702.html > , Tim Peters and I had a dialog about training on unusual ham - > monthly messages from http://www.boldtype.com. I just got another > one and it scored 50% on the spam scale. The clues follow - I'd > really appreciate any help. Thanks, Bob > > Combined Score: 50% (0.5) Internal ham score (*H*): 1 > Internal spam score (*S*): 1 > > # ham trained on: 1229 > # spam trained on: 20331 > 150 Significant Tokens I couldn't help but notice the ratio of trained spam to trained ham is very high. While the statistics _should_ still work properly in these cases, a number of people have observed difficulties when the number trained ham and spam are very different. I don't think anyone has a good explanation as to why, nor is there any guaranteed "safe" ratio. As a start, I'd suggest no more than 2:1 in either direction, with maybe 5:1 as an outer bound, but that's just a SWAG (sophisticated wild-ass guess). For you to test this, you'd have to retrain, unfortunately. Save your current databases first, so you can revert if you don't like the results. -- Seth Goodman From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Thu Feb 9 00:43:32 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 17:43:32 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: <20060203043452.52188.qmail@web50514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thursday, February 02, 2006 10:35 PM -0600, Bob Posert wrote: > Back in > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/2006-January/018702.html > , Tim Peters and I had a dialog about training on unusual ham - > monthly messages from http://www.boldtype.com. I just got another > one and it scored 50% on the spam scale. The clues follow - I'd > really appreciate any help. Thanks, Bob > > Combined Score: 50% (0.5) Internal ham score (*H*): 1 > Internal spam score (*S*): 1 > > # ham trained on: 1229 > # spam trained on: 20331 Something else worth mentioning is the large total number of messages in the training set. While there isn't much evidence that I'm aware of that says this harms accuracy, most people are able to get very good results with a few hundred to a few thousand trained messages. Some have reported good results with on the order of 50 of each type. If nothing else, this makes the databases very large. -- Seth Goodman From bill.hely at helyholdings.com Thu Feb 9 01:22:16 2006 From: bill.hely at helyholdings.com (Bill Hely) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 10:22:16 +1000 Subject: [Spambayes] Odd behavior... Message-ID: I've just had a message from a client to whom I recommended the SpamBayes Outlook Plug-in. She's having a problem I haven't encountered before, so any recommendations welcome. Here's a précis of what she said: I've noticed over the last few days that messages were no longer filtering into the SPAM or UNSURE folders. When I would click on the SPAM button to tell it it's spam it would ask me to move it to the spam box - OK did that. It still didn't seem to be working at all. When I would click on the Spam Bytes filtering tool - nothing, no drop down box, nothing. Got a new download, reinstall and reboot, but same problem still exists, still no drop down box on the filtering button. TIA - Bill H. -- We take security very seriously. All outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. To boost YOUR security visit The Hacker's Nightmare: http://HackersNightmare.com. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.2/253 - Release Date: 7/02/2006 From shawn at 12pointdesign.com Thu Feb 9 03:17:42 2006 From: shawn at 12pointdesign.com (Shawn K. Hall) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 18:17:42 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Odd behavior... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <017301c62d1f$025e04f0$0a00a8c0@daddy> Hi Bill, > ...messages were no longer filtering...nothing, > no drop down box, nothing. Sounds like the Outlook security settings are set to very high and the trust for addins is disabled. Tools > Macro > Security > "trusted sources" tab > [X] trust all installed add-ins and templates. Regards, Shawn K. Hall http://12PointDesign.com/ From rcoe at CambridgeMA.GOV Thu Feb 9 14:32:14 2006 From: rcoe at CambridgeMA.GOV (Coe, Bob) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 08:32:14 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited Message-ID: <42393C9DA7930245AB540667607F4F5005BB14A6@SPIKE.city> The difficulty is that there's no way to prune the database, either to adjust the imbalance or to simply decrease the database's size. You have to start again from scratch. The Spambayes establishment doesn't consider this to be much of an issue, since (as Seth points out) Spambayes does a good job of starting from scratch and building an acceptable scoring system after seeing surprisingly little data. This is all fine if you can limit your spam flow to a trickle during this startup period. But if you can't, things can be very unpleasant for a while. As part of an upgrade of my home system, I recently had occasion to install Spambayes from scratch on two accounts (mine and my wife's) that receive a LOT of spam. (My home domain name is a catchy one that attracts spammers and forgers like flowers attract bees.) So while Spambayes was in its learning curve, hundreds of spam messages were pouring in and getting sent to our "possible spam" folders. And because all I had to train on was ham, anything that didn't go there went to our inboxes. For two or three days, until Spambayes got its mind right, I had to dig through this chaff and send it to the spam folders manually - not a fun task. Another point (I've made it before, but I guess it bears repeating) is that the database imbalance is absolutely inherent in the current implementation of the Spambayes algorithm, at least in the Outlook plugin. Because users set the cutoffs to avoid false positives (you have to if the program is going to be useful), virtually all of Spambayes's mistakes are false negatives. Since mistakes are all you train on after the initial startup, virtually all new entries into the database are spam. The better job Spambayes does, the worse the imbalance becomes. Note that the ham/spam ratio of incoming messages affects only the speed with which this effect takes hold, not the eventual outcome. If you use Spambayes correctly, and use it long enough, your database *will* achieve a highly distorted ham/spam balance. If that degrades performance, and many believe that it does, then it's a problem that has yet to be solved. Bob MIS Department, City of Cambridge 831 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139 * 617-349-4217 * fax 617-349-6165 > -----Original Message----- > From: spambayes-bounces at python.org > [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Seth Goodman > Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 6:44 PM > To: spambayes at python.org > Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited > > > On Thursday, February 02, 2006 10:35 PM -0600, Bob Posert wrote: > > > Back in > > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/2006-January/018702.html > > , Tim Peters and I had a dialog about training on unusual ham - > > monthly messages from http://www.boldtype.com. I just got another one > > and it scored 50% on the spam scale. The clues follow - I'd really > > appreciate any help. Thanks, Bob > > > > Combined Score: 50% (0.5) Internal ham score (*H*): 1 Internal spam > > score (*S*): 1 > > > > # ham trained on: 1229 > > # spam trained on: 20331 > > Something else worth mentioning is the large total number of > messages in the training set. While there isn't much > evidence that I'm aware of that says this harms accuracy, > most people are able to get very good results with a few > hundred to a few thousand trained messages. Some have > reported good results with on the order of 50 of each type. > If nothing else, this makes the databases very large. > > -- > Seth Goodman > > _______________________________________________ > SpamBayes at python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes > Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html > From dlowrey at venocoinc.com Thu Feb 9 15:33:07 2006 From: dlowrey at venocoinc.com (Dennis Lowrey) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 06:33:07 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Outlook delay on start Message-ID: <403638C425945A4EB0F83E34C603728F9165BB@venmail.venocoinc.local> Our Outlook opens with 1+ minute delay while it "finds" all it needs on the network (my interpretation). SpamBayes won't work (I think the time is the problem). SpamBayes won't run on start, and when it is asked to filter, it does that but won't stay on. Any ideas how to use it? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060209/cdbcb903/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 5335 bytes Desc: image001.gif Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060209/cdbcb903/attachment.gif From l.keuter at wanadoo.nl Thu Feb 9 21:05:52 2006 From: l.keuter at wanadoo.nl (L.A. Keuter) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 21:05:52 +0100 Subject: [Spambayes] question Message-ID: <000a01c62db4$3ac52680$0501a8c0@asus> Hello, SpamBayes Ports: Each POP3 server that is being monitored must be assigned to a 'port' in the SpamBayes POP3 proxy. This port must be different for each monitored server, and there must be a port for each monitored server. Again, you need to configure your email client to use this port. If there are multiple servers, you must specify the same number of ports as servers, separated by commas. If you don't know what to use here, and you only have one server, try 110, or if that doesn't work, try 8110. I'm using SpamBayes 1.1a1 on a WindowsMe machine. Please can you tell me to which port do I assign my second pop3 server? Jan Keuter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060209/f4d4f792/attachment.htm From shawn at 12pointdesign.com Fri Feb 10 00:22:59 2006 From: shawn at 12pointdesign.com (Shawn K. Hall) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 15:22:59 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Extracting DB results Message-ID: <002801c62dcf$c40b4170$0a00a8c0@daddy> Hello all, This may seem a bit unusual, but I need to be able to extract the contents of the spam database into an SQL-capable database engine so I can use the data for server-level filters. The data will be pruned within the SQL-capable database to ensure that low-risk values are not used across the board, but will use common entries to help manage the spam before I ever have to download it. Has anyone done something like this before? How should I go about extracting the contents of my, rather huge, "default_bayes_database.db" file? I have exactly zero direct experience with Python, but I can learn. Thanks in advance for any advice or pointers you all can offer, Shawn K. Hall From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Fri Feb 10 00:59:39 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 17:59:39 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: <42393C9DA7930245AB540667607F4F5005BB14A6@SPIKE.city> Message-ID: On Thursday, February 09, 2006 7:32 AM -0600, Bob Coe wrote: > The difficulty is that there's no way to prune the database, either to > adjust the imbalance or to simply decrease the database's size. You > have to start again from scratch. The Spambayes establishment doesn't > consider this to be much of an issue, since (as Seth points out) > Spambayes does a good job of starting from scratch and building an > acceptable scoring system after seeing surprisingly little data. > > This is all fine if you can limit your spam flow to a trickle during > this startup period. But if you can't, things can be very unpleasant > for a while. As part of an upgrade of my home system, I recently had > occasion to install Spambayes from scratch on two accounts (mine and > my wife's) that receive a LOT of spam. (My home domain name is a > catchy one that attracts spammers and forgers like flowers attract > bees.) Your cup runneth over. I feel your pain. This is an off-topic plea to the few people who have some control over the MTA software running at their site. Please consider using DNSBL's, both from responsible third parties and built from local heuristics, in addition to existing authentication mechanisms, to cut down on the volume of spam that must be processed post-acceptance. Accepting spam for deliver wastes your bandwidth and consumes CPU cycles. Rejecting it, preferably during or right after the envelope phase of SMTP, can really reduce your load. An ounce of prevention ... > So while Spambayes was in its learning curve, hundreds of spam > messages were pouring in and getting sent to our "possible spam" > folders. And because all I had to train on was ham, anything that > didn't go there went to our inboxes. For two or three days, until > Spambayes got its mind right, I had to dig through this chaff and > send it to the spam folders manually - not a fun task. I'm not a Spambayes developer, so I am speaking only for myself here. I think the problem is more that Spambayes doesn't do anything to encourage sensible training schemes. And for a very good reason: the jury is still out on what is the "best" training scheme, or even one that is universally acceptable. It wouldn't be responsible for the developers to force one scheme or another on the users, since there is no proof that any one particular scheme would work for the majority of users. That being said, there are some things you can do manually to avoid some of this pain. The first thing to note is that train on all unsures, forever, is usually not the best approach. Aside from building huge databases, it tends to produce a trained ham/spam ratio very far from unity, as you describe very well below. Here's one approach that works for me and builds a smaller database with a relatively equal number of ham and spam. 1) Initial training. a) If you are just starting out from scratch, manually sort the spam in your inbox into a separate spam folder. Make sure you have roughly equal numbers of ham and spam for training, even if this means training on a relatively small number of messages. It is not necessary to use a large number of messages. Anywhere from around ten to a few hundred of each type is sufficient. In addition to messages in the Inbox, most people have a large amount of saved ham. Resist the temptation to train on a large folder of saved ham without the same number of spam available. b) When you have around 25 spam in your Spam folder, make sure you have the same number of your most recent ham in the Inbox (or ham training folder). If you have more ham messages spam, temporarily move some of the ham to a new folder, then move it back when you're done. If you have fewer ham than spam, temporarily move some saved ham into the Inbox (or ham training folder). c) I don't recall what the default thresholds are, but I personally use 0.80 for spam and 0.05 for ham. d) Train on the two folders with equal numbers of ham and spam. e) In the Spambayes Manger under the Training tab, uncheck the incremental training checkboxes so that moving a message does not automatically train on it. f) Move all messages in the Unsure folder into either the Inbox or Spam folders, as appropriate. These messages are already trained, so there is no purpose keeping them in the Unsure folder. 2)Until Spambayes is working well (i.e. 5% Unsures and 0.1% false positives), try this procedure instead of simply training on all messages in the Unsure folder. When new messages appear in your Unsure folder: a) Make sure the spam score is displayed in the Inbox, Unsure and Spam folders. b) Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, select "Filter messages" and the "Filter Now" dialog box opens. Make sure the "Filter the following messages" field contains your Inbox (or other ham folders), Unsure and Spam folders. Under "Filter action" select "Perform all filter actions". Under "Restrict the filter to", uncheck both boxes. Hit the "Close" button. c) Select the lowest scoring spam message, if any, in the Unsure folder and hit the "Delete as Spam" button. Select the highest scoring ham message, if any, in the Unsure folder and hit the "Recover from Spam" button. This trains on the messages as well as moving them. For this to have any effect, these should be messages that are not already trained. Don't worry, if you select a message that is already trained, Spambayes will move it but it won't train on it again. If you accidentally train a message in the wrong category, it is very important that you select it and train it in the correct category. d) Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, select "Filter messages" and the "Filter Now" dialog box opens. Hit the "Start Filtering" button. When it is finished filtering, hit the "Close" button. Some messages may disappear from the Unsure folder and others may move into it. e) Glance at your Inbox and Spam folders for false positives (ham in the spam folder) and false negatives (spam in the ham folder). Train on any of these using the "Delete as Spam" and "Recover from Spam" buttons. This should not happen very often. f) Go back to step c and repeat this process on each message in the Unsure folder that you haven't already trained on. Occasionally, a message will still score as unsure even after you've trained on it, or subsequent training may cause a message that previously classified correctly to now classify as Unsure. Don't worry, it will eventually classify correctly when you train on other similar messages. g) Once in a while, Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, select "Spambayes Manager". In the "General" tab, there is a field that tells you how many ham and spam are trained. If the numbers are somewhat unequal (more than 2:1 in either direction), train on some messages of the type that has too few in the training set. The easiest way to do this is to move the message into the Unsure folder, then hit either the "Delete as Spam" and "Recover from Spam" buttons. When picking additional messages to train on, try to use the lowest scoring spam or the highest scoring ham, i.e. the messages that came closest to being Unsures. h) When Spambayes is working well, go on to step 3. 3) You know that Spambayes is working well when Unsures are not more than 5-10% of your incoming mail flow and you rarely (0.1%) have a ham classify as Spam. Since spam is much more likely to classify as unsure than ham, the percentage of your messages that are unsures depends on your incoming ham/spam ratio. Once your are at this level of performance, it is probably reasonable to train on any ham that ends up in the Unsure folder, but generally not train on Spam in the Unsure folder. That is, only train on Unsure spam that you think the filter _really_ should have caught. For example, a lot of spam has "word salad" added as hidden text to confuse Bayesian filters like Spambayes. These are either random words from a dictionary or passages from news articles or books. The net result of including a lot of random words in a spam is to have it score somewhere around 50%. Spambayes already ignores any words that score between 0.4 and 0.6, so a message's score is only the result of words that are considered ham or spam words. It's debatable if you want to train on enough messages to have Spambayes correctly ignore "word salad" words. You can train on word salad spam, but if you do, the databases will get larger and you will start to see more ham wind up in the Unsure folder, thus requiring further training to correct it. In short, once you get acceptable performance, there is nothing wrong with just deleting spam that ends up in the Unsure folder. No matter how much training you do, there will always be some spam that classifies as Unsure. You only need to do further training if overall performance declines. Playing too much with the thresholds is dangerous and risks getting false positives, which is the worst possible outcome for a spam filter. > Another point (I've made it before, but I guess it bears repeating) is > that the database imbalance is absolutely inherent in the current > implementation of the Spambayes algorithm, at least in the Outlook > plugin. Because users set the cutoffs to avoid false positives (you > have to if the program is going to be useful), virtually all of > Spambayes's mistakes are false negatives. Since mistakes are all you > train on after the initial startup, virtually all new entries into the > database are spam. That is inherent, as you say. See step 2g, above, to correct this problem, and step 3, above, to avoid it. This property is actually one of the more desirable features of Spambayes. Once trained, it is has an extremely low false positive rate. That is, it is rare that a ham is classified as spam. This is the result of the two thresholds being a different distance from 0.5 and a number of heuristics that proved to help. The natural result of this is that virtually all the unsures are spam. That is an advantage for the user, as you don't have to be as vigilant about looking at the Unsures, and even less so with the Spam folder, since they rarely contain ham. > The better job Spambayes does, the worse the imbalance becomes. > Note that the ham/spam ratio of incoming messages affects only the > speed with which this effect takes hold, not the eventual outcome. > If you use Spambayes correctly, and use it long enough, your > database *will* achieve a highly distorted ham/spam balance. That's only if you define training on every unsure as using Spambayes correctly. I disagree on that particular point, though the operating instructions don't say this. Once Spambayes is operating well, you should probably not train on all the spam in the Unsure folder. > If that degrades performance, and many believe that it does, then > it's a problem that has yet to be solved. I agree with this. I think it would be a good idea, for example, if the initial training tab of Spambayes had an experimental option for training on an equal number of ham and spam, using the smaller of the number of messages in the indicated ham and spam folders. I also think it would be a good idea if Spambayes had an experimental option to pop up a warning if the numbers of trained ham and spam were different by more than a user-defined ratio (which could be 1.5:1 as default) and suggest what the user should do to correct it. Finally, unless Spambayes implements some form of pruning old messages from the database, there should be something in the instructions telling users not to keep training on all Unsures, once satisfactory performance is achieved. This will cause the database to grow without bound and probably without improvement to performance. A step in this direction might be to have the "train on move to folder" option off by default, with an warning text box appearing if you turn it on. The warning would explain what will happen if you keep training on unsure spam indefinitely, and how to avoid that. -- Seth Goodman From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Fri Feb 10 01:23:28 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 18:23:28 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: <42393C9DA7930245AB540667607F4F5005BB14A6@SPIKE.city> Message-ID: There were a few mistakes too many in my previous post, so I am reposting with corrections. On Thursday, February 09, 2006 7:32 AM -0600, Bob Coe wrote: > The difficulty is that there's no way to prune the database, either to > adjust the imbalance or to simply decrease the database's size. You > have to start again from scratch. The Spambayes establishment doesn't > consider this to be much of an issue, since (as Seth points out) > Spambayes does a good job of starting from scratch and building an > acceptable scoring system after seeing surprisingly little data. > > This is all fine if you can limit your spam flow to a trickle during > this startup period. But if you can't, things can be very unpleasant > for a while. As part of an upgrade of my home system, I recently had > occasion to install Spambayes from scratch on two accounts (mine and > my wife's) that receive a LOT of spam. (My home domain name is a > catchy one that attracts spammers and forgers like flowers attract > bees.) Your cup runneth over. I feel your pain. This is an off-topic plea to the few people who have some control over the MTA software running at their site. Please consider using DNSBL's, both from responsible third parties and built from local heuristics, in addition to existing authentication mechanisms, to cut down on the volume of spam that must be processed post-acceptance. Accepting spam for delivery wastes your bandwidth and consumes CPU cycles. Rejecting it, preferably during or right after the envelope phase of SMTP, can really reduce your load. An ounce of prevention ... > So while Spambayes was in its learning curve, hundreds of spam > messages were pouring in and getting sent to our "possible spam" > folders. And because all I had to train on was ham, anything that > didn't go there went to our inboxes. For two or three days, until > Spambayes got its mind right, I had to dig through this chaff and > send it to the spam folders manually - not a fun task. I'm not a Spambayes developer, so I am speaking only for myself here. I think the problem is more that Spambayes doesn't do anything to encourage sensible training schemes. And for a very good reason: the jury is still out on what is the "best" training scheme, or even one that is universally acceptable. It wouldn't be responsible for the developers to force one scheme or another on the users, since there is no proof that any one particular scheme would work for the majority of users. That being said, there are some things you can do manually to avoid some of this pain. The first thing to note is that training on all unsures, forever, is usually not the best approach. Aside from building huge databases, it tends to produce a trained ham/spam ratio very far from unity, as you describe very well below. Here's one approach that works for me and builds a smaller database with a relatively equal number of ham and spam. 1) Initial training. a) If you are just starting out from scratch, manually sort the spam in your inbox into a separate spam folder. Make sure you have roughly equal numbers of ham and spam for training, even if this means training on a relatively small number of messages. It is not necessary to use a large number of messages. Anywhere from around ten to a few hundred of each type is sufficient. In addition to messages in the Inbox, most people have a large amount of saved ham. Resist the temptation to train on a large folder of saved ham without the same number of spam available. b) When you have around 25 spam in your Spam folder, make sure you have the same number of your most recent ham in the Inbox (or ham training folder). If you have more ham messages than spam, temporarily move some of the ham to a new folder, then move it back when you're done. If you have fewer ham than spam, temporarily move some saved ham into the Inbox (or ham training folder). c) I don't recall what the default thresholds are, but I personally use 0.80 for spam and 0.05 for ham. d) Train on the two folders with equal numbers of ham and spam. e) In the Spambayes Manager under the Training tab, uncheck the incremental training checkboxes so that moving a message does not automatically train on it. 2)Until Spambayes is working well (i.e. 5% Unsures and 0.1% false positives), try this procedure instead of simply training on all messages in the Unsure folder. When new messages appear in your Unsure folder: a) Make sure the spam score is displayed in the Inbox, Unsure and Spam folders. b) Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, select "Filter messages" and the "Filter Now" dialog box opens. Make sure the "Filter the following messages" field contains your Inbox (or other ham folders), Unsure and Spam folders. Under "Filter action" select "Perform all filter actions". Under "Restrict the filter to", uncheck both boxes. Hit the "Close" button. c) Select the lowest scoring spam message, if any, in the Unsure folder and hit the "Delete as Spam" button. Select the highest scoring ham message, if any, in the Unsure folder and hit the "Recover from Spam" button. This trains on the messages as well as moving them. For this to have any effect, these should be messages that are not already trained. Don't worry, if you select a message that is already trained, Spambayes will move it but it won't train on it again. Once you remember that you trained on a message, don't bother selecting that message again for training. If you accidentally train a message in the wrong category, it is very important that you select it and train it in the correct category. d) Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, select "Filter messages" and the "Filter Now" dialog box opens. Hit the "Start Filtering" button. When it is finished filtering, hit the "Close" button. Some messages may disappear from the Unsure folder and others may move into it. e) Glance at your Inbox and Spam folders for false positives (ham in the spam folder) and false negatives (spam in the ham folder). Train on any of these using the "Delete as Spam" and "Recover from Spam" buttons. This should not happen very often. f) Go back to step c and repeat this process on each message in the Unsure folder that you haven't already trained on. Occasionally, a message will still score as unsure even after you've trained on it, or subsequent training may cause a message that previously classified correctly to now classify as Unsure. Don't worry, it will eventually classify correctly when you train on other similar messages. g) Once in a while, Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar and select "Spambayes Manager". In the "General" tab, there is a field that tells you how many ham and spam are trained. If the numbers are somewhat unequal (more than 2:1 in either direction), train on some messages of the type that has fewer in the training set. The easiest way to do this is to move the message into the Unsure folder, then hit either the "Delete as Spam" and "Recover from Spam" buttons. When picking additional messages to train on, try to use the lowest scoring spam or the highest scoring ham, i.e. the messages that came closest to being Unsures. Look at the "General" tab again when you're done to make sure that the trained ham and spam numbers are more equal. If you train on a message that is already trained, Spambayes moves it but will not train on it again. h) When Spambayes is working well, go on to step 3. 3) You know that Spambayes is working well when Unsures are not more than 5-10% of your incoming mail flow and you rarely (~0.1%) have a ham message classify as Spam. Since spam is much more likely to classify as unsure than ham, the percentage of your messages that are unsures depends on your incoming ham/spam ratio. Once your are at this level of performance, it is probably reasonable to train on any ham that ends up in the Unsure folder, but generally don't train on Spam in the Unsure folder. That is, only train on Unsure spam that you think the filter _really_ should have caught. For example, a lot of spam has "word salad" added as hidden text to confuse Bayesian filters like Spambayes. These are either random words from a dictionary or passages from news articles or books. The net result of including a lot of random words in a spam is to have it score somewhere around 50%. Spambayes already ignores any words that score between 0.4 and 0.6, so a message's score is only the result of words that are considered ham or spam words. It's debatable if you want to train on enough messages to have Spambayes correctly ignore "word salad" words. You can train on word salad spam, but if you do, the databases will get larger and you will start to see more ham wind up in the Unsure folder, thus requiring further training to correct it. In short, once you get acceptable performance, there is nothing wrong with just deleting spam that ends up in the Unsure folder. No matter how much training you do, there will always be some spam that classifies as Unsure. You only need to do further training if overall performance declines. Playing too much with the thresholds is dangerous and risks getting false positives, which is the worst possible outcome for a spam filter. > Another point (I've made it before, but I guess it bears repeating) is > that the database imbalance is absolutely inherent in the current > implementation of the Spambayes algorithm, at least in the Outlook > plugin. Because users set the cutoffs to avoid false positives (you > have to if the program is going to be useful), virtually all of > Spambayes's mistakes are false negatives. Since mistakes are all you > train on after the initial startup, virtually all new entries into the > database are spam. That is inherent, as you say. See step 2g, above, to correct this problem, and step 3, above, to avoid it. This low false positive rate is actually one of the more desirable features of Spambayes. This is the result of the two thresholds being a different distance from 0.5 and a number of heuristics that proved to help. The natural result of this is that virtually all the unsures are spam. That is an advantage for the user, as you don't have to be as vigilant about looking at the Unsures, and even less so with the Spam folder, since they rarely contain ham. > The better job Spambayes does, the worse the imbalance becomes. > Note that the ham/spam ratio of incoming messages affects only the > speed with which this effect takes hold, not the eventual outcome. > If you use Spambayes correctly, and use it long enough, your > database *will* achieve a highly distorted ham/spam balance. That's only if you define training on every unsure as using Spambayes correctly. I disagree on that particular point, though the operating instructions don't say this. Once Spambayes is operating well, you should probably not train on all the spam in the Unsure folder. > If that degrades performance, and many believe that it does, then > it's a problem that has yet to be solved. I do agree with this. I think it would be a good idea, for example, if the initial training tab of Spambayes had an (experimental?) option for training on an equal number of ham and spam, using the smaller of the number of messages in the indicated ham and spam folders. I also think it would be a good idea if Spambayes had an experimental option to pop up a warning if the numbers of trained ham and spam were different by more than a user-defined ratio (which could be 1.5:1 as default) and suggest what the user should do to correct it. Finally, unless Spambayes implements some form of pruning old messages from the database, there should be something in the instructions telling users not to keep training on all Unsures, once satisfactory performance is achieved. This will cause the database to grow without bound and probably without improvement in performance. A step in this direction might be to have incremental training off by default, with a warning text box appearing if you turn it on. The warning would explain what can happen if you keep training on unsure spam indefinitely, and how to avoid that. -- Seth Goodman From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Fri Feb 10 02:10:57 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:10:57 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Extracting DB results In-Reply-To: <002801c62dcf$c40b4170$0a00a8c0@daddy> References: <002801c62dcf$c40b4170$0a00a8c0@daddy> Message-ID: <649089E6-3FB3-4DDD-9491-87A09B58C5BB@ihug.co.nz> > How should I go about extracting the contents of my, rather huge, > "default_bayes_database.db" file? I have exactly zero direct > experience > with Python, but I can learn. Get the source, install Python, and use the sb_dbexpimp.py script to convert the database to a CSV file. python scripts\sb_dbexpimp.py --help Will give you an explanation of how it is used. Basically you'll want something like: python scripts\sb_dbexpimp.py -e -f tokens.csv -d "C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\SpamBayes \default_bayes_database.db" Once it's in CSV, I presume you'll be able to get it into your SQL database. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From shawn at 12pointdesign.com Fri Feb 10 03:40:52 2006 From: shawn at 12pointdesign.com (Shawn K. Hall) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 18:40:52 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Extracting DB results In-Reply-To: <649089E6-3FB3-4DDD-9491-87A09B58C5BB@ihug.co.nz> Message-ID: <001201c62deb$693ba980$0a00a8c0@daddy> Thanks Tony, > python scripts\sb_dbexpimp.py ... This worked almost flawlessly. I had to go one directory up and shell it out from there using this: python spambayes\scripts\sb_dbexpimp.py ... Looking at the export data, can I correctly assume that the fields are: [token],[hamcount],[spamcount] Thanks for your time, Shawn K. Hall From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Fri Feb 10 03:46:16 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 15:46:16 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Extracting DB results In-Reply-To: <001201c62deb$693ba980$0a00a8c0@daddy> References: <001201c62deb$693ba980$0a00a8c0@daddy> Message-ID: > Looking at the export data, can I correctly assume that the fields > are: > [token],[hamcount],[spamcount] Yes, that's correct. The first row (the one with only two columns) is the total number of ham trained followed by the total number of spam trained. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From GGamid at aol.com Fri Feb 10 11:03:59 2006 From: GGamid at aol.com (GGamid at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 05:03:59 EST Subject: [Spambayes] Accidentally deleted SPAM folder Message-ID: <215.12d4eaab.311dbf0f@aol.com> can you return my accidentally deleted spam files - thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060210/d7e28031/attachment.html From jsp at PKC.com Fri Feb 10 13:42:49 2006 From: jsp at PKC.com (Jesse Pelton) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:42:49 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Accidentally deleted SPAM folder Message-ID: <16E2027582CDB74180896CDB4B8CC1F901D04687@PKCVT01.pkc.com> Perhaps the FAQ will help: http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/faq.html#help-i-deleted-the-unsure-spam -folder . ________________________________ From: spambayes-bounces at python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of GGamid at aol.com Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 5:04 AM To: spambayes at python.org Subject: [Spambayes] Accidentally deleted SPAM folder can you return my accidentally deleted spam files - thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060210/05e83ef3/attachment.htm From boswell6 at sbcglobal.net Fri Feb 10 15:38:40 2006 From: boswell6 at sbcglobal.net (boswell6 at sbcglobal.net) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 09:38:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Spambayes] boswell@peoplepc.com has a new email address Message-ID: <26250618.1139582320704.JavaMail.vmail@service5.colo.trueswitch.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060210/0b65e087/attachment.htm From ALager at masterworkelectronics.com Fri Feb 10 17:04:03 2006 From: ALager at masterworkelectronics.com (Aaron Lager) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:04:03 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Odd behavior... Message-ID: <4B4867C601000D4D834B1B65028356BC52E6DC@EMAIL.masterworkelectronics.com> I too have the same problem on one of our computers here. I work on it to get it running again, and it'll run until Outlook is closed. Upon re-opening Outlook spambayes does not filter anymore. It's an XP machine with Outlook 2000. This problem also happened on another computer running win2k, but it has since decided to keep running spambayes after re-installing it for the 1 billionth time. Aaron -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060210/ae943ba6/attachment.html From ceidem at jafonet.com Fri Feb 10 17:01:52 2006 From: ceidem at jafonet.com (Chris Eidem) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 10:01:52 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Any difference in databases? Message-ID: <43ECB8F0.7010702@jafonet.com> Hello all, I have a successful SpamBayes Outlook plugin install and it works like magic! I get 1500+ spam a week at my office email and one will get through to my inbox in a month with a maybe two dozen unsure per week. With this kind of success, I'd like to use the database that I've got at work and use it on my home email. I'm running sb_filter through procmail and I've had okay luck, but nothing like I've had at work. I would like to know if there is a difference in format of the databases between the Outlook plugin and the one created by sb_mboxtrain? I'd like to use my office computer database (I suppose the default_bayes_database.db) on my OpenBSD box at home. Can I copy it over and rename it or are the difficulties with this approach? Thanks in advance, - chris -- An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. Benjamin Franklin From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Fri Feb 10 23:00:06 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 11:00:06 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Any difference in databases? In-Reply-To: <43ECB8F0.7010702@jafonet.com> References: <43ECB8F0.7010702@jafonet.com> Message-ID: > I would like to know if there is a difference in format of the > databases > between the Outlook plugin and the one created by sb_mboxtrain? No. > I'd like to use my office computer database (I suppose the > default_bayes_database.db) on my OpenBSD box at home. Can I copy it > over and rename it Yes. > or are the difficulties with this approach? No. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Sat Feb 11 05:22:44 2006 From: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com (Allen) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:22:44 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43ED6694.9020906@sound-by-design.com> Seth, Having recently been a victim of DNSBListing I strongly advice against doing this as many of the lists are bogus and even the good ones make too many mistakes or are too broad so netblocks get denied access to e-mail when it is one rogue hijacked domain that is the source of the problem. What happened is that someone used a stolen credit card to activate a domain on the same hosting service I am on. The entire hosting service was knocked off the net for 24 hours, and I had e-mail rejected over a week later because of a lack of attention to what was happening on the part of the receiving domain. A much better approach would be to look for forged headers in the spam. Almost 80+% of spam has a forged HELO line or two. If they were stopped at any router with a little checking script we'd all be better off and not suffer from being denied access because of some third party f%^&ups that we have no control of. Thanks, Allen Schaaf Information Security Analyst Training & Instructional Designer Sr. Writer & Documentation Developer Certified Network Security Analyst and Intrusion Forensics Investigator - CEH, CHFI Certified EC-Council Instructor Security is lot like democracy - everyone's for it but few understand that you have to work at it constantly. Seth Goodman wrote: > On Thursday, February 09, 2006 7:32 AM -0600, Bob Coe wrote: > >> The difficulty is that there's no way to prune the database, either to >> adjust the imbalance or to simply decrease the database's size. You >> have to start again from scratch. The Spambayes establishment doesn't >> consider this to be much of an issue, since (as Seth points out) >> Spambayes does a good job of starting from scratch and building an >> acceptable scoring system after seeing surprisingly little data. >> >> This is all fine if you can limit your spam flow to a trickle during >> this startup period. But if you can't, things can be very unpleasant >> for a while. As part of an upgrade of my home system, I recently had >> occasion to install Spambayes from scratch on two accounts (mine and >> my wife's) that receive a LOT of spam. (My home domain name is a >> catchy one that attracts spammers and forgers like flowers attract >> bees.) > > Your cup runneth over. I feel your pain. > > > This is an off-topic plea to the few people who have some control over > the MTA software running at their site. Please consider using DNSBL's, > both from responsible third parties and built from local heuristics, in > addition to existing authentication mechanisms, to cut down on the > volume of spam that must be processed post-acceptance. Accepting spam > for deliver wastes your bandwidth and consumes CPU cycles. Rejecting > it, preferably during or right after the envelope phase of SMTP, can > really reduce your load. An ounce of prevention ... > > > >> So while Spambayes was in its learning curve, hundreds of spam >> messages were pouring in and getting sent to our "possible spam" >> folders. And because all I had to train on was ham, anything that >> didn't go there went to our inboxes. For two or three days, until >> Spambayes got its mind right, I had to dig through this chaff and >> send it to the spam folders manually - not a fun task. > > I'm not a Spambayes developer, so I am speaking only for myself here. I > think the problem is more that Spambayes doesn't do anything to > encourage sensible training schemes. And for a very good reason: the > jury is still out on what is the "best" training scheme, or even one > that is universally acceptable. It wouldn't be responsible for the > developers to force one scheme or another on the users, since there is > no proof that any one particular scheme would work for the majority of > users. > > That being said, there are some things you can do manually to avoid some > of this pain. The first thing to note is that train on all unsures, > forever, is usually not the best approach. Aside from building huge > databases, it tends to produce a trained ham/spam ratio very far from > unity, as you describe very well below. > > Here's one approach that works for me and builds a smaller database with > a relatively equal number of ham and spam. > > > 1) Initial training. > > a) If you are just starting out from scratch, manually sort the spam in > your inbox into a separate spam folder. Make sure you have roughly > equal numbers of ham and spam for training, even if this means training > on a relatively small number of messages. It is not necessary to use a > large number of messages. Anywhere from around ten to a few hundred of > each type is sufficient. In addition to messages in the Inbox, most > people have a large amount of saved ham. Resist the temptation to train > on a large folder of saved ham without the same number of spam > available. > > b) When you have around 25 spam in your Spam folder, make sure you have > the same number of your most recent ham in the Inbox (or ham training > folder). If you have more ham messages spam, temporarily move some of > the ham to a new folder, then move it back when you're done. If you > have fewer ham than spam, temporarily move some saved ham into the Inbox > (or ham training folder). > > c) I don't recall what the default thresholds are, but I personally use > 0.80 for spam and 0.05 for ham. > > d) Train on the two folders with equal numbers of ham and spam. > > e) In the Spambayes Manger under the Training tab, uncheck the > incremental training checkboxes so that moving a message does not > automatically train on it. > > f) Move all messages in the Unsure folder into either the Inbox or Spam > folders, as appropriate. These messages are already trained, so there > is no purpose keeping them in the Unsure folder. > > > 2)Until Spambayes is working well (i.e. 5% Unsures and 0.1% false > positives), try this procedure instead of simply training on all > messages in the Unsure folder. When new messages appear in your Unsure > folder: > > a) Make sure the spam score is displayed in the Inbox, Unsure and Spam > folders. > > b) Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, select "Filter > messages" and the "Filter Now" dialog box opens. Make sure the "Filter > the following messages" field contains your Inbox (or other ham > folders), Unsure and Spam folders. Under "Filter action" select > "Perform all filter actions". Under "Restrict the filter to", uncheck > both boxes. Hit the "Close" button. > > c) Select the lowest scoring spam message, if any, in the Unsure folder > and hit the "Delete as Spam" button. Select the highest scoring ham > message, if any, in the Unsure folder and hit the "Recover from Spam" > button. This trains on the messages as well as moving them. For this > to have any effect, these should be messages that are not already > trained. Don't worry, if you select a message that is already trained, > Spambayes will move it but it won't train on it again. If you > accidentally train a message in the wrong category, it is very important > that you select it and train it in the correct category. > > d) Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, select "Filter > messages" and the "Filter Now" dialog box opens. Hit the "Start > Filtering" button. When it is finished filtering, hit the "Close" > button. Some messages may disappear from the Unsure folder and others > may move into it. > > e) Glance at your Inbox and Spam folders for false positives (ham in the > spam folder) and false negatives (spam in the ham folder). Train on any > of these using the "Delete as Spam" and "Recover from Spam" buttons. > This should not happen very often. > > f) Go back to step c and repeat this process on each message in the > Unsure folder that you haven't already trained on. Occasionally, a > message will still score as unsure even after you've trained on it, or > subsequent training may cause a message that previously classified > correctly to now classify as Unsure. Don't worry, it will eventually > classify correctly when you train on other similar messages. > > g) Once in a while, Hit the Spambayes button on the Outlook toolbar, > select "Spambayes Manager". In the "General" tab, there is a field that > tells you how many ham and spam are trained. If the numbers are > somewhat unequal (more than 2:1 in either direction), train on some > messages of the type that has too few in the training set. The easiest > way to do this is to move the message into the Unsure folder, then hit > either the "Delete as Spam" and "Recover from Spam" buttons. When > picking additional messages to train on, try to use the lowest scoring > spam or the highest scoring ham, i.e. the messages that came closest to > being Unsures. > > h) When Spambayes is working well, go on to step 3. > > > 3) You know that Spambayes is working well when Unsures are not more > than 5-10% of your incoming mail flow and you rarely (0.1%) have a ham > classify as Spam. Since spam is much more likely to classify as unsure > than ham, the percentage of your messages that are unsures depends on > your incoming ham/spam ratio. Once your are at this level of > performance, it is probably reasonable to train on any ham that ends up > in the Unsure folder, but generally not train on Spam in the Unsure > folder. That is, only train on Unsure spam that you think the filter > _really_ should have caught. > > For example, a lot of spam has "word salad" added as hidden text to > confuse Bayesian filters like Spambayes. These are either random words > from a dictionary or passages from news articles or books. The net > result of including a lot of random words in a spam is to have it score > somewhere around 50%. Spambayes already ignores any words that score > between 0.4 and 0.6, so a message's score is only the result of words > that are considered ham or spam words. It's debatable if you want to > train on enough messages to have Spambayes correctly ignore "word salad" > words. You can train on word salad spam, but if you do, the databases > will get larger and you will start to see more ham wind up in the Unsure > folder, thus requiring further training to correct it. > > In short, once you get acceptable performance, there is nothing wrong > with just deleting spam that ends up in the Unsure folder. No matter > how much training you do, there will always be some spam that classifies > as Unsure. You only need to do further training if overall performance > declines. Playing too much with the thresholds is dangerous and risks > getting false positives, which is the worst possible outcome for a spam > filter. > > >> Another point (I've made it before, but I guess it bears repeating) is >> that the database imbalance is absolutely inherent in the current >> implementation of the Spambayes algorithm, at least in the Outlook >> plugin. Because users set the cutoffs to avoid false positives (you >> have to if the program is going to be useful), virtually all of >> Spambayes's mistakes are false negatives. Since mistakes are all you >> train on after the initial startup, virtually all new entries into the >> database are spam. > > That is inherent, as you say. See step 2g, above, to correct this > problem, and step 3, above, to avoid it. > > This property is actually one of the more desirable features of > Spambayes. Once trained, it is has an extremely low false positive > rate. That is, it is rare that a ham is classified as spam. This is > the result of the two thresholds being a different distance from 0.5 and > a number of heuristics that proved to help. The natural result of this > is that virtually all the unsures are spam. That is an advantage for > the user, as you don't have to be as vigilant about looking at the > Unsures, and even less so with the Spam folder, since they rarely > contain ham. > > >> The better job Spambayes does, the worse the imbalance becomes. >> Note that the ham/spam ratio of incoming messages affects only the >> speed with which this effect takes hold, not the eventual outcome. >> If you use Spambayes correctly, and use it long enough, your >> database *will* achieve a highly distorted ham/spam balance. > > That's only if you define training on every unsure as using Spambayes > correctly. I disagree on that particular point, though the operating > instructions don't say this. Once Spambayes is operating well, you > should probably not train on all the spam in the Unsure folder. > > >> If that degrades performance, and many believe that it does, then >> it's a problem that has yet to be solved. > > I agree with this. I think it would be a good idea, for example, if the > initial training tab of Spambayes had an experimental option for > training on an equal number of ham and spam, using the smaller of the > number of messages in the indicated ham and spam folders. I also think > it would be a good idea if Spambayes had an experimental option to pop > up a warning if the numbers of trained ham and spam were different by > more than a user-defined ratio (which could be 1.5:1 as default) and > suggest what the user should do to correct it. Finally, unless > Spambayes implements some form of pruning old messages from the > database, there should be something in the instructions telling users > not to keep training on all Unsures, once satisfactory performance is > achieved. This will cause the database to grow without bound and > probably without improvement to performance. A step in this direction > might be to have the "train on move to folder" option off by default, > with an warning text box appearing if you turn it on. The warning would > explain what will happen if you keep training on unsure spam > indefinitely, and how to avoid that. > > -- > Seth Goodman > > _______________________________________________ > SpamBayes at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes > Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html > > From GinnyB3731 at aol.com Sun Feb 12 00:50:49 2006 From: GinnyB3731 at aol.com (GinnyB3731 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 18:50:49 EST Subject: [Spambayes] retrieving a deleted spam e-mail Message-ID: I accidentally deleted several emails that I wanted to read. They were in my spam folder. I meant to delete only one and hit the "delete all" key. How can I retrieve them? Please respond so I can get them back. Thank you, ginnyb3731 at aol.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060211/b56674e6/attachment.html From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sun Feb 12 04:47:14 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 16:47:14 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] retrieving a deleted spam e-mail In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3DE39E4E-9B96-481E-BC0C-50957905123A@ihug.co.nz> > I accidentally deleted several emails that I wanted to read. They > were in my spam folder. I > meant to delete only one and hit the "delete all" key. How can I > retrieve them? SpamBayes isn't involved with mail once it gets as far as your mail client (Thunderbird, it appears). You can (or can't, as the case may be) get these messages back in the same way as any other messages. The most likely behaviour is that messages are moved to a "Deleted Items" folder of some type, and that would be the first place to look. If that doesn't help, then the Thunderbird help system/ documentation should explain what to do when you delete a message and want to get it back. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sun Feb 12 04:58:22 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 16:58:22 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: <42393C9DA7930245AB540667607F4F5005BB14A6@SPIKE.city> References: <42393C9DA7930245AB540667607F4F5005BB14A6@SPIKE.city> Message-ID: <123EF215-561C-4EDE-9F68-FA2529042296@ihug.co.nz> > The difficulty is that there's no way to prune the database, either to > adjust the imbalance or to simply decrease the database's size. You > have > to start again from scratch. The Spambayes establishment doesn't > consider this to be much of an issue, since (as Seth points out) > Spambayes does a good job of starting from scratch and building an > acceptable scoring system after seeing surprisingly little data. I'm not sure that I'd say that it's not considered much of an issue. The problem is that pruning a database is difficult. As I understand it, the only safe way to do this is to remove/add entire messages, rather than individual tokens. However, the SpamBayes database only keeps track of individual tokens and their ham/spam counts, so we don't have enough information to remove a set of added tokens, unless the original message is available. (IIRC, Skip created an enhanced database that kept enough information to do this at some point; the code is probably around somewhere). I'm still mostly of the opinion that using some sort of 'train to exhaustion' regime would work best. This would allow both expiry and balancing (it essentially does pruning), and still deliver excellent results. However, it would mean keeping cached mail around for a while, at least. I just don't have the time at the moment (as the failure to get 1.1a2 out demonstrates) to implement this for the Outlook plug-in or sb_server (I did do a partial sb_server implementation some time ago, but I don't recall how far I got). > Another point (I've made it before, but I guess it bears repeating) is > that the database imbalance is absolutely inherent in the current > implementation of the Spambayes algorithm, at least in the Outlook > plugin. Because users set the cutoffs to avoid false positives (you > have > to if the program is going to be useful), virtually all of Spambayes's > mistakes are false negatives. Since mistakes are all you train on > after > the initial startup, virtually all new entries into the database are > spam. The better job Spambayes does, the worse the imbalance becomes. Training should be done on all unsure messages, too. When I was using the Outlook plug-in, I commonly had ham end up as (low scoring) unsure. That should reduce the imbalance somewhat. Theoretically, once SpamBayes starts making mistakes, the number of ham-as-unsure would increase, thus helping the balance. Something that I think would help is not training every false negative/spam-as-unsure. Something along the lines of training one, then rescoring the others to see if they need training. However, the plug-in does not make this a simple task, at least at the moment. > [...] it's a problem that has yet to be solved. I certainly agree that this is true. ISTM that the 'imbalance' problem is one that is shared by other filters, as well (c.f. the discussion of the problem in the TREC Spam Track papers). Anyone know of a good statistician with time to spare? <0.1 wink> =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sun Feb 12 05:10:47 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:10:47 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I think the problem is more that Spambayes doesn't do anything to > encourage sensible training schemes. I don't agree here. The Outlook plug-in encourages train-on-error, because the simplest training is clicking the 'Spam' or 'Not Spam' buttons for mistakes (or dragging the messages to their proper place). Train-on-error (fpfnunsure) seems to be one of the best regimes based on the testing done so far. (The plug-in wizard probably encourages people too strongly to do initial training, which should be changed, I think). sb_server was recently changed to encourage train-on-error (fpfnunsure) as well (this will make it into 1.1a2 if I ever find time to do a release, or if someone else does one). The default action for ham and spam is 'discard', and unsure 'defer', encouraging people to only train unsures (and presumably fp and fn as corrections). > It wouldn't be responsible for the > developers to force one scheme or another on the users, since there is > no proof that any one particular scheme would work for the majority of > users. I think that the testing that has been done certainly indicates that fpfnunsure, nonedge, and tte are all superior to train-on-everything in almost any situation. (My TREC tests are the main contra-example I can think of, but they are clouded by the lack of the unsure range). I think that the developers should set things up so that the simplest regime for users is one that is most likely to give results, while allowing users to use something else if they like. I think sb_server does this fairly well, since it's easy to change the default actions so that you get train-on-everything with the least amount of work, or nonedge with the least amount of work. > For example, a lot of spam has "word salad" added as hidden text to > confuse Bayesian filters like Spambayes. [...] Random 'word salad' has most often been shown to help statistical filters like SpamBayes, not harm it. People tend to use a fairly small vocabulary (compared to the entire language vocabulary) in their email (this is especially true if work and personal email is segregated). As such, randomly selecting a word is more likely to result in a word outside of the user's typical email vocabulary than one inside. This means it'll either not have been seen before (and be ignored), or have been seen in spam (particularly other 'word salad' spam) and actually increase the message score. More clever spam, that include less random noise (e.g. newspaper clippings) are more of an issue. > That's only if you define training on every unsure as using Spambayes > correctly. I disagree on that particular point, though the operating > instructions don't say this. Once Spambayes is operating well, you > should probably not train on all the spam in the Unsure folder. It is hard to try and explain this art to the average Outlook user, however. (Suggestions are welcome ;) > Finally, unless > Spambayes implements some form of pruning old messages from the > database, [...] Note that if pruning is done, it's not clear that age should be the deciding factor. Then what happens to that once-a-year-ham? =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sun Feb 12 05:15:24 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:15:24 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: <20060203043452.52188.qmail@web50514.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060203043452.52188.qmail@web50514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7688C137-B826-47C7-A46D-FF407673951D@ihug.co.nz> > Back in http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/2006-January/ > 018702.html , Tim Peters and I had a dialog about training on > unusual ham - monthly messages from http://www.boldtype.com. I > just got another one and it scored 50% on the spam scale. The > clues follow - [...] > Combined Score: 50% (0.5) Internal ham score (*H*): 1 > Internal spam score (*S*): 1 IOW, the message looked a lot like ham, *and* a lot like spam. > # ham trained on: 1229 > # spam trained on: 20331 As others have said, there's quite an imbalance here, as well as quite a large database. My personal opinion (which is backed up by at least some of the research) is that larger databases are worse. > '1950' 0.97619 0 9 > [...] > 'broke' 0.997512 0 90 > 'accordance' 0.998921 0 208 > 'discreet' 0.999019 0 229 None of the spam clues look very spammy to me (although I don't know what you consider spam of course). Do you have any idea what the 9 to 90 messages that had these clues were? Were these all in some sort of 'word salad' spam? If so, then perhaps avoid training these would help (and I believe the large database and the imbalance will contribute to the problem). =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From derek744 at compuserve.com Sun Feb 12 08:43:47 2006 From: derek744 at compuserve.com (Derek Buckley) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 07:43:47 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] Not seeing some spam Message-ID: <002d01c62fa8$0eab33f0$0201a8c0@derek3a0c490c2> I'm getting spam that isn't showing up at all when I review all emails in Spambayes? Derek From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sun Feb 12 10:18:10 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 22:18:10 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Not seeing some spam In-Reply-To: <002d01c62fa8$0eab33f0$0201a8c0@derek3a0c490c2> References: <002d01c62fa8$0eab33f0$0201a8c0@derek3a0c490c2> Message-ID: <65DDD836-DE1D-4584-9211-9A7AD54E61E1@ihug.co.nz> > I'm getting spam that isn't showing up > at all when I review all emails in Spambayes? If you look at the headers of the message (IIRC, something like File- >Properties->Message Source in Outlook Express), are there any SpamBayes headers? =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From club at zapta.co.il Sun Feb 12 10:56:48 2006 From: club at zapta.co.il (ZaptaClub) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 11:56:48 +0200 Subject: [Spambayes] =?windows-1255?b?8O7g8SDs6+0g7Pns7SDu5+n46e0g6ff46e0g?= =?windows-1255?b?8uHl+CD56efl+iDh6Oz05fDp7SDk8Onp4+ntID8gIO7m9Ojk?= =?windows-1255?b?ICsg9+zg4SAxICBDbHVi?= Message-ID: <42207b7c197303ebeda271f0d9f693ef@user-9vkapco571> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060212/20e9e601/attachment.html From montejw at earthlink.net Sun Feb 12 15:52:57 2006 From: montejw at earthlink.net (Monte) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 06:52:57 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] X-Spambayes-Exception In-Reply-To: <65DDD836-DE1D-4584-9211-9A7AD54E61E1@ihug.co.nz> References: <002d01c62fa8$0eab33f0$0201a8c0@derek3a0c490c2> <65DDD836-DE1D-4584-9211-9A7AD54E61E1@ihug.co.nz> Message-ID: <43EF4BC9.6040802@earthlink.net> Here's a bit of header(s) from a message that Spambayes didn't even call Unsure. Sending it along incase that there's something else that might help a developer. I haven't deleted the message if anyone wants to see more. Monte X-Spambayes-Exception: Traceback (most recent call last): . File "sb_server.pyc", line 498, in onRetr . File "spambayes\message.pyc", line 344, in setPayload . File "email\__init__.pyc", line 52, in message_from_string . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 75, in parsestr . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 64, in parse . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 240, in _parsebody . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 75, in parsestr . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 64, in parse . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 206, in _parsebody .BoundaryError: No terminating boundary and no trailing empty line From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Sun Feb 12 22:49:43 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 15:49:43 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Saturday, February 11, 2006 10:11 PM -0600, Tony Meyer wrote: > [Seth Goodman] > > I think the problem is more that Spambayes doesn't do anything to > > encourage sensible training schemes. > > I don't agree here. The Outlook plug-in encourages train-on-error, > because the simplest training is clicking the 'Spam' or 'Not Spam' > buttons for mistakes (or dragging the messages to their proper > place). Train-on-error (fpfnunsure) seems to be one of the best > regimes based on the testing done so far. The difficulty with train-on-error has to do more with the threshold setup than the scheme itself. The spam threshold is set high enough to minimize false positives (ham classified as spam), but not so high to overwhelm the user with unsures. To make Spambayes a good deal more friendly to the user, you can increase the ham threshold slightly to greatly reduce the amount of ham winding up in the unsure folder. I do this myself and find that it very effective. It has a negligible effect on false negatives, no effect on spam classified as unsure and mainly reduces ham classified as unsure. The result is that once properly trained, virtually everything in the unsure folder is spam. Training on all of it, all the time, is guaranteed to give you a badly skewed, as well as overly large database. >From what I can tell, depending on thresholds, most people achieve on the order of a few percent of their spam going to the unsure folder. If you have a large spam load, training on even a few percent of that amount daily will train too many messages. The scenario for which train-on-errors works well is when the unsure folder contains roughly equal amounts of ham and spam, assuming the number of unsures is much larger than false positives plus false negatives. Setting your ham threshold low enough to make that true will solve the ham/spam imbalance problem, but it is still undesirable from two standpoints: 1) If your spam load is higher than your ham load, you will have to divert a significant fraction of your ham to unsure to have the ham/spam ratio of this folder to be near unity. For example, let's say 5% of your spam classifies as unsure, and your incoming ratio of ham:spam is 1:3. You would need 15% of your ham to classify as unsure to maintain a balanced training set using train-on-errors. This is not a convenient way to operate the system. 2) If your spam load is significant, you will be training on a lot of messages every day. For example, if your spam load is 200/day, and 5% of those classify as unsure, you will train on 10 unsure spam every day. To keep things balanced, you should also train on 10 ham every day. That is 20 messages/day, or around 7,000 per year. This is not desirable. > [Seth Goodman] > > It wouldn't be responsible for the > > developers to force one scheme or another on the users, since there > > is no proof that any one particular scheme would work for the > > majority of users. > > I think that the testing that has been done certainly indicates that > fpfnunsure, nonedge, and tte are all superior to train-on-everything > in almost any situation. (My TREC tests are the main contra-example > I can think of, but they are clouded by the lack of the unsure range). Yes, people should be aware that train-on-everything not only doesn't work as well as other methods, but quickly leads to very large databases. > I think that the developers should set things up so that the simplest > regime for users is one that is most likely to give results, while > allowing users to use something else if they like. I think sb_server > does this fairly well, since it's easy to change the default actions > so that you get train-on-everything with the least amount of work, or > nonedge with the least amount of work. I use the Outlook plug-in rather than sb_server, so I can't comment. Of the training methods that you mentioned above that work well, the only one that is easy in the Outlook plug-in is train-on-errors (perpetually). > [Seth Goodman] > > For example, a lot of spam has "word salad" added as hidden text to > > confuse Bayesian filters like Spambayes. > [...] > > Random 'word salad' has most often been shown to help statistical > filters like SpamBayes, not harm it. Agreed. These ones are not the problem. <...> > More clever spam, that include less random noise (e.g. newspaper > clippings) are more of an issue. These are the problem and you are better off not training on them. Unfortunately, you have to look at them one way or another to determine that. > It is hard to try and explain this art to the average Outlook user, > however. (Suggestions are welcome ;) I completely agree. Because it is hard to explain, hard for some people to understand and many people (most?) won't want to go to this much trouble, I think a little more automation for the Outlook plug-in to make the better training schemes more practical might help. For example, one idea previously mentioned was an option to force initial training to use an equal number of ham and spam by training on the lesser of the number of each presented for training. After initial training, another possibility is a checkbox to force a filtering operation each time you trained on another message. When you have half a dozen similar spam messages in your unsure folder, training on just one of them will often take care of the others. Unless you go through the manual effort of filtering after each training event, you won't know that. This second one alone would probably be the best way to discourage overtraining. To avoid the database from getting imbalanced, informational text boxes should probably pop us when a training event causes the imbalance to cross a given threshold. > [Seth Goodman] > > Finally, unless Spambayes implements some form of pruning old > > messages from the database, [...] > > Note that if pruning is done, it's not clear that age should be the > deciding factor. Then what happens to that once-a-year-ham? I completely agree, age is just one possibility and not necessarily the best. If you did use age as the pruning criteria, and there are once-a-year ham or spam you want to retain, you would set your age for pruning at significantly larger than a year, say double that value. This does mean that your training scheme should preferably not create huge databases over that period of time. The one advantage of age-based pruning is the notion that the message stream changes over time. From what I have (anecdotally) observed, it changes a lot slower than I would have guessed. This is good, as it allows keeping a relatively long history in the database. You don't have to keep all trained messages around, only the set of tokens you trained on for each one. That is still a large database, but it is only used occasionally. For example, let's say you set a pruning age of two years and set the pruning interval to 1% of that. Pruning would only occur around once a week. -- Seth Goodman From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Mon Feb 13 00:13:30 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:13:30 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Training on unusual ham - revisited In-Reply-To: <123EF215-561C-4EDE-9F68-FA2529042296@ihug.co.nz> Message-ID: On -0600, Tony Meyer wrote: > I'm still mostly of the opinion that using some sort of 'train to > exhaustion' regime would work best. This would allow both expiry and > balancing (it essentially does pruning), and still deliver excellent > results. I agree that train-to-exhaustion is very appealing. How does it accomplish expiry? > However, it would mean keeping cached mail around for a > while, at least. Well, not cached mail, but the list of tokens that were trained from that message. In the case of train-to-exhaustion, you'd also need a training count to tell you how many times you trained on the message. <...> > Training should be done on all unsure messages, too. When I was > using the Outlook plug-in, I commonly had ham end up as (low scoring) > unsure. That should reduce the imbalance somewhat. Theoretically, > once SpamBayes starts making mistakes, the number of ham-as-unsure > would increase, thus helping the balance. I use thresholds of 0.05 and 0.80, and the result is that virtually every message in unsure is ham. It is a convenience to not have the same number of ham as spam classify as unsure. So unless you're willing to leave the ham threshold very low and tolerate ham showing up in the unsure folder pretty regularly, the database will tend to become unbalanced over time, in addition to growing faster than it otherwise needs to. > Something that I think would help is not training every false > negative/spam-as-unsure. Something along the lines of training one, > then rescoring the others to see if they need training. However, the > plug-in does not make this a simple task, at least at the moment. Yes, this is another option to just deleting unsure spam. Here's a scheme that would automate this and encourage users to avoid overtraining. - Create two new folders under the unsure folder called "reclassified as ham" and reclassified as spam". - Upon a training event, rescore the messages in the ham, spam and unsure folders. If messages change classification do as follows: move unsures in to the unsure folder, move newly classified ham into "reclassified as ham" and newly classified spam into "reclassified as spam". - Have an additional button for "accept training" that moves messages from "reclassified as ham" into ham, moves message from "reclassified as spam" into spam without doing incremental training. After the operation was complete, the "accept training" button and the empty "reclassified as ..." folders would disappear. The reason to delete the empty folders is that upon training a new message, seeing one or both of the "reclassified as ..." folders appear would draw the user's attention to any reclassifications, which are probably mistakes that need to be corrected. Here are some pro's and cons. pro: 1) Makes results of training a single message immediately obvious. 2) Removes unsures that now classify as ham or spam from the unsure folder. 3) Avoids leaving newly created false positives and false negatives in the ham and spam folders, where they are easy to miss. 4) Makes it more obvious when a user trains a message into the wrong classification, as several other messages will immediately move to the unsure or "reclassified as ..." folders. 5) Does not require the user to display spam scores and make decisions based on them. 6) Encourages the user to train on the smallest number of messages necessary to create correct classifications. 7) Compatible with train-to-exhaustion. If a message is trained as ham or spam but still doesn't classify correctly, it automatically goes back to the unsure folder. con: 1) Requires dynamically creating and deleting two other folders under unsure. 2) Requires a third button for the unsure folder that is context sensitive. 3) Will generate user questions. -- Seth Goodman From ian at ocean.com.au Mon Feb 13 04:34:40 2006 From: ian at ocean.com.au (Ian) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:34:40 +1100 Subject: [Spambayes] DBRunRecoveryError Message-ID: <200602131434400370.0093061F@localhost> Hi there, I keep getting a DBRunRecoveryError even after deleting hammie.db and restarting Spambayes. Any clues please? Uninstall and reinstall Spambayes? Otherwise, Spambayes has been rendered useless. Regards, Ian -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060213/03908d91/attachment.htm From b.whittaker at trafficmaster.co.uk Mon Feb 13 10:06:40 2006 From: b.whittaker at trafficmaster.co.uk (Bryn Whittaker) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:06:40 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] outlook problem Message-ID: <005701c6307c$cf1585d0$dd28a8c0@headquarters.local> Hi, I use outlook to pickup my email from our server at work but also use it to pick up my pop3 account. Spybayes doesn't filter the messages that are picked up from the pop3 account. However these are moved upon receipt from the inbox to a separate folder for that account so the emails do not become muddled. Can spambayes be setup to filter both accounts or folders and not just the inbox? Thanks for your time. Other than this all works fine. Regards, Bryn Whittaker -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060213/0d070adf/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 1658 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060213/0d070adf/attachment.jpe From rnhurt at gmail.com Mon Feb 13 16:42:38 2006 From: rnhurt at gmail.com (Richard Hurt) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 10:42:38 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status Message-ID: <712ba87c0602130742g543c5999t3e4c17797a4e71f1@mail.gmail.com> What is the status of the SpamBayes project? I really love it and I recommend it to everyone I talk to but it seems like it's getting stale. Are you guys still maintaining it or should I look elsewhere for my spam protection? :) Thanx! Richard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060213/1671aabf/attachment.html From mwegge at tconcepts.com Mon Feb 13 16:23:48 2006 From: mwegge at tconcepts.com (Melanie Wegge) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:23:48 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Spambayes Issue Message-ID: To whom it may concern: I am running SpamBayes on Outlook 2000. The easiest way to explain the issue would be to say that it is not working in 'real-time'. For instance, when I open my email, Spambayes does not start sorting through the spam emails. If I click on another folder, such as the Suspects folder or even the contact folder and then click the in-box again, some of the spam emails will then be put in my Junk email folder. The filtering appears to be correct and I've set up training. Any assistance would be appreciated. Thank you, Melanie Wegge mwegge at tconcepts.com -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.6/258 - Release Date: 2/13/2006 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060213/ffa96222/attachment.htm From rcoe at CambridgeMA.GOV Mon Feb 13 17:52:36 2006 From: rcoe at CambridgeMA.GOV (Coe, Bob) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 11:52:36 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status Message-ID: <42393C9DA7930245AB540667607F4F5005BB156A@SPIKE.city> What makes software get "stale" is operating system changes underneath it. From my own experience, the current version (1.0.4) still works fine with Outlook 2002 and either Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. The known issues are either at the nuisance level or have workarounds. Experience also shows that the basic algorithm is sound. (I.e., spammers don't seem to be getting the upper hand.) The fact that it has been a long time since the last release does not seem to have materially affected the program's utility. Bob -----Original Message----- From: spambayes-bounces at python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Richard Hurt Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 10:43 AM To: spambayes at python.org Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status What is the status of the SpamBayes project? I really love it and I recommend it to everyone I talk to but it seems like it's getting stale. Are you guys still maintaining it or should I look elsewhere for my spam protection? :) Thanx! Richard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060213/7a6cac23/attachment.htm From skip at pobox.com Mon Feb 13 18:07:33 2006 From: skip at pobox.com (skip at pobox.com) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 11:07:33 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status In-Reply-To: <712ba87c0602130742g543c5999t3e4c17797a4e71f1@mail.gmail.com> References: <712ba87c0602130742g543c5999t3e4c17797a4e71f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <17392.48341.566693.235381@montanaro.dyndns.org> Richard> What is the status of the SpamBayes project? I really love it Richard> and I recommend it to everyone I talk to but it seems like it's Richard> getting stale. Are you guys still maintaining it or should I Richard> look elsewhere for my spam protection? :) Is it failing as a result of being stale? My experience is that mold has a hard time getting a good grip on electrons. As Bob Coe indicated, the algorithm is sound. The composition of your training database is key to keeping things running smoothly. I fairly routinely delete old messages from my database, especially old spam. I think that helps in a few ways: * keeps the database from growing without bound * purges the database of mistakes * purges the database of messages that no longer represent the sort of mail I get now That said, I'm not an Outlook user. I have no idea how to purge old messages in that environment. If you suspect problems with your database, clearing it and starting from scratch my be the best route. Skip From Jean2Hor at aol.com Mon Feb 13 22:27:19 2006 From: Jean2Hor at aol.com (Jean2Hor at aol.com) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 16:27:19 EST Subject: [Spambayes] Fwd: Update and Verify Your PayPalaccount***************** Message-ID: <2b6.484afff.312253b7@aol.com> got a message that my pay pal account had something wring with it. what's the matter? JEAN HORNE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060213/91fde315/attachment.html From skip at pobox.com Tue Feb 14 03:47:11 2006 From: skip at pobox.com (skip at pobox.com) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 20:47:11 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Fwd: Update and Verify Your PayPalaccount***************** In-Reply-To: <2b6.484afff.312253b7@aol.com> References: <2b6.484afff.312253b7@aol.com> Message-ID: <17393.17583.420263.659593@montanaro.dyndns.org> Jean> got a message that my pay pal account had something wring with Jean> it. what's the matter? Maybe spam? Skip From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Tue Feb 14 08:22:19 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:22:19 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status In-Reply-To: <712ba87c0602130742g543c5999t3e4c17797a4e71f1@mail.gmail.com> References: <712ba87c0602130742g543c5999t3e4c17797a4e71f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5B1137B0-A6D5-4035-A826-15480B963605@ihug.co.nz> > What is the status of the SpamBayes project? I really love it and > I recommend it to everyone I talk to but it seems like it's getting > stale. The word you're looking for isn't "stale", it's "mature". <0.01 wink>. Give-me-more-time-in-the-day-and-I'll-give-you-1.1a2-(with-apologies- to-tim)-ly, Tony Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From rnhurt at gmail.com Tue Feb 14 10:26:45 2006 From: rnhurt at gmail.com (Richard Hurt) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 04:26:45 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status In-Reply-To: <5B1137B0-A6D5-4035-A826-15480B963605@ihug.co.nz> References: <712ba87c0602130742g543c5999t3e4c17797a4e71f1@mail.gmail.com> <5B1137B0-A6D5-4035-A826-15480B963605@ihug.co.nz> Message-ID: <712ba87c0602140126l7531d82eyafcdb6225d2d93ac@mail.gmail.com> Guys, I didn't mean to come down on SpamBayes, I just wanted to know if I was hitching my wagon to a dead horse. Everything is working great right now but if I have problems in the future it's comforting to know that the project is still alive and well. You might consider updating the SourceForge page a little bit and tell everyone that your still around and working toward v2 (or whatever). Thanks for all the hard work and for keeping my inbox managable! :) Later... Richard On 2/14/06, Tony Meyer wrote: > > > What is the status of the SpamBayes project? I really love it and > > I recommend it to everyone I talk to but it seems like it's getting > > stale. > > The word you're looking for isn't "stale", it's "mature". <0.01 wink>. > > Give-me-more-time-in-the-day-and-I'll-give-you-1.1a2-(with-apologies- > to-tim)-ly, > Tony Meyer > > -- > Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies > (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. > http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060214/a058a4d3/attachment.htm From vbb.notaires at qc.aira.com Tue Feb 14 15:02:58 2006 From: vbb.notaires at qc.aira.com (Marie-Chantal) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 09:02:58 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) Message-ID: <000c01c6316f$5c3b5140$7601a8c0@vbb.local> Marie Chantal Boisvert, Technicienne juridique / commissaire ? l'assermentation VALOIS BOUTIN BESNER, Notaires t?l.:450-562-2451, fax: 450-562-8050 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060214/cc120096/attachment.htm From mail at capitolcitytech.com Tue Feb 14 22:45:44 2006 From: mail at capitolcitytech.com (mail at capitolcitytech.com) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 16:45:44 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes with Novell Groupwise Message-ID: <24271013.25951139953544051.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> Has anyone tried to setup SpamBayes to work with Novell GroupWise? Since our company email system uses port 1677, rather than 110 & 25, I can't find how to configure SpamBayes to use that port to talk to the server. Also, will the SpamBayes proxy interfere with the GroupWise Calendar, etc.? Any suggestions? From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Wed Feb 15 00:58:23 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 12:58:23 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes with Novell Groupwise In-Reply-To: <24271013.25951139953544051.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> References: <24271013.25951139953544051.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> Message-ID: > Has anyone tried to setup SpamBayes to work with Novell GroupWise? > Since our company email system uses port 1677, rather than 110 & > 25, I can't find how to configure SpamBayes to use that port to > talk to the server. Is this POP or IMAP mail, or something specific to Novell? If the latter, then SpamBayes won't work. If the former, then you can simply setup the proxy to connect to port 1677 instead of 110 (e.g. use "servername:1677" instead just "servername"). =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From ALager at masterworkelectronics.com Wed Feb 15 01:46:44 2006 From: ALager at masterworkelectronics.com (Aaron Lager) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 16:46:44 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] spambayes not filtering messages when outlook is started Message-ID: <4B4867C601000D4D834B1B65028356BC52E70D@EMAIL.masterworkelectronics.com> Over night one of my users will get 50 spams. When he starts Outlook, spambayes skips the spam was sent overnight. Looking at the log file I see that it states: Skipping processing of missed messages in folder 'Inbox', as it is not available Is there a way to get spambayes to look at those messages? I only seem to have this problem on this one computer. On my other users computer the spam gets filtered when it's turned on, just like when it's received in real time. [log file]... SpamBayes Outlook Addin Binary Version 1.0.4 (March 2005) starting (with engine SpamBayes Engine Version 0.3 (January 2004)) on Windows 5.1.2600 (Service Pack 2) using Python 2.3.5 (#62, Feb 8 2005, 16:23:02) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] NOTE: Skipping folder for this session - temporarily unavailable Folder 'Mailbox - Joseph Poslosky/Spam' already has field 'Spam' SpamBayes: Watching (for incremental training) in 'Mailbox - Joseph Poslosky/Spam' Folder 'Mailbox - Joseph Poslosky/Unsure' already has field 'Spam' Skipping processing of missed messages in folder 'Inbox', as it is not available FAILED to add the toolbar item 'SpamBayesCommand.Manager' - (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (0, None, None, None, 0, -2147467259), None) The above toolbar message is common - recreating the toolbar... Saving configuration -> C:\Documents and Settings\JosephP.MEI\Application Data\SpamBayes\MS Exchange Settings.ini Folder 'Mailbox - Joseph Poslosky/Inbox' already has field 'Spam' SpamBayes: Watching (for filtering) in 'Mailbox - Joseph Poslosky/Inbox' ... Thanks, Aaron -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060214/38f6eaf3/attachment.htm From Amir_Katz at bmc.com Wed Feb 15 09:56:39 2006 From: Amir_Katz at bmc.com (Katz, Amir) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 10:56:39 +0200 Subject: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status Message-ID: Call SB a dead horse is a bit too strong. In Hebrew we have a saying, "do not change winning horses when you're going uphill". -- Amir _____ From: spambayes-bounces at python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Richard Hurt Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 11:27 To: spambayes at python.org Subject: Re: [Spambayes] SpamBayes Project Status Guys, I didn't mean to come down on SpamBayes, I just wanted to know if I was hitching my wagon to a dead horse. Everything is working great right now but if I have problems in the future it's comforting to know that the project is still alive and well. You might consider updating the SourceForge page a little bit and tell everyone that your still around and working toward v2 (or whatever). Thanks for all the hard work and for keeping my inbox managable! :) Later... Richard On 2/14/06, Tony Meyer < tameyer at ihug.co.nz > wrote: > What is the status of the SpamBayes project? I really love it and > I recommend it to everyone I talk to but it seems like it's getting > stale. The word you're looking for isn't "stale", it's "mature". <0.01 wink>. Give-me-more-time-in-the-day-and-I' ll-give-you-1.1a2-(with-apologies- to-tim)-ly, Tony Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060215/d56f4b63/attachment.htm From Amir_Katz at bmc.com Wed Feb 15 10:06:11 2006 From: Amir_Katz at bmc.com (Katz, Amir) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 11:06:11 +0200 Subject: [Spambayes] Messages avoid training with the proxy version Message-ID: I'm using SB at home with Thunderbird (TB), both latest versions, and I've recently noticed something really weird. 1. I start TB, click on 'Get mail' button 2. TB says '7 messages', then it goes on and downloads 7 messages. 3. Next I go to the 'review messages' page of SB proxy, and there I see only 3 untrained messages (some unsure, some ham, some spam). I do the training. 4. Next I go back to TB and I see that those missing messages ended right in my inbox (and they're usually spam, as I have filters that move most of my good e-mail to other folders). 5. The numbers 7 and 3 are just example, but this has been happening since I had to delete the database due to corruption. One possibly important piece for the puzzle: I am running Avast anti-virus that also filters incoming e-mails. Any idea what's wrong? Thanks Amir From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Wed Feb 15 20:11:04 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:11:04 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Messages avoid training with the proxy version In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <67942155-8468-4B1C-91A6-8E4E02941317@ihug.co.nz> > I'm using SB at home with Thunderbird (TB), both latest versions, and > I've recently noticed something really weird. > > 1. I start TB, click on 'Get mail' button > 2. TB says '7 messages', then it goes on and downloads 7 messages. > 3. Next I go to the 'review messages' page of SB proxy, and there I > see > only 3 untrained messages (some unsure, some ham, some spam). I do the > training. Have a look at one of the messages that doesn't end up on the review page, and see if it has an "X-Spambayes-Exception" header. It's possible that they are failing to parse (or something else is periodically wrong). A few days back, another user reported getting quite a few spam where SpamBayes would fail on: """ X-Spambayes-Exception: Traceback (most recent call last): . File "sb_server.pyc", line 498, in onRetr . File "spambayes\message.pyc", line 344, in setPayload . File "email\__init__.pyc", line 52, in message_from_string . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 75, in parsestr . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 64, in parse . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 240, in _parsebody . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 75, in parsestr . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 64, in parse . File "email\Parser.pyc", line 206, in _parsebody .BoundaryError: No terminating boundary and no trailing empty line """ The solution to this is for me to try harder to find time to get 1.1a2 out. 1.1 uses Python 2.4, which means version 3.0 of the email package. It handles any malformed message in such a way that we'll be able to keep going. Before that, we had to add all of the special cases like this one to the SpamBayes code itself. I could do that for this one, but getting that into a 1.0.5 seems less likely than getting 1.1a2 out. If it becomes a big problem for anyone, they can always run the 1.0.4 (or CVS) source with Python 2.4, and that would fix it. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From reevesartstudio at eircom.net Fri Feb 17 17:13:24 2006 From: reevesartstudio at eircom.net (Reeves Art Studio) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:13:24 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] hi, just a quick query Message-ID: <000001c633dd$14451ae0$0101a8c0@ras> Hi, I've been testing SpamBayes for a week or two, and I am impressed But can you tell me how to deal with a email that has been tagged as a possible spam threat ([spam?] in the subject line) but is a legitimate mail ... some plug-in's have a button to click to identity that a mail is legit, but I noticed that with spambayes there is only an option to identify a mail as spam. I cant find how to add it to my friendly list. Thanks in advance Liam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060217/b346d2b5/attachment.html From riksir at yachtsandcastle.com Sat Feb 18 13:30:05 2006 From: riksir at yachtsandcastle.com (rik and ann) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 08:30:05 -0400 Subject: [Spambayes] setting up with outlook express Message-ID: <000d01c63487$29ad4b50$cc051dac@rikann> When I set up spambayes to work with outlook express and my pop3 worldnet.att.net using the FAQ on spambayes, outlook express fails when I try to receive from att. enclosed is the set up for worldnet.att.net Thanks, rik To add a mail account for sending and receiving e-mail messages in Microsoft Outlook Express 5.x and 6.x: >From the Start menu, select Programs , and choose Outlook Express . The Microsoft Outlook Express window will appear. If using Microsoft Windows XP, then from the Start menu, choose Outlook Express . The Microsoft Outlook Express window will appear. >From the Tools menu, choose Accounts . The Internet Accounts window will appear. Select the Mail tab. Choose the Add button. In the Display Name field, enter the name that you would like to appear in your e-mail messages and choose the Next button. Note: An example is Joe Smith or Joe's Tire Shop . In the E-mail Address field, enter your AT&T Worldnet Service e-mail address and choose the Next button. Note: An example is wnguyz12345 at worldnet.att.net In the Incoming Mail (POP3) field, type ipostoffice.worldnet.att.net In the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) field, type imailhost.worldnet.att.net Choose the Next button. In the Account Name field, enter your AT&T Worldnet e-mail ID using all lowercase letters. Note: Your e-mail ID is everything before the @ symbol of your e-mail address. In the Password field, enter your AT&T Worldnet e-mail password. Note: The password is case-sensitive and will not be visible as you type it. Select the Remember Password option if you do not want to have to enter your password each time you check your e-mail. Choose the Next button and then choose the Finish button. Select the mail account you just created and then choose the Properties button. Select the Servers tab. Place a checkmark beside the My server requires authentication option. Choose the Settings button. Select the Log on using option. In the Account name field, enter your AT&T Worldnet e-mail address (not just your e-mail ID) using all lowercase letters. Note: An example is wnguyz12345 at worldnet.att.net In the Password field, enter your AT&T Worldnet e-mail password. Note: The password is case-sensitive and will not be visible as you type it. Place a checkmark beside the Remember password option. Choose the OK button. You will return to the Properties window. Select the Advanced tab. In the Outgoing mail (SMTP) field, type 465 Place a checkmark beside the This server requires a secure connection (SSL) option. In the Incoming mail (POP3) field, type 995 Place a checkmark beside the This server requires a secure connection (SSL) option. Choose the Apply button, choose the OK button, and then choose the Close button. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060218/0c8413a5/attachment.htm From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sat Feb 18 04:06:54 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:06:54 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] hi, just a quick query In-Reply-To: <000001c633dd$14451ae0$0101a8c0@ras> References: <000001c633dd$14451ae0$0101a8c0@ras> Message-ID: > I?ve been testing SpamBayes for a week or two, and I am impressed > > But can you tell me how to deal with a email that has been tagged as > > a possible spam threat ([spam?] in the subject line) but is a > legitimate mail ?.. It looks like you're using Outlook; is that correct? If so, you should be using the Outlook plug-in. In that case, simply find the message, select it, and click the "Recover from spam" button on the toolbar. > some plug-in?s have a button to click to identity that a mail is > legit, but I noticed > > that with spambayes there is only an option to identify a mail as > spam. I cant > > find how to add it to my friendly list. For the "Recover from Spam" button to appear, you have to be in either the unsure or spam folder. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From IRA.ELLMAN at asu.edu Sat Feb 18 18:25:51 2006 From: IRA.ELLMAN at asu.edu (Ira Ellman) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 10:25:51 -0700 Subject: [Spambayes] Report a bug link does not work Message-ID: <4FDDE481860E0C41865AEC77B674224265F38F@EX05.asurite.ad.asu.edu> I am using Windows XP, with all updates, and Outlook 2003. Spam Bayes had been installed and working with no problem. I have Binary version 1.0.4. Then problems arose and I attempted, after going through the instructions in the troubleshooting guide, to use the report a bug link. But that link would not work. Here is the problem I found: The "Delete As Spam" button ceased working. I thought Spam Bayes was otherwise working, so I followed those instructions in the troubleshooting guide, including eventually deletion of the "dat" file. The buttons were rebuilt but still did not work. It then occurred to me that actually Spam Bayes was not filtering either, at least it was not filtering as effectively as it did before, with a much higher proportion of messages in the suspects folder than the junk folder. I consulted the log file as indicated in the troubleshooting guide, and it appears to me that the log file is indeed reporting errors. E.g., here are two excerpts from the log file: 1. WARNING: Bayes database has 4240 messages, but training database has 4071 pythoncom error: Python error invoking COM method. 2. bsddb._db.DBRunRecoveryError: (-30982, 'DB_RUNRECOVERY: Fatal error, run database recovery -- fatal region error detected; run recovery') Moving and spam training message 'In debt you can get help today' - Training on message 'In debt you can get help today' in 'Ira Ellman/Junk Suspects - pythoncom error: Python error invoking COM method. Help would be appreciated! Thank you. Ira Mark Ellman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060218/dfe7e98e/attachment.html From webgota at webgota.com Sat Feb 18 23:56:13 2006 From: webgota at webgota.com (webgota at webgota.com) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 19:56:13 -0300 (GMT-03:00) Subject: [Spambayes] contact - business Message-ID: <40242894.1140303379828.JavaMail.Junior@webgota> My name is Carlos and I work for webgota.com internet solutions. Just to make new contacts, I'm sending this e-mail to tell you that I'm available for all kind of on-line and internet free lance and temp jobs (HTML, PHP, ASP, MySQL, SQL Server, Flash, JAVA, Javascript, VBScript, Delphi and also Banners, Advertisements, Designs, Logos, Adobe PDF Docs, etc...). I'm really good working against the time and I'm also on skype, so if your are too busy or have too much to do and a very short deadline, please count on me to help. Skype me anytime (really, anytime) and have one more skillful partner at your side. You can see my work at: www.webgota.com (samples on the "show room" section) Thank you, A. Carlos da Silva www.webgota.com ?skype: webgota webgota at webgota.com +55 16 39163589 ?(skype me anytime) From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sat Feb 18 23:23:44 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 11:23:44 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Report a bug link does not work In-Reply-To: <4FDDE481860E0C41865AEC77B674224265F38F@EX05.asurite.ad.asu.edu> References: <4FDDE481860E0C41865AEC77B674224265F38F@EX05.asurite.ad.asu.edu> Message-ID: <0442D677-D3D6-4C6C-9FC2-1F49C260C5E7@ihug.co.nz> > Then problems arose and I attempted, after going through the > instructions in the troubleshooting guide, to use the report a bug > link. But that link would not work. That link is to an anchor on the page (the "Report a bug" section at the end). If it's not working, then either the page hasn't completely loaded, or there is a problem with your browser. > 2. bsddb._db.DBRunRecoveryError: (-30982, 'DB_RUNRECOVERY: Fatal > error, run database recovery -- fatal region error detected; run > recovery') You need to rebuild your database. Either manually delete the database files, or use the "Training" tab, ensuring that the "Rebuild entire database" box is ticked. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From mmm at projectumbra.org Sun Feb 19 18:55:55 2006 From: mmm at projectumbra.org (Mike Miskulin) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 12:55:55 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] mysql and pgsql Message-ID: <43F8B12B.2030403@projectumbra.org> Hi, This probably should go to the devloper list, but I don't want to step on anyones toes. Having recently suffered db corruption and desiring to gain even minimal experience with pgsql and mysql I decided to give these options a go with a fresh db. Many hours I can note the following items - (perhaps some have already been fixed in the latest CVS). All items are reference to the 1.1a1 source on win XP with python 2.4 In the file storage.py there appear to be a number of issues: Around abouts line 550 within class mySQLClassifier(SQLClassifier) section, there is the line: elif info.startswith("pass") self.username = info[5:] this is in error, it should be self.password Around about line 454 in the class PGClassifier(SQLClassifier) section, all the code to gather the host,user,pass and db name are ommited, ie stuff like self.username = etc, basically the same stuff from the mySQL section That said, while I appear to now be ok (initially at least) with mySQL, attempts to use pgSQL still fail. The db is initially set up, but things fail about line 380 in storage.py when a message is trained, specifically with this: c.execute("select * from bayes" " where word=%s", (word,)) Additionally, through my bumbling about with all this and trying to retrain on messages, I was getting an error in classifier.py regarding division by zero, about line 320 where it calculates probability (forwhatever reason hamratio and spamratio were coming up 0). For my purposes I added a simple test to check for this before the calcuation which is probably a reasonable thing to have anyways. Lastly, can you add a line to your FAQ in regards the mySQL/pgSQL usuage and how to modifiy the bayescustomize.ini to handle username/password. I looked and looked forever until stumbling on an email from quite a while ago where the format was revealed. Er.. very lastly, for some reason I also needed to add psycopg to an environmental variable to get past an import error. This really baffled me (I'm not a python user until now) as I was able to type from a dos shell in the spambayes directory python and then import psycopg with no error message, et spambayes always failed. I'm sure this has to be related to my cluelessness about things python and spambayes :) Thanks again for all your hard work. I don't know if this is helpful or not, but would appreciate any feedback in regards the pgsql and spambayes. Cheers From spambayes at kleinfelter.com Mon Feb 20 04:00:45 2006 From: spambayes at kleinfelter.com (Kevin Kleinfelter) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 22:00:45 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Outlook Add-in vs. COM Message-ID: <2a049bae0602191900n7ad76282if0af865d55f96311@mail.gmail.com> With the Spambayes Outlook plug-in enabled, starting Outlook via COM and shutting down Outlook via COM leaves an outlook.exe process running on my machine. * If I start Outlook via the UI and exit via the UI, the outlook.exe process is gone after about 5 seconds. * If I disable the Spambayes Outlook plugin, and then start Outlook via COM and exit via COM, the outlook.exe process is gone after about 5 seconds. I have disabled all other Outlook plug-ins/add-ins. I have disabled my anti-virus email scanning. I have set my Outlook macro security level to low. None of these helps. The Spambayes log file, with log level 9 looks the same to me either way. I'd sure appreciate any pointers that would let me use both the Spambayes plug-in AND other apps that use OLE automation of Outlook. Outlook 2003 (11.8002.6568) SP2 Windows XP Pro SP2 Outlook configured with multiple POP3 accounts (no Exchange accounts) Spambayes Outlook Addin Binary Version 1.0.4 (March 2005) Here's sample COM code that should not leave an outlook.exe behind but does: ===================================== Set myolapp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application") Set mynamespace = myolapp.GetNameSpace("MAPI") Set myfolder = mynamespace.GetDefaultFolder(6) myfolder.Display Set myfolder = Nothing Set mynamespace = Nothing MsgBox "shutting down" Call myolapp.quit ' (removing this line does not change the behavior) Set myolapp = Nothing MsgBox "done" ================================== Here's the log: ========================================================= System verbosity set to 9 No old pickle file to migrate Dumping loaded configuration: [Experimental] timer_interval: 1000 timer_only_receive_folders: True timer_start_delay: 0 [Filter] enabled: True filter_now: False save_spam_info: True spam_action: Moved spam_folder_id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spam_mark_as_read: False spam_threshold: 90.0 timer_enabled: True timer_interval: 1.0 timer_only_receive_folders: True timer_start_delay: 2.0 unsure_action: Moved unsure_folder_id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unsure_mark_as_read: False unsure_threshold: 15.0 watch_folder_ids: [('0000000038A1BB1005E5101AA1BB08002B2A56C200006D737073742E646C6C00000000004E495441F9BFB80100AA0037D96E0000000043003A005C0044006F00630075006D0065006E0074007300200061006E0064002000530065007400740069006E00670073005C006B006500760069006E006B006C00650069006E00660065006C007400650072005C004C006F00630061006C002000530065007400740069006E00670073005C004100700070006C00690063006100740069006F006E00200044006100740061005C004D006900630072006F0073006F00660074005C004F00750074006C006F006F006B005C004F00750074006C006F006F006B002E007000730074000000', '00000000547355191FF6DA438D8C85A27916EF7F82800000')] watch_include_sub: False [Filter_Now] action_all: True folder_ids: [] include_sub: False only_unread: False only_unseen: False [General] data_directory: C:\Documents and Settings\kevin\Application Data\SpamBayes delete_as_spam_message_state: None field_score_name: Spam recover_from_spam_message_state: None verbose: 9 [Training] ham_folder_ids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ham_include_sub: False rebuild: True rescore: True spam_folder_ids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spam_include_sub: False train_manual_spam: True train_recovered_spam: True -- end of configuration -- Loaded bayes database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\kevin\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_bayes_database.db' Loaded message database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\kevin\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_message_database.db' Bayes database initialized with 0 spam and 0 good messages Loaded databases in 1.48427ms SpamBayes Outlook Addin Binary Version 1.0.4 (March 2005) starting (with engine SpamBayes Engine Version 0.3 (January 2004)) on Windows 5.1.2600 (Service Pack 2) using Python 2.3.5 (#62, Feb 8 2005, 16:23:02) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] Folder 'Personal Folders/Inbox' already has field 'Spam' SpamBayes: Watching (for filtering) in 'Personal Folders/Inbox' Folder 'Personal Folders/Inbox/bogus2' already has field 'Spam' SpamBayes: Watching (for incremental training) in 'Personal Folders/Inbox/bogus2' Folder 'Personal Folders/Junk Suspects' already has field 'Spam' Processing missed spam in folder 'Inbox' by starting a timer New message timer started - id=31043, delay=2000 OnBeforeFolderSwitch OnViewSwitch OnFolderSwitch OnActivate The timer with id=31043 fired The timer with id=31043 was stopped The new message timer found no new items, so is stopping OnClose SpamBayes - Disconnecting from Outlook Bayes database is not dirty - not writing SpamBayes has processed zero messages Addin terminating: 2 COM client and 2 COM servers exist. ========================================================= -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060219/56c9bf2f/attachment.htm From wwjd.dreamz at gmail.com Mon Feb 20 06:35:56 2006 From: wwjd.dreamz at gmail.com (Christopher Isaiah Fun) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 13:35:56 +0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Installation error + Script error In-Reply-To: References: <303ACB4B-A01D-41BA-B90F-82C39D637AAB@yahoo.co.uk> <69F0282C-9B7C-4C60-B381-9860DA083535@ihug.co.nz> <8DDCDA6C-BED5-45C8-A6C8-F086E719AAFF@yahoo.co.uk> <58BB8901-DCFF-4D39-AA04-7B5EB255D232@yahoo.co.uk> <61D7CC23-9D04-4A05-A8DD-41400378157D@ihug.co.nz> <55DD6D9C-FF1D-4E75-BA6F-CEFDF99DF63C@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: Hi, Was wondering how I can access the pickle database to see the probabilities attached to each word that's already in the database? Warmest Regards, Christopher Isaiah Fun ~ Faith is believing in God when life tells you otherwise. On 01 Feb 2006, at 4:13 AM, Tony Meyer wrote: >>>>> eventually, i need to combine this python script, get out the >>>>> number of ham and spam tokens, and pass this to a matlab code >>>>> which is converted into C++. i heard that it's actually >>>>> possible to "embed" C++ into python - have you done it before? >>>> >>>> Yes, but it would probably be much simpler to just call a Python >>>> script and read the output. Or if you're wanting to run C++ >>>> code in Python, then to call a compiled C++ application and read >>>> the output. >> >> meaning I'll do a python script to count the number of tokens and >> give the output? The only option I saw in options.py is to give >> the tokens used as the evidence. which one should i look into in >> order to find out the number of spam and ham tokens that were >> actually used? > > I meant you could use your own script. Something like (untested): > > --- > import sys > > from spambayes.storage import open_storage > from spambayes.tokenizer import tokenize > > # Open existing token database. > db = open_storage("db.name", "pickle", "r") # or "dbm", or "zodb", etc > > # Read the message from stdin, and tokenize and classify it. > message_text = sys.stdin.read() > all_tokens = tokenize(message_text) > classification, clues = db.spamprob(all_tokens, True) > > # Separate out the clues into ham & spam. > ham_clues = [clue for (clue, prob) in clues if prob <= 0.5] > spam_clues = [clue for (clue, prob) in clues if prob > 0.5] > > # Print out the results to stdout. > print len(ham_clues) > print len(spam_clues) > --- > > =Tony.Meyer > > -- > Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your > replies > (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. > http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. > > From wwjd.dreamz at gmail.com Mon Feb 20 11:38:43 2006 From: wwjd.dreamz at gmail.com (Christopher Isaiah Fun) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 18:38:43 +0800 Subject: [Spambayes] problem with which_database.py Message-ID: <74323829-C69E-4548-BD6F-B793907B6953@yahoo.co.uk> Hi there, I tried running which_database.py and got this compilation error: File "which_db.py", line 31, in ? import dbhash File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/dbhash.py", line 5, in ? import bsddb File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/bsddb/__init__.py", line 40, in ? import _bsddb ImportError: No module named _bsddb Have been trying to see which is my database file and so as to be able to access/read it. Trying to get at list of words of highest and lowest spam probability in the spam database. Anyone can help? Warmest Regards, Christopher Isaiah Fun ~ Faith is believing in God when life tells you otherwise. From mhammond at skippinet.com.au Mon Feb 20 12:00:23 2006 From: mhammond at skippinet.com.au (Mark Hammond) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 22:00:23 +1100 Subject: [Spambayes] Outlook Add-in vs. COM In-Reply-To: <2a049bae0602191900n7ad76282if0af865d55f96311@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Here's sample COM code that should not leave an outlook.exe behind but does: ... > Addin terminating: 2 COM client and 2 COM servers exist. I'm afraid the only advice I can offer you is to start looking that those remaining objects. Although that message is normal, it isn't ideal and may be the problem. If all python implemented objects were dead, then I'm afraid I'd be truly stumped! Mark From SCMORRIS at Marketing-Sales.com Mon Feb 20 18:02:15 2006 From: SCMORRIS at Marketing-Sales.com (SCMORRIS) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 12:02:15 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] two email accounts on same machine and same user Message-ID: The only email account that is being subjected to the filter is the default email account. The two accounts are synchronized. The machine is using Windows 2000; The version of Spambayes is the most current as it was downloaded three days ago (I cannot find out what it is). I do not know how to get the log files. We initially downloaded the software in the Administrator user profile and then followed the directions to include the user profile. The Administrator does not have any email accounts. Ernie Bivona -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060220/63010b0e/attachment.html From bldie49 at cox.net Mon Feb 20 21:16:17 2006 From: bldie49 at cox.net (bldie49 at cox.net) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 15:16:17 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Problem with POP3 Proxy: I would like to know what pic is in this email. I'm not sure who it is from Message-ID: <20060220201617.ZFAB20050.fed1rmmtao06.cox.net@bldie4u.ph.cox.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: SpamBayesServer1.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 219 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060220/c0125fe5/attachment.obj -------------- next part -------------- I am using SpamBayes POP3 Proxy Version 1.0.4 (March 2005) (binary), with version 2.3.5 (#62, Feb 8 2005, 16:23:02) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] of Python; my operating system is Windows 5.1.2600.2 (Service Pack 2). I have trained 111 ham and 915 spam. The problem I am having is [trying to figure out if this is a legal picture in this email or who it is from.] From skip at pobox.com Tue Feb 21 04:00:31 2006 From: skip at pobox.com (skip at pobox.com) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 21:00:31 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] mysql and pgsql In-Reply-To: <43F8B12B.2030403@projectumbra.org> References: <43F8B12B.2030403@projectumbra.org> Message-ID: <17402.33359.426187.561994@montanaro.dyndns.org> Mike> Around abouts line 550 within class mySQLClassifier(SQLClassifier) Mike> section, there is the line: Mike> elif info.startswith("pass") Mike> self.username = info[5:] Mike> this is in error, it should be self.password Thanks, I fixed this. In general, the MySQL and PostgreSQL code has always been more of demo than production code. I'm not sure how well any of it's been tested. Your experiences suggest that it has a ways to go. I believe I wrote one of the original SQL classifiers but haven't touched the code since writing it nearly three years ago. The lack of login code for the PGClassifier class probably stems from the fact that my database at the time was setup to not require any authentication. Can you put together a patch and submit it to SourceForge with any changes you've made to your copy of the code? Failing that, can you submit a bug report so we don't lose your inputs? -- Skip Montanaro - skip at pobox.com "The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over adversity." -- Jared Diamond in "Collapse" From dbreton at CAT.CA Tue Feb 21 14:33:47 2006 From: dbreton at CAT.CA (Dominique Breton) Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 08:33:47 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] info why messages don't move after clicking until I change folder Message-ID: <9B7A0CB795EE5544A749C6930C4F41A7010C5A30@webmail.cat.ca> You had that message in your questions but with info that you don't know why it happen. 5.7 Messages don't move after clicking until I change folder It's Windows Firewall that prevent the refresh when it's activated. Also, to give that problem, I'm pretty sure you also need a connection to an Exchange server. The reason I see is the Exchange server removed it and send the info to Outlook but since firewall is on, that info is stopped before getting to Outlook. When you move from a message to another one, it's Outlook who will retrieve stock from the server so it initiate the call so no problem with firewall (firewall will prevent stuff accessing your pc but not you to get stuff). Anyway, to resolve that, in Windows firewall, put an exception with file outlook.exe and it will help a lot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060221/2116a6c0/attachment.html From Rich at RBarger.com Tue Feb 21 22:00:56 2006 From: Rich at RBarger.com (Richard B Barger ABC APR) Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:00:56 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Message-ID: <43FB7F88.7DDE5A0D@RBarger.com> I've been a very pleased Spambayes user for a couple of years. Because we have a bunch of public business email addresses, I receive a huge volume of email, mostly spam. I've been delighted with Spambayes, so I wanted to describe what my local ISP, Skyway Networks, is doing that is like Spambayes On Steroids (I was a beta tester): The Skyway Anti-Spam approach -- actually a cluster of five servers that behave as a single system for redundancy -- filters everything from spam, worms/viruses, and phishing attacks, to Outlook/Outlook Express vulnerabilities, as well as protecting against a multitude of additional unsafe email content. Here's a brief overview of the process it goes through: - Before accepting a message, the system checks if the email address is valid. This protects against directory-harvesting attacks by spammers. - When the message is accepted, it is next checked for worms/viruses, using three different anti-virus programs. - Next, the message is checked for dangerous file attachments or Outlook/Outlook Express vulnerabilities. - Each email account holder's personal whitelist and blacklist is consulted to check whether the message matches. - Outside blacklists are checked to see if the message matches. - The characteristics of the message are then evaluated by thousands of rules known to detect spam. Each time a rule matches, a numeric score is assigned. When the score reaches at least 6, the message is considered to be spam. [This is the Spambayes-like part of the operation. Each night, the system reanalyzes the clues database, tossing once- or seldom-seen clues, and otherwise keeping the macro database fresh.] - Outside spam-tracking databases are consulted to determine if this message has been seen before. If it has, the numeric spam score is incremented accordingly. - If the message has a score of 6 or higher, or is identified as having a worm or banned file attachment, the system quarantines the message, and it is not delivered. - If the message passes all of the above tests, the mail scanning cluster passes the message on for normal delivery to the user's mail server. The entire process never takes more than a couple of minutes, even in busy times; most of the time, the delay is imperceptible. The system has an easy-to-use control panel that allows the user to review message contents in a safe environment, learn all the message clues, reclassify messages as ham and spam, just like Spambayes, and release messages from quarantine (if needed). Messages are color-coded by classification, and easily sortable, and the system maintains statistics. Since I've been using it on 09 Jan, the system has processed more than 52,000 messages. On my CornerBarPR.com account, only 6 percent of the messages are "clean"; on RBarger.com, 43 percent are clean. For those that slip through, I still use Spambayes POP3 Proxy Version 1.1a1 on my local computers, which works like a charm. I'm not trying to sell Skyway's services, but several folks on this list have wanted a Spambayes solution that has whitelists and other features, so I wanted to tell you my experience with what I'd call the next generation of anti-spam approaches. Keep up the good work! Rich Barger Kansas City, Missouri From bill.hely at helyholdings.com Wed Feb 22 06:29:50 2006 From: bill.hely at helyholdings.com (Bill Hely) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:29:50 +1000 Subject: [Spambayes] RBL check in front of SpamBayes? Message-ID: Any thoughts about having some sort of RBL-check vet the incoming mail against the RBLs before SpamBayes gets a look at it? I'm using the SpamBayes Outlook plug-in. After long use I'm still getting too much UNSURE stuff which is invariably straight spam. Seems the spammers are getting smarter with their message content. I haven't made any adjustments to SpamBayes' scoring and I can't afford to risk false positives. Any suggestions for a suitable RBL checking app? Something that doesn't do other spam scoring as well? TIA - Bill H. -- We take security very seriously. All outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. To boost YOUR security visit The Hacker's Nightmare: http://HackersNightmare.com. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.12/266 - Release Date: 21/02/2006 From vys0 at epf.pl Wed Feb 22 10:43:40 2006 From: vys0 at epf.pl (Piotr Budny) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 09:43:40 +0000 Subject: [Spambayes] Spam with images only ? Message-ID: <200602220943.40487.vys0@epf.pl> I wonder - lately I am getting lots of messages, that only cotain an image - which contains the whole message. Message usually has subject like this: fw: and no text inside (thus poor score possibility) Is there any way of teaching SBayes to recognise those as spam ? They are unsure usually. Thx in advance Peter -------------------- W polskim Internecie s? setki milion?w stron. My przekazujemy Tobie tylko najlepsze z nich! http://katalog.panoramainternetu.pl/ From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Wed Feb 22 10:36:08 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:36:08 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Spam with images only ? In-Reply-To: <200602220943.40487.vys0@epf.pl> References: <200602220943.40487.vys0@epf.pl> Message-ID: > I wonder - lately I am getting lots of messages, that only cotain > an image - > which contains the whole message. > Message usually has subject like this: > fw: > and no text inside (thus poor score possibility) > > Is there any way of teaching SBayes to recognise those as spam ? > They are > unsure usually. At the moment, the only tokens SpamBayes will generate for such messages are from the message headers. It's possible that this will be enough (with enough training) to learn to identify the messages as spam. I (and no-doubt others outside of the SpamBayes project) am working on improving tokenization of images. Unfortunately, while I have a bit more time to work on this than on getting a 1.1a2 release done, it's still not a lot. Hopefully, I'll be able to get something done that does appear to help, and have it as an experimental option in 1.1a2 (perhaps the end of next month). =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Wed Feb 22 10:40:17 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:40:17 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] RBL check in front of SpamBayes? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Any thoughts about having some sort of RBL-check vet the incoming > mail against the RBLs before SpamBayes gets a look at it? Most blacklist checks are really better done server-side, at the time of mail delivery. At that time, you have access to much more reliable information about where the email is coming from (after that time, you really only have whatever the spammer put in the email and a few headers added along the way). However, doing some DNS-based checks (e.g. SURBL) does appear to help. I have code that does various lookups, which at some point I'll get around to adding as an experimental option to the tokenizer (possibly only when messages are unsure, like the 'slurping' options, since these are pretty time-consuming). Some of the work on these was done in work-time, so I'll have to clear with that employer that it's ok to add it, but it should be ok. > I'm using the SpamBayes Outlook plug-in. After long use I'm still > getting too much UNSURE stuff which is invariably straight spam. If you send us the clues (SpamBayes->Show spam clues for this message) then we may be able to offer advice. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Wed Feb 22 10:43:06 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:43:06 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] info why messages don't move after clicking until I change folder In-Reply-To: <9B7A0CB795EE5544A749C6930C4F41A7010C5A30@webmail.cat.ca> References: <9B7A0CB795EE5544A749C6930C4F41A7010C5A30@webmail.cat.ca> Message-ID: <910D94BC-DBA4-402E-8B66-09EEED01C6B6@ihug.co.nz> > You had that message in your questions but with info that you don?t > know why it happen. > > 5.7 Messages don't move after clicking until I change folder > > It?s Windows Firewall that prevent the refresh when it?s activated. Unfortunately, that is not the case, or if it is, it's not the only one. I definitely saw this problem before upgrading to XP SP2, when I did not have any firewall software installed locally. > Anyway, to resolve that, in Windows firewall, put an exception with > file outlook.exe and it will help a lot. We have had many reports that this does not solve the problem. Thanks for the suggestion. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Wed Feb 22 10:44:05 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:44:05 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Problem with POP3 Proxy: I would like to know what pic is in this email. I'm not sure who it is from In-Reply-To: <20060220201617.ZFAB20050.fed1rmmtao06.cox.net@bldie4u.ph.cox.net> References: <20060220201617.ZFAB20050.fed1rmmtao06.cox.net@bldie4u.ph.cox.net> Message-ID: > The problem I am having is [trying to figure out if this is a legal > picture in this email or who it is from.] I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean. Could you please outline the problem you are having in more detail? =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Wed Feb 22 10:47:34 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:47:34 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] two email accounts on same machine and same user In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2142FED2-5616-4423-B14B-F561DD15EE37@ihug.co.nz> > The only email account that is being subjected to the filter is the > default email account. The two accounts are synchronized. > > The version of Spambayes is the most current as it was downloaded > three days ago (I cannot find out what it is). The page you downloaded it from (either spambayes.sourceforge.net/ windows.html or the sourceforge download page) has the version. It will be either 1.1a1 or 1.0.4. > I do not know how to get the log files. The troubleshooting guide explains this. You can get to the most recent log by doing SpamBayes->SpamBayes Manager->Advanced- >Diagnostics->View Log. All the logs are stored in your temp directory (I don't recall where that is on Windows 2000, but the troubleshooting guide has details). > We initially downloaded the software in the Administrator user > profile and then followed the directions to include the user > profile. The Administrator does not have any email accounts. There isn't a question or a description of a problem anywhere in your email, just a description of your setup. I presume there is a problem, since otherwise there wouldn't have been an email - could you tell us what it is? It would also help (probably; it depends what the question is) to know whether you're using the Outlook plug-in, or the POP3 proxy. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From oliver.marshall at g2support.com Wed Feb 22 11:38:18 2006 From: oliver.marshall at g2support.com (Oliver Marshall) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 10:38:18 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] wont open the outlook folder list Message-ID: Hi, I've installed SpamBayes on my new laptop, with outlook 2003. I have used spambayes for years and love it, and recommend it to all and sundry. I haven't had a problem before. In the manager, I want to set the "ham" folder and the "spam" folder to start the learning process (I keep a set of each as I have installed spambayes so often). However, clicking on the + by the Outlook Folders entry does nothing. Double clicking the Outlook Folder icon does nothing. No matter what I do, I cant get it to show me the list of Outlook folder so that I can tick the Ham and Spam folders. Its Outlook 2003, running in exchange mode against an Exchange 2000 server. This is my "normal" setup and the same setup works fine on my desktop. Is there a way to get any log info from spambayes to find out what the problem is ? Olly From oliver.marshall at g2support.com Wed Feb 22 12:15:45 2006 From: oliver.marshall at g2support.com (Oliver Marshall) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:15:45 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] wont open the outlook folder list Message-ID: Found the log file, heres the contents C:\Program Files\SpamBayes C:\Program Files\SpamBayes\lib\spambayes.modules\spambayes\languages Loaded bayes database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_bayes_database.db' Loaded message database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_message_database.db' Bayes database initialized with 0 spam and 0 good messages SpamBayes Outlook Addin Version 1.1a1 (April 2005) on Windows 5.1.2600 (Service Pack 2) using Python 2.4 (#60, Nov 30 2004, 11:49:19) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] Log created Wed Feb 22 07:55:26 2006 *** SpamBayes is NOT enabled, so will not filter incoming mail. *** FAILED to add the toolbar item 'SpamBayesCommand.Manager' - (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (0, None, None, None, 0, -2147467259), None) The above toolbar message is common - recreating the toolbar... Failed to open a message store for the FolderSelector dialog Exception details: (-2147024891, 'Access is denied.', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Saving configuration -> C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\Outlook.ini SpamBayes: Watching (for incremental training) in 'Mailbox - Oliver Marshall' Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Saving configuration -> C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\Outlook.ini Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Error finding the MAPI folders for a folder switch event ERROR: 'There appears to be a problem with the SpamBayes configuration\r\n\r\nPlease select the SpamBayes manager, and run the\r\nConfiguration Wizard to reconfigure the filter.' (this error has already been reported - not displaying it again) Traceback (most recent call last): File "addin.pyc", line 1179, in OnFolderSwitch File "msgstore.pyc", line 478, in __eq__ com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) From kleinfelter at gmail.com Wed Feb 22 15:15:10 2006 From: kleinfelter at gmail.com (Kevin Kleinfelter) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 09:15:10 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Getting the Version (was RE: two email accounts on same machine and same user) In-Reply-To: <2142FED2-5616-4423-B14B-F561DD15EE37@ihug.co.nz> Message-ID: <00bb01c637ba$6511ade0$ab7cf1cc@atl11xcl005> The Outlook add-in will tell you what version it is if you select "Check for new version" from the Spambayes toolbar. -----Original Message----- From: spambayes-bounces at python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Tony Meyer Sent: 2/22/2006 4:48 AM To: SCMORRIS at Marketing-Sales.com Cc: Ernie Bivona; spambayes at python.org Subject: Re: [Spambayes] two email accounts on same machine and same user [snip] > The version of Spambayes is the most current as it was downloaded > three days ago (I cannot find out what it is). The page you downloaded it from (either spambayes.sourceforge.net/ windows.html or the sourceforge download page) has the version. It will be either 1.1a1 or 1.0.4. [snip] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/c943d0bd/attachment.html From eapolinsky at polinskysantos.com Wed Feb 22 17:41:13 2006 From: eapolinsky at polinskysantos.com (Eric A. Polinsky) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:41:13 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) Message-ID: <4D3E4930E4E8A74AAC2D5541496036400A265B@server1.domaina.local> I can't figure out why Spambayes is not working. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program. The toolbar buttons do not work. In Outlook, I do not see Spambayes listed as an Add-In. Any help would be appreciated. This electronic communication from the law offices of POLINSKY, SANTOS, SIEGEL & POLINSKY, LLC. may be a confidential attorney client communication or may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure. The content is strictly intended for the addressee only. If you are not the addressee, please be informed that any disclosure, copy, distribution or use of the content of this message (including any attachments) is strictly prohibited. If you suspect that you have received this electronic message in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone or e-mail and immediately delete and/or destroy this communication and all attachments. Eric A. Polinsky Polinsky, Santos, Siegel & Polinsky, LLC 890 West Blvd. Hartford, CT 06105-4139 eapolinsky at polinskysantos.com (860)232-9959 Fax(860)-586-8557 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/b47a170f/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes4.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 61 bytes Desc: spambayes4.log Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/b47a170f/attachment.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes1.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 61 bytes Desc: spambayes1.log Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/b47a170f/attachment-0001.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes2.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 38 bytes Desc: spambayes2.log Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/b47a170f/attachment-0002.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes3.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 61 bytes Desc: spambayes3.log Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/b47a170f/attachment-0003.obj From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Wed Feb 22 18:52:49 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:52:49 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: <43FB7F88.7DDE5A0D@RBarger.com> Message-ID: On 21 Feb 2006 15:00:56 -0600, Richard B Barger wrote: > I've been a very pleased Spambayes user for a couple of years. > Because we have a bunch of public business email addresses, I receive > a huge volume of email, mostly spam. > > I've been delighted with Spambayes, so I wanted to describe what my > local ISP, Skyway Networks, is doing that is like Spambayes On > Steroids (I was a beta tester): This is a typical post-acceptance content analysis system. It is effective at keeping a lot of spam away from the user's mailbox, but it suffers from the same problems as most systems of it's type (see below). <...> > Here's a brief overview of the process it goes through: > > - Before accepting a message, the system checks if the email address > is valid. This protects against directory-harvesting attacks by > spammers. > - When the message is accepted, it is next checked for > worms/viruses, using three different anti-virus programs. Here is the basic problem with this approach that is common in this class of system. As long as the recipient envelope address is valid, the message is accepted for delivery and only _then_ processed to determine if it is spam. This is only one step beyond the old store-and-forward architectures in that it checks for a valid recipient before accepting. Since most incoming messages are spam today, the MTA is forced to silently discard most of what it accepts. This breaks most of the assumptions behind SMTP. Accepting a message for delivery means you accept the responsibility to do one of two things: deliver the message to the intended recipient or send a Delivery Status Notification (DSN or bounce) to the original sender so they know their mail was not delivered. Since spam usually has forged return-addresses, you can't send a DSN. Unless you know the return address is not a forgery, you shouldn't accept anything that you may not even attempt to deliver. Because no system can completely avoid false positives, the one thing you want to avoid is accepting mail for delivery and then silently discarding it. Unfortunately, under the duress of high spam loads, that is exactly what many older system designs do. The cost of the additional bandwidth and CPU usage has to be borne by the customers, so this approach is far from optimal. To avoid this, you do as many things as possible during the SMTP conversation, with an emphasis on rejecting messages at the envelope stage where you have expended a minimum of resources. This saves you bandwidth and avoids the high CPU load of content analysis tools like virus scanners, SpamAssassin, Pyzor and other techniques that you describe. For example, the IP-based DNSBL check should be done immediately upon request for the SMTP connection. Why even have a conversation with an MTA that is blacklisted? In the unusual event of a false positive, your sender knows immediately that their message was not delivered because they get a DSN, rather than assuming you received and ignored their message. Another reason for rejecting as much spam as possible rather than accepting and silently discarding it is that the spammers _know_ their message went undelivered. If a message is accepted, they know there is a minute chance that it will make it into a users inbox. That small probability is the basis of their business. The more MTA's that reject spam during SMTP, the worse their business model appears. They don't do this for fun, they need to make money. To do that, they have to get their messages accepted at recipient MTA's. A rejection says there is 0% chance the message will be seen by anyone. By employing a variety of rejection tools (i.e. DNSBL's for the connecting IP plus HELO name and rDNS heuristics), most of the load can be rejected during the envelope phase of SMTP. For the ones that make it past the envelope, it is still possible to do the remaining content checks during the DATA phase and make the sender wait before confirming acceptance with a 250 code. Many people argue that spammers often abuse pipelining and dump the whole message after the DATA command then disconnect, not waiting around for the acceptance. Any MTA behaving that way can be added to a local DNSBL so you don't talk to them next time. Similarly, there are a number of heuristics that can catch this type of spammer early: put in a delay after the connection request before you send the banner. Anyone who doesn't wait for the end of banner can be safely disconnected and blacklisted for the future. If you want to perform a public service, tarpit them instead of merely rejecting and blacklisting. That takes almost none of your resources and a lot of theirs, thereby reducing the amount of spam they can send out to others. A small number of well-placed tarpits can bring a large number of spamming MTA's to their knees and if they are trojaned Windows boxes, cause them to crash. Spambayes, like all other MUA solutions, is a tool of last resort. It happens to be among the best in its category, but it has to catch whatever spam your MTA fails to reject. The less spam it has to deal with, the less likely you are to ever see any of it. In addition, the less spam that your MTA accepts and silently rejects, the less the chance of silently discarding a wanted communication and the more spammers know their spew is not being delivered. It sounds like their implementation is well-done for its type, but it does not use best current practices. -- Seth Goodman From wsy at merl.com Wed Feb 22 19:20:48 2006 From: wsy at merl.com (Bill Y) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:20:48 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200602221820.k1MIKmUY031544@spoo.merl.com> From: "Seth Goodman" By employing a variety of rejection tools (i.e. DNSBL's for the connecting IP plus HELO name and rDNS heuristics), most of the load can be rejected during the envelope phase of SMTP. For the ones that make it past the envelope, it is still possible to do the remaining content checks during the DATA phase and make the sender wait before confirming acceptance with a 250 code. Many people argue that spammers often abuse pipelining and dump the whole message after the DATA command then disconnect, not waiting around for the acceptance. Any MTA behaving that way can be added to a local DNSBL so you don't talk to them next time. A problem is that with the rise of botnet armies, we're the majority of spam actually coming from bots, not "bulletproof" servers or open relays. That is, a majority of spam is identical spam (indicating it was sent at the behest of one individual), but was sent from a large number of different sources via different paths. In short, a "perfect" RBL (one that had 100% perfect input and propagated it at superluminal velocity) would still only get about 40% of the spammers. Similarly, there are a number of heuristics that can catch this type of spammer early: put in a delay after the connection request before you send the banner. Anyone who doesn't wait for the end of banner can be safely disconnected and blacklisted for the future. If you want to perform a public service, tarpit them instead of merely rejecting and blacklisting. I was under the impression that a pipelining MTA doesn't care what happens after the port opens successfully. In that case, tarpitting won't matter; they're not waiting for the ACK packets. It's all one big mess, if you ask me. :( Adding an answerback at the end of DATA (like three-phase commit) would have been a nice thing, but it's a little late for that. -Bill Yerazunis From leec at bazelon.org Wed Feb 22 22:24:55 2006 From: leec at bazelon.org (Lee Carty) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:24:55 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] toolbar stopped working Message-ID: I am using Windows XP and Outlook 2003, and just downloaded the latest version of SpamBayes (1.0.4) because I really like the program. But even before I did, the "Delete as Spam" command simply stopped working one day. I went through all the troubleshooting ideas and can't find anything to do about it. Attached is the latest log file, which seems full of surprised comments. I have moved a lot of spam manually to the "Junk Mail" folder, but I don't believe that trains SpamBayes about these emails. In fact, I've been wondering about its learning ability for a while because I continue to get messages with dozens of ???? in the subject line (and by now it ought to have filtered those out). I hope you can help, because I rely on SpamBayes, as do others in this office. Note that it is automatically filtering much email from my main inbox into "suspects" -just won't let me give it orders. Lee Carty Publications Director Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law 1101 15th Street NW, Suite 1212 Washington DC 20005 202-467-5730 ext 121 Fax: 202-223-0409 leec at bazelon.org www.bazelon.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/9b8b36af/attachment.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes1.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 3185 bytes Desc: spambayes1.log Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060222/9b8b36af/attachment.obj From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Thu Feb 23 00:27:27 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:27:27 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: <200602221820.k1MIKmUY031544@spoo.merl.com> Message-ID: On Wednesday, February 22, 2006 12:21 PM -0600, spambayes-bounces at python.org wrote: > From: "Seth Goodman" <...> > A problem is that with the rise of botnet armies, we're the majority > of spam actually coming from bots, not "bulletproof" servers or open > relays. That is, a majority of spam is identical spam (indicating it > was sent at the behest of one individual), but was sent from a large > number of different sources via different paths. In short, a > "perfect" RBL (one that had 100% perfect input and propagated it at > superluminal velocity) would still only get about 40% of the spammers. You're right that spammers now favor trojaned Windows machines for message delivery. Fortunately, the great majority of those are on dynamic IP's, while virtually no legitimate mailers are. You can use a dynamic IP RBL and/or a PERL regexp to weed those out. You can get well over 80% reduction with a combination of a couple of RBL's and some heuristics. That's before running a single instance of SpamAssassin. For the oddball dynamic IP from which you need to receive messages, add them to a whitelist. Static IP's that are repeat offenders tend to remain listed longer. If they are businesses, they usually do something about it quickly and avoid recurrences. If it is an elementary school in Korea with no sysadmin, they just may wind up blacklisted for a long time. Some people hate DNSBL's because they or someone they know has at one time or another been falsely listed (i.e. one of their own users mistakenly reports them). Or perhaps they were listed for cause and removed the spammer, but then had trouble getting delisted fast enough to suit them or had to pay a fine. Despite what some detractors would have you believe, a well-run MTA rarely winds up on a DNSBL. If you reject rather than discard, the sender knows immediately since it's a 5xx permanent error that should occur before any greylisting delay. > > Similarly, there are a number of heuristics that can catch this > > type of spammer early: put in a delay after the connection request > > before you send the banner. Anyone who doesn't wait for the end of > > banner can be safely disconnected and blacklisted for the future. > > If you want to perform a public service, tarpit them instead of > > merely rejecting and blacklisting. > > I was under the impression that a pipelining MTA doesn't care what > happens after the port opens successfully. In that case, tarpitting won't > matter; they're not waiting for the ACK packets. You're right, you can't tarpit an MTA that abuses pipelining the first time around. Once you detect that behavior, and many of them will fall for the delayed banner bait right at the beginning, there's no need to examine anything else sitting in the input buffer for that socket. Clear the buffer, add the IP to your local blacklist and either block or tarpit at their next connection attempt. Many of these hosts will make more than one connection attempt, and then you've got them. > It's all one big mess, if you ask me. :( If it were easy, there'd be no spam, but you can keep the great majority of it out. > Adding an answerback at the end of DATA (like three-phase commit) > would have been a nice thing, but it's a little late for that. You can accept or reject at the end of DATA and you are theoretically supposed to wait for the SMTP client to close the connection, so for sane MTA's, this amounts to a three-way handshake of sorts. Spammers may not wait around for your response, but a compliant MTA will return a non-delivery notice to the sender for rejections at the end of DATA and will hopefully return the error information you gave it. By rejecting at the end of DATA, you've completed your responsibilities under SMTP. If the sending MTA doesn't report the non-delivery to their user, that MTA is broken, not yours. -- Seth Goodman From wsy at merl.com Thu Feb 23 00:56:51 2006 From: wsy at merl.com (Bill Y) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:56:51 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200602222356.k1MNupIO001320@spoo.merl.com> From: "Seth Goodman" For the oddball dynamic IP from which you need to receive messages, add them to a whitelist. Therein lies the problem; a dynamic IP can't be whitelisted by IP address, only by name. Some people hate DNSBL's because they or someone they know has at one time or another been falsely listed (i.e. one of their own users mistakenly reports them). Or perhaps they were listed for cause and removed the spammer, but then had trouble getting delisted fast enough to suit them or had to pay a fine. Despite what some detractors would have you believe, a well-run MTA rarely winds up on a DNSBL. BTDT. I *personally* have been blacklisted. I know exactly what was on the wire that month... NOTHING. I was across the country in Los Angeles doing a TV show for a month and a half and the hardware was powered down. Nothing was whistling into the DSLAM at all. The reason (when I finally got in touch with the RBL admin) - "you are in a netblock that's assigned to home/SOHO DSL". And this was a relatively *reputable* RBL, mind you, not one of those that once you are blacklisted (because someone didn't like you) you must contact them to be removed - except you must contact them from the blacklisted IP address -which- guess what- is blocked from delivering mail. Sorry, I hate dictatorships, and my personal experience has run to indicate that RBLs are self-appointed tinhats of the first water. > Adding an answerback at the end of DATA (like three-phase commit) > would have been a nice thing, but it's a little late for that. You can accept or reject at the end of DATA and you are theoretically supposed to wait for the SMTP client to close the connection, so for sane MTA's, this amounts to a three-way handshake of sorts. Spammers may not wait around for your response, but a compliant MTA will return a non-delivery notice to the sender for rejections at the end of DATA and will hopefully return the error information you gave it. By rejecting at the end of DATA, you've completed your responsibilities under SMTP. If the sending MTA doesn't report the non-delivery to their user, that MTA is broken, not yours. True. But a three-phase commit would separate the pipeliners from the more legitimate types. -Bill Yerazunis -- Seth Goodman From petecu at westnet.com.au Thu Feb 23 02:59:29 2006 From: petecu at westnet.com.au (Pete C.) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 11:59:29 +1000 Subject: [Spambayes] Question Message-ID: <000501c6381c$c847db70$0301a8c0@terrygfgqm34up> Dear Spambayes, Have been using Spambayes with Outlook 2003 with great success but have had to re-install Outlook thus loosing the program. Trouble is that the "Delete as Spam" & the "Spambayes" buttons are still embedded on Outlooks Toolbar with no way of getting them off. If I re-install Spambayes, will I get a double set of buttons on the toolbar? Sorry if I'm a little computer illiterate. Please help. Regards, Pete. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060223/32c8e39e/attachment.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 2950 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060223/32c8e39e/attachment.jpe From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Thu Feb 23 04:33:03 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 21:33:03 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: <200602222356.k1MNupIO001320@spoo.merl.com> Message-ID: On Wednesday, February 22, 2006 5:57 PM -0600, Bill Y wrote: > > From: "Seth Goodman" > > > > For the oddball dynamic IP from which you need to receive > > messages, add them to a whitelist. > > Therein lies the problem; a dynamic IP can't be whitelisted by > IP address, only by name. If they are operating a mailer on a dynamic IP, they will hopefully have a domain name. It's an extra step, but you can configure your mailer to do rDNS on the domain name to get the whitelist IP. Another possibility is whitelisting by HELO name. > > Some people hate DNSBL's because they or someone they know has at > > one time or another been falsely listed (i.e. one of their own > > users mistakenly reports them). Or perhaps they were listed for > > cause and removed the spammer, but then had trouble getting > > delisted fast enough to suit them or had to pay a fine. Despite > > what some detractors would have you believe, a well-run MTA rarely > > winds up on a DNSBL. > > BTDT. > > I *personally* have been blacklisted. I know exactly what was on the > wire that month... NOTHING. I was across the country in Los Angeles > doing a TV show for a month and a half and the hardware was powered > down. Nothing was whistling into the DSLAM at all. > > The reason (when I finally got in touch with the RBL admin) - "you > are in a netblock that's assigned to home/SOHO DSL". That's a policy decision for each DNSBL. Some DNSBL's only list dynamic IP's and some other DNSBL's include those lists. Some DNSBL's list only IP's that have recently sent spam while others list only open relays. If using a DNSBL is part of your acceptance policy, it is very important that you understand their listing and delisting criteria and be aware of any other lists that they include. A lot of people don't want mail from dynamic IP's, which is why some DNSBL's list them. Except for hobby systems, there are very few legitimate mailers with dynamic IP's. With today's epidemic of trojaned Windows machines, rejecting connections from dynamic IP's is probably the single best anti-spam measure you can take. If you don't want to reject mail from dynamic IP's, don't use a DNSBL that includes them. > And this was a relatively *reputable* RBL, mind you, not one of those > that once you are blacklisted (because someone didn't like you) you > must contact them to be removed - except you must contact them from > the blacklisted IP address -which- guess what- is blocked from > delivering mail. > > Sorry, I hate dictatorships, and my personal experience has run to > indicate that RBLs are self-appointed tinhats of the first water. Very few people like dictatorships, except for the dictators :) I highly recommend that anyone who doesn't like DNSBL's for whatever reason not use them. Your mailer, your rules. This is something that reasonable people can disagree on. I will point out that a lot of systems use them with good results, which is why they continue to exist. Some of them were run by people with an axe to grind, and some probably still are. Others did a good job but were sued or DDoS'd out of existence by bad guys. I think it is very advisable for anyone who is considering to use a particular DNSBL to look at their policies and see if you agree with them. <...> > True. But a three-phase commit would separate the pipeliners from > the more legitimate types. This would be a real improvement to SMTP, but it has a lot of inertia at this point. -- Seth Goodman From netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Thu Feb 23 10:27:43 2006 From: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com (netsecurity at sound-by-design.com) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:27:43 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Message-ID: <20060223182801.78A2A1E403B@bag.python.org> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060223/201b8dd0/attachment.pot From rcoe at CambridgeMA.GOV Thu Feb 23 22:06:23 2006 From: rcoe at CambridgeMA.GOV (Coe, Bob) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 16:06:23 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Message-ID: <42393C9DA7930245AB540667607F4F5005BB18C4@SPIKE.city> Sorry, but I'm going to pour gasoline on this fire. I dislike spam too, but the idea that we have to strike back with all the algorithmic force of the mathematical universe is just nuts. Spammers haven't figured out how to disable the "Delete" key, and when one uses said key, the spam message disappears without a trace. I can't speak for the other countries represented on this list (Australia, France, Germany, the UK, etc.), but here in the USA paper junk mail is a far larger problem than spam is. I get at least ten pounds of it a week, and it all has to be physically disposed of in an environmentally satisfactory manner. In my part of the country they won't even let us start bonfires and burn it. If someone could figure a way to stop paper junk mail (or get our mealy-mouthed politicians to do it), he would have performed a real public service. But I think we're already spending more than enough resources on anti-spam measures and that anyone so spam-averse that he thinks an even greater effort is justified should get a life. Just my 2c worth. ;^) Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: spambayes-bounces at python.org > [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of > netsecurity at sound-by-design.com > Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 5:28 AM > To: spambayes at python.org > Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes > > > Frankly I am in agreement with Billy Y. I myself have gotten > black holed because someone on the same netblock sent a bunch > of spam. Getting off the list was impossible because I did > not control the netblock. It took over three months, and I > have a fixed IP! > > Rather than disruptive RBLs, if we did deep packet inspection > to find the forged HELO and other headers?and dumped them we > would be far ahead. > > While I don't run my own mail server, a friend who does says > that a sendmail script finds all the forged headers and > reports them as probable spam. He swears it is a default > install so he doesn't know exactly what part of sendmail does > the trick. > > Maybe someone with sendmail skills could see what is up with > it and incorporate it into the rest of SpamBayes as an > enhancement. If SpamBayes does it, then SpamAssassin will > copy it fairly soon. Since some hosting services are starting > to use SpamAssasssin on their servers this would be good for all. > > BTW, my hosting service uses SpamAssassin instead of > SpamBayes because of speed and server load. He says that he > ran tests and couldn't get the performance out of Python that > he needs to make it work well. Perhaps making a fast, light > CPU usage, runtime server version might be in order to investigate. > > Thanks, > > Allen > > > sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com wrote: > > On Wednesday, February 22, 2006 5:57 PM -0600, Bill Y wrote: > > > > > > From: "Seth Goodman" > > > > > > > > For the oddball dynamic IP from which you need to receive > > > > messages, add them to a whitelist. > > > > > > Therein lies the problem; a dynamic IP can't be whitelisted by IP > > > address, only by name. > > > > If they are operating a mailer on a dynamic IP, they will hopefully > > have > > > a domain name. It's an extra step, but you can configure > your mailer > > to > > > do rDNS on the domain name to get the whitelist IP. Another > > possibility > > > is whitelisting by HELO name. > > > > > > > > Some people hate DNSBL's because they or someone they > know has at > > > > one time or another been falsely listed (i.e. one of their own > > > > users mistakenly reports them). Or perhaps they > were listed for > > > > cause and removed the spammer, but then had trouble getting > > > > delisted fast enough to suit them or had to pay a > fine. Despite > > > > what some detractors would have you believe, a well-run MTA > > > > rarely winds up on a DNSBL. > > > > > > BTDT. > > > > > > I *personally* have been blacklisted. I know exactly what was on > > > the wire that month... NOTHING. I was across the country in Los > > > Angeles doing a TV show for a month and a half and the > hardware was > > > powered down. Nothing was whistling into the DSLAM at all. > > > > > > The reason (when I finally got in touch with the RBL > admin) - "you > > > are in a netblock that's assigned to home/SOHO DSL". > > > > That's a policy decision for each DNSBL. Some DNSBL's only list > > dynamic > > > IP's and some other DNSBL's include those lists. Some DNSBL's list > > only > > > IP's that have recently sent spam while others list only > open relays. > > If using a DNSBL is part of your acceptance policy, it is very > > important > > > that you understand their listing and delisting criteria > and be aware > > of > > > any other lists that they include. > > > > A lot of people don't want mail from dynamic IP's, which is > why some > > DNSBL's list them. Except for hobby systems, there are very few > > legitimate mailers with dynamic IP's. With today's epidemic of > > trojaned > > > Windows machines, rejecting connections from dynamic IP's > is probably > > the single best anti-spam measure you can take. If you > don't want to > > reject mail from dynamic IP's, don't use a DNSBL that includes them. > > > > > > > And this was a relatively *reputable* RBL, mind you, not one of > > > those that once you are blacklisted (because someone didn't like > > > you) you must contact them to be removed - except you > must contact > > > them from the blacklisted IP address -which- guess what- > is blocked > > > from delivering mail. > > > > > > Sorry, I hate dictatorships, and my personal experience > has run to > > > indicate that RBLs are self-appointed tinhats of the first water. > > > > Very few people like dictatorships, except for the dictators :) I > > highly recommend that anyone who doesn't like DNSBL's for whatever > > reason not use them. Your mailer, your rules. This > is something that > > reasonable people can disagree on. > > > > I will point out that a lot of systems use them with good results, > > which > > > is why they continue to exist. Some of them were run by > people with > > an axe to grind, and some probably still are. Others did a > good job > > but were sued or DDoS'd out of existence by bad guys. I > think it is > > very advisable for anyone who is considering to use a > particular DNSBL > > to look at their policies and see if you agree with them. > > > > > > <...> > > > > > True. But a three-phase commit would separate the > pipeliners from > > > the more legitimate types. > > > > This would be a real improvement to SMTP, but it has a lot > of inertia > > at > > > this point. > > > > -- > > Seth Goodman > > > > _______________________________________________ > > SpamBayes at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes > > Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html > > > > > From dreed at srdcorp.com Thu Feb 23 22:29:42 2006 From: dreed at srdcorp.com (Reed, David) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 16:29:42 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Message-ID: <699A49778F0E9C4BB1DBF3B3CD4020141024D3@corp-mail3.srdcorp.com> (Which is not to detract from what a wonderful piece of coding that SpamBayes is, mind you...it is. But in the grand scheme of things, REAL, paper, junk mail, is far more damaging and offensive, in my opinion. -David -----Original Message----- From: spambayes-bounces at python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Coe, Bob Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 4:06 PM To: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Cc: spambayes at python.org Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Sorry, but I'm going to pour gasoline on this fire. I dislike spam too, but the idea that we have to strike back with all the algorithmic force of the mathematical universe is just nuts. Spammers haven't figured out how to disable the "Delete" key, and when one uses said key, the spam message disappears without a trace. I can't speak for the other countries represented on this list (Australia, France, Germany, the UK, etc.), but here in the USA paper junk mail is a far larger problem than spam is. I get at least ten pounds of it a week, and it all has to be physically disposed of in an environmentally satisfactory manner. In my part of the country they won't even let us start bonfires and burn it. If someone could figure a way to stop paper junk mail (or get our mealy-mouthed politicians to do it), he would have performed a real public service. But I think we're already spending more than enough resources on anti-spam measures and that anyone so spam-averse that he thinks an even greater effort is justified should get a life. Just my 2c worth. ;^) Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: spambayes-bounces at python.org > [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of > netsecurity at sound-by-design.com > Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 5:28 AM > To: spambayes at python.org > Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes > > > Frankly I am in agreement with Billy Y. I myself have gotten > black holed because someone on the same netblock sent a bunch > of spam. Getting off the list was impossible because I did > not control the netblock. It took over three months, and I > have a fixed IP! > > Rather than disruptive RBLs, if we did deep packet inspection > to find the forged HELO and other headers?and dumped them we > would be far ahead. > > While I don't run my own mail server, a friend who does says > that a sendmail script finds all the forged headers and > reports them as probable spam. He swears it is a default > install so he doesn't know exactly what part of sendmail does > the trick. > > Maybe someone with sendmail skills could see what is up with > it and incorporate it into the rest of SpamBayes as an > enhancement. If SpamBayes does it, then SpamAssassin will > copy it fairly soon. Since some hosting services are starting > to use SpamAssasssin on their servers this would be good for all. > > BTW, my hosting service uses SpamAssassin instead of > SpamBayes because of speed and server load. He says that he > ran tests and couldn't get the performance out of Python that > he needs to make it work well. Perhaps making a fast, light > CPU usage, runtime server version might be in order to investigate. > > Thanks, > > Allen > > > sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com wrote: > > On Wednesday, February 22, 2006 5:57 PM -0600, Bill Y wrote: > > > > > > From: "Seth Goodman" > > > > > > > > For the oddball dynamic IP from which you need to receive > > > > messages, add them to a whitelist. > > > > > > Therein lies the problem; a dynamic IP can't be whitelisted by IP > > > address, only by name. > > > > If they are operating a mailer on a dynamic IP, they will hopefully > > have > > > a domain name. It's an extra step, but you can configure > your mailer > > to > > > do rDNS on the domain name to get the whitelist IP. Another > > possibility > > > is whitelisting by HELO name. > > > > > > > > Some people hate DNSBL's because they or someone they > know has at > > > > one time or another been falsely listed (i.e. one of their own > > > > users mistakenly reports them). Or perhaps they > were listed for > > > > cause and removed the spammer, but then had trouble getting > > > > delisted fast enough to suit them or had to pay a > fine. Despite > > > > what some detractors would have you believe, a well-run MTA > > > > rarely winds up on a DNSBL. > > > > > > BTDT. > > > > > > I *personally* have been blacklisted. I know exactly what was on > > > the wire that month... NOTHING. I was across the country in Los > > > Angeles doing a TV show for a month and a half and the > hardware was > > > powered down. Nothing was whistling into the DSLAM at all. > > > > > > The reason (when I finally got in touch with the RBL > admin) - "you > > > are in a netblock that's assigned to home/SOHO DSL". > > > > That's a policy decision for each DNSBL. Some DNSBL's only list > > dynamic > > > IP's and some other DNSBL's include those lists. Some DNSBL's list > > only > > > IP's that have recently sent spam while others list only > open relays. > > If using a DNSBL is part of your acceptance policy, it is very > > important > > > that you understand their listing and delisting criteria > and be aware > > of > > > any other lists that they include. > > > > A lot of people don't want mail from dynamic IP's, which is > why some > > DNSBL's list them. Except for hobby systems, there are very few > > legitimate mailers with dynamic IP's. With today's epidemic of > > trojaned > > > Windows machines, rejecting connections from dynamic IP's > is probably > > the single best anti-spam measure you can take. If you > don't want to > > reject mail from dynamic IP's, don't use a DNSBL that includes them. > > > > > > > And this was a relatively *reputable* RBL, mind you, not one of > > > those that once you are blacklisted (because someone didn't like > > > you) you must contact them to be removed - except you > must contact > > > them from the blacklisted IP address -which- guess what- > is blocked > > > from delivering mail. > > > > > > Sorry, I hate dictatorships, and my personal experience > has run to > > > indicate that RBLs are self-appointed tinhats of the first water. > > > > Very few people like dictatorships, except for the dictators :) I > > highly recommend that anyone who doesn't like DNSBL's for whatever > > reason not use them. Your mailer, your rules. This > is something that > > reasonable people can disagree on. > > > > I will point out that a lot of systems use them with good results, > > which > > > is why they continue to exist. Some of them were run by > people with > > an axe to grind, and some probably still are. Others did a > good job > > but were sued or DDoS'd out of existence by bad guys. I > think it is > > very advisable for anyone who is considering to use a > particular DNSBL > > to look at their policies and see if you agree with them. > > > > > > <...> > > > > > True. But a three-phase commit would separate the > pipeliners from > > > the more legitimate types. > > > > This would be a real improvement to SMTP, but it has a lot > of inertia > > at > > > this point. > > > > -- > > Seth Goodman > > > > _______________________________________________ > > SpamBayes at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes > > Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html > > > > > _______________________________________________ SpamBayes at python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html From dreed at srdcorp.com Thu Feb 23 22:28:12 2006 From: dreed at srdcorp.com (Reed, David) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 16:28:12 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Message-ID: <699A49778F0E9C4BB1DBF3B3CD4020141024D2@corp-mail3.srdcorp.com> I couldn't agree more. Here Here!!! -David -----Original Message----- From: spambayes-bounces at python.org [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Coe, Bob Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 4:06 PM To: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Cc: spambayes at python.org Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Sorry, but I'm going to pour gasoline on this fire. I dislike spam too, but the idea that we have to strike back with all the algorithmic force of the mathematical universe is just nuts. Spammers haven't figured out how to disable the "Delete" key, and when one uses said key, the spam message disappears without a trace. I can't speak for the other countries represented on this list (Australia, France, Germany, the UK, etc.), but here in the USA paper junk mail is a far larger problem than spam is. I get at least ten pounds of it a week, and it all has to be physically disposed of in an environmentally satisfactory manner. In my part of the country they won't even let us start bonfires and burn it. If someone could figure a way to stop paper junk mail (or get our mealy-mouthed politicians to do it), he would have performed a real public service. But I think we're already spending more than enough resources on anti-spam measures and that anyone so spam-averse that he thinks an even greater effort is justified should get a life. Just my 2c worth. ;^) Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: spambayes-bounces at python.org > [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of > netsecurity at sound-by-design.com > Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 5:28 AM > To: spambayes at python.org > Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes > > > Frankly I am in agreement with Billy Y. I myself have gotten > black holed because someone on the same netblock sent a bunch > of spam. Getting off the list was impossible because I did > not control the netblock. It took over three months, and I > have a fixed IP! > > Rather than disruptive RBLs, if we did deep packet inspection > to find the forged HELO and other headers?and dumped them we > would be far ahead. > > While I don't run my own mail server, a friend who does says > that a sendmail script finds all the forged headers and > reports them as probable spam. He swears it is a default > install so he doesn't know exactly what part of sendmail does > the trick. > > Maybe someone with sendmail skills could see what is up with > it and incorporate it into the rest of SpamBayes as an > enhancement. If SpamBayes does it, then SpamAssassin will > copy it fairly soon. Since some hosting services are starting > to use SpamAssasssin on their servers this would be good for all. > > BTW, my hosting service uses SpamAssassin instead of > SpamBayes because of speed and server load. He says that he > ran tests and couldn't get the performance out of Python that > he needs to make it work well. Perhaps making a fast, light > CPU usage, runtime server version might be in order to investigate. > > Thanks, > > Allen > > > sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com wrote: > > On Wednesday, February 22, 2006 5:57 PM -0600, Bill Y wrote: > > > > > > From: "Seth Goodman" > > > > > > > > For the oddball dynamic IP from which you need to receive > > > > messages, add them to a whitelist. > > > > > > Therein lies the problem; a dynamic IP can't be whitelisted by IP > > > address, only by name. > > > > If they are operating a mailer on a dynamic IP, they will hopefully > > have > > > a domain name. It's an extra step, but you can configure > your mailer > > to > > > do rDNS on the domain name to get the whitelist IP. Another > > possibility > > > is whitelisting by HELO name. > > > > > > > > Some people hate DNSBL's because they or someone they > know has at > > > > one time or another been falsely listed (i.e. one of their own > > > > users mistakenly reports them). Or perhaps they > were listed for > > > > cause and removed the spammer, but then had trouble getting > > > > delisted fast enough to suit them or had to pay a > fine. Despite > > > > what some detractors would have you believe, a well-run MTA > > > > rarely winds up on a DNSBL. > > > > > > BTDT. > > > > > > I *personally* have been blacklisted. I know exactly what was on > > > the wire that month... NOTHING. I was across the country in Los > > > Angeles doing a TV show for a month and a half and the > hardware was > > > powered down. Nothing was whistling into the DSLAM at all. > > > > > > The reason (when I finally got in touch with the RBL > admin) - "you > > > are in a netblock that's assigned to home/SOHO DSL". > > > > That's a policy decision for each DNSBL. Some DNSBL's only list > > dynamic > > > IP's and some other DNSBL's include those lists. Some DNSBL's list > > only > > > IP's that have recently sent spam while others list only > open relays. > > If using a DNSBL is part of your acceptance policy, it is very > > important > > > that you understand their listing and delisting criteria > and be aware > > of > > > any other lists that they include. > > > > A lot of people don't want mail from dynamic IP's, which is > why some > > DNSBL's list them. Except for hobby systems, there are very few > > legitimate mailers with dynamic IP's. With today's epidemic of > > trojaned > > > Windows machines, rejecting connections from dynamic IP's > is probably > > the single best anti-spam measure you can take. If you > don't want to > > reject mail from dynamic IP's, don't use a DNSBL that includes them. > > > > > > > And this was a relatively *reputable* RBL, mind you, not one of > > > those that once you are blacklisted (because someone didn't like > > > you) you must contact them to be removed - except you > must contact > > > them from the blacklisted IP address -which- guess what- > is blocked > > > from delivering mail. > > > > > > Sorry, I hate dictatorships, and my personal experience > has run to > > > indicate that RBLs are self-appointed tinhats of the first water. > > > > Very few people like dictatorships, except for the dictators :) I > > highly recommend that anyone who doesn't like DNSBL's for whatever > > reason not use them. Your mailer, your rules. This > is something that > > reasonable people can disagree on. > > > > I will point out that a lot of systems use them with good results, > > which > > > is why they continue to exist. Some of them were run by > people with > > an axe to grind, and some probably still are. Others did a > good job > > but were sued or DDoS'd out of existence by bad guys. I > think it is > > very advisable for anyone who is considering to use a > particular DNSBL > > to look at their policies and see if you agree with them. > > > > > > <...> > > > > > True. But a three-phase commit would separate the > pipeliners from > > > the more legitimate types. > > > > This would be a real improvement to SMTP, but it has a lot > of inertia > > at > > > this point. > > > > -- > > Seth Goodman > > > > _______________________________________________ > > SpamBayes at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes > > Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html > > > > > _______________________________________________ SpamBayes at python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Thu Feb 23 23:55:55 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 16:55:55 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: <20060223182801.78A2A1E403B@bag.python.org> Message-ID: On Thursday, February 23, 2006 10:28 AM -0600, netsecurity at sound-by-design.com wrote: > Frankly I am in agreement with Billy Y. I myself have gotten black > holed because someone on the same netblock sent a bunch of spam. > Getting off the list was impossible because I did not control the > netblock. It took over three months, and I have a fixed IP! There are plenty situations like this around and its very unfortunate when innocent third parties are affected. This is why DNSBL's are both loved and hated. It sounds like you were in what Paul Vixie called a "bad neighborhood" on the internet. Other people in your netblock were likely abusing outside networks and the provider was not cooperative in fixing the problem. He wound up with a netblock blackholed which affected all his customers. It's similar to a multi-unit in a big city neighborhood where there's a lot of drug dealing. Ideally, the police would catch the perpetrators and the problem would be solved. But the landlord is lax and continues to rent to people who conduct illegal activities and create a public nuisance. Eventually, it may get to the point where the city condemns the building and everyone in it loses their apartment. Some of the people were clearly innocent, but allowing the situation to continue was not a good option either. Whatever the police did, many people would be unhappy. Prosecuting the current perpetrators, and watching them quickly replaced with similar tenants would not satisfy the neighbors desire for a safe neighborhood. Seizing the building and throwing everybody out is clearly unfair to tenants who did nothing wrong. It's just a bad situation. Expanding the blacklisted netblock is a desperate move to put pressure on the netblock owner to fix the problem, much like condemning a building that has been a crack house and the police can't solve the problem. It is obviously controversial, but so is doing nothing. There is no good solution for individuals except to try and avoid moving into "bad neighborhoods". Paul Vixie's answer to this was "personal colocation", meaning run your own server in a low-cost facility that has a clean record. It doesn't have to be physically close to you or connected with your bandwidth provider in any way. This is obviously not for the majority of users, but it's good for some people. > Rather than disruptive RBLs, if we did deep packet inspection to find > the forged HELO and other headers and dumped them we would be far ahead. DNSBL's are controversial, especially among those who have been burned. I think it's useful to consider the whole situation to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater. DNSBL's are disruptive to a small group of innocent third parties, just like condemning crack houses is. The question is, does the use of DNSBL's in general provide something that is useful with an acceptable level of breakage? Many responsible mail system operators think so, and some don't. Spam is a problem for large systems because the cost of post-acceptance filtering is high. Unlike postal mail, this cost is borne by the recipient, not the sender. While MUA solutions like Spambayes do a wonderful job of classification, most large systems find that their users won't accept high volumes of spam coming in. While one solution is to promiscuously accept most everything that is sent, then run content filtering tools like SpamAssassin to catch the obvious, and finally MUA tools like Spambayes to catch the rest, the server side filtering is expensive. OTOH, users don't like enormous piles of spam for them to filter, putting pressure on email providers. Using a DNSBL is a very low-cost way of reducing the amount of spam by a large factor with little collateral damage. They do have their place. If you run a hobby system with a fixed bandwidth bill, then it's not much of an issue and Spambayes may be all you need. This doesn't scale well for large systems and doesn't meet users' expectations. > While I don't run my own mail server, a friend who does says that a > sendmail script finds all the forged headers and reports them as > probable spam. He swears it is a default install so he doesn't know > exactly what part of sendmail does the trick. There are a number of heuristics that you can apply during the beginning of the SMTP conversation that let you reject connections from some obviously bogus mailers. This is much harder to do after you've accepted the message and all you have are the message headers. This is possible to some extent (look at the SpamCop header analysis scripts) but not as effective as when you have the other MTA on the wire. > BTW, my hosting service uses SpamAssassin instead of SpamBayes > because of speed and server load. He says that he ran tests and > couldn't get the performance out of Python that he needs to make > it work well. Perhaps making a fast, light CPU usage, runtime > server version might be in order to investigate. Spambayes works so well because it distinguishes what each user considers spam. I don't know about the success anyone's had in using this technique across a population of users. The developers normally recommend against that. Running Spambayes on each user's mail with their own database on the MTA is an interesting idea. It still means you accept and filter all that junk, so as a large provider, you have to pay for both the bandwidth and processing time. -- Seth Goodman From netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Thu Feb 23 15:02:58 2006 From: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com (netsecurity at sound-by-design.com) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:2:58 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Message-ID: <20060223230513.B0EBA1E401C@bag.python.org> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060223/830668c5/attachment.pot From netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Thu Feb 23 15:10:03 2006 From: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com (netsecurity at sound-by-design.com) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:10:3 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes Message-ID: <20060223231012.59F781E4014@bag.python.org> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060223/eb114072/attachment.asc From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Fri Feb 24 00:34:56 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:34:56 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: <20060223230513.B0EBA1E401C@bag.python.org> Message-ID: On Thursday, February 23, 2006 3:01 PM -0600, netsecurity at sound-by-design.com wrote: > From this point of view it is my opinion that we'd all be better > off if the mail did not get delivered in the first place. This is > why I suggest that adding an additional layer of robustness might > prove useful. I agree with you, but with a caveat. If you run a SMTP server (incoming MTA), the responsibility you assume for every message you accept is that you will either deliver it to the final recipient or send a notice to the original sender explaining why it couldn't be delivered. Since spam has forged return addresses, it is not possible to send non-delivery notifications. Silently discarding mail that you've accepted breaks the assumptions behind SMTP and makes email less reliable for all of us. The answer is to reject, i.e. not accept in the first place, spam messages during the SMTP transaction. It is then the problem of the sending system as to what to do with the undeliverable message. If stuck with enough of these, they may actually be forced to clean up their act as to what _they_ accept for delivery. In any case, the key is in refusing to accept unwanted mail from the sending system, not accepting and then silently discarding it. While an individual user with Spambayes can glance at their spam folder and decide what to delete, nobody gets that chance when the server silently discards messages, and the sender isn't notified. In that case the system has simply failed and no one can find out why. Since the classifier that can avoid false positives has yet to be invented, it is very important to not silently delete suspected spam, especially at the server level. -- Seth Goodman From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Fri Feb 24 00:18:28 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:18:28 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: <699A49778F0E9C4BB1DBF3B3CD4020141024D3@corp-mail3.srdcorp.com> Message-ID: On Thursday, February 23, 2006 3:30 PM -0600, David Reed wrote: > (Which is not to detract from what a wonderful piece of coding that > SpamBayes is, mind you...it is. But in the grand scheme of things, > REAL, paper, junk mail, is far more damaging and offensive, in my > opinion. For the case of large email systems, I beg to differ. With postal mail, the sender pays the postage, while in email, the recipient pays. The recipient's cost is incoming bandwidth, processing time related infrastructure such as DNS and system engineering time. Since most incoming email today is spam, if you accept and filter all of it, spam is becoming the largest cost contributor of operating a mail system. Because so much spam is sent using hijacked resources, the sender pays virtually nothing for sending millions of messages. In aggregate, this cost of receiving and filtering spam by mail servers is paid by all recipients through higher internet connectivity fees. Where I live, junk postal mail goes into the recycle bin with other waste paper. Like many localities, our city does subsidize recycling costs, and mixed paper is not a money-maker. So junk postal mail does raise my local taxes to a small degree, but it doesn't have the nearly same impact as spam on the cost of internet connectivity. It would obviously help if the Post Office would adjust bulk-mailing rates and, get ready for a laugh, share some revenues with localities to dispose of the mountain of junk they deliver at bargain rates. This is in the same spirit as the WEEE directive passed by the European Parliament to deal with the disposal costs of used electronic equipment. Basically, the producer has to pay for that up front, and the same should be true for junk postal mail. -- Seth Goodman From Sanye.Dain2 at saugov.sa.gov.au Fri Feb 24 00:14:47 2006 From: Sanye.Dain2 at saugov.sa.gov.au (Sanye, Dain (DECS)) Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:44:47 +1030 Subject: [Spambayes] Using Spambayes to filter multiple users from one machine Message-ID: <339D55E542C3A14AAC832DF9C32E480D178B64@sagemsg0026.sagemsmrd01.sa.gov.au> My email account opens a dozen mailboxes from the users in our team. Within Spambayes Manager I can select multiple Inboxes to scan automatically from my account. Spambayes will happily scan the first five mailboxes, but then won't allow me to open up any further mailboxes to scan as well. I can also only scan 19 directories across the mailbox list. Is this a correctable issue, such that I can filter all my team members email directories using just my Spambayes configuration, or am I limited by the software to the above statistics and have to serialise the spambayes filtering through multiple machines?? Thx Dain. Dain Sany? Administrative & Technical Support Futures Connect: Youth Engagement Team Phone: (08) 8226 9934 Fax: (08) 8226 3120 Global Email: sanye.dain2 at saugov.sa.gov.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060224/7ae41e24/attachment-0001.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 58780 bytes Desc: image001.gif Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060224/7ae41e24/attachment-0001.gif From tim at aterraform.com Mon Feb 20 23:50:37 2006 From: tim at aterraform.com (Tim Stone) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 16:50:37 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Problem with POP3 Proxy: I would like to know what pic is in this email. I'm not sure who it is from In-Reply-To: <20060220201617.ZFAB20050.fed1rmmtao06.cox.net@bldie4u.ph.cox.net> References: <20060220201617.ZFAB20050.fed1rmmtao06.cox.net@bldie4u.ph.cox.net> Message-ID: <43FA47BD.1010604@aterraform.com> The message in your log is normal, and indicates that you haven't installed the spambayes server as a windows service. Provided everything is working as you expect, there shouldn't be any reason to worry about that message. bldie49 at cox.net wrote: >I am using SpamBayes POP3 Proxy Version 1.0.4 (March 2005) (binary), >with version 2.3.5 (#62, Feb 8 2005, 16:23:02) [MSC v.1200 32 bit >(Intel)] of Python; my operating system is Windows 5.1.2600.2 (Service >Pack 2). I have trained 111 ham and 915 spam. > >The problem I am having is [trying to figure out if this is a legal >picture in this email or who it is from.] > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >SpamBayes at python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes >Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Free Edition. >Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.11/264 - Release Date: 2/17/2006 > > From mzdorov at i.kiev.ua Fri Feb 24 23:12:19 2006 From: mzdorov at i.kiev.ua (Zhenya) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 00:12:19 +0200 Subject: [Spambayes] Asking for a help Message-ID: <655973762.20060225001219@i.kiev.ua> ????????????, spambayes. Dear friends! I address you from Ukraine! I am very interested in your programme but for better understanding of it I need all the information(instalation and further using) in Ukrainian or Russian. If you have any, please send it to me or give contacts where I can find it. All these information I need first of all for my diploma paper. If I write my diploma I will be able to acquaint all my mates with this programme. I need you programme for a practise part of my diploma, because the main topic of it is Bayesian networks. Thanks beforehand! Wait for you answer if any. -- ? ?????????, Zhenya mailto:mzdorov at i.kiev.ua From dwywit at bigpond.net.au Sat Feb 25 01:56:31 2006 From: dwywit at bigpond.net.au (Bernie Dwyer) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 10:56:31 +1000 Subject: [Spambayes] Spybot terminates 1.04 install Message-ID: Hi - I was attempting to install SpamBayes 1.04 from the current Australian PCUser magazine cover disc, and Spybot terminates the install immediately the first screen was displayed ("Welcome, this will install... please turn off, etc before proceeding"). This is WinXP Pro SP1 (including some of the SP2 patches) on an Intel P4. Spybot 1.4 identified the issue as WinFixer2005. I then went to the sourceforge site to download 1.04 and try again (just in case the PCUser disc was corrupted/infected) - same result. I found a copy of 00.81 and it installed without any problems (removed it afterwards). I updated Spybot's detection files & rules, but no good. There don't appear to be records in the Spybot report/log). Any ideas? If there's any more info you need, please let me know and I can forward screen dumps, etc. regards Bernie Dwyer ********************* -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 24/02/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 24/02/2006 From tameyer at ihug.co.nz Sat Feb 25 04:35:13 2006 From: tameyer at ihug.co.nz (Tony Meyer) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:35:13 +1300 Subject: [Spambayes] Spybot terminates 1.04 install In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Hi - I was attempting to install SpamBayes 1.04 from the current > Australian > PCUser magazine cover disc, and Spybot terminates the install > immediately > the first screen was displayed ("Welcome, this will install... > please turn > off, etc before proceeding"). > > This is WinXP Pro SP1 (including some of the SP2 patches) on an > Intel P4. > > Spybot 1.4 identified the issue as WinFixer2005. This is obviously a bug in Spybot. We are not able to do anything about this; you should contact Spybot informing them of the problem. =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this. From netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Sat Feb 25 07:04:03 2006 From: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com (Allen) Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 22:04:03 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43FFF353.8060709@sound-by-design.com> Seth Goodman wrote: > On Thursday, February 23, 2006 3:01 PM -0600, > netsecurity at sound-by-design.com wrote: > >> From this point of view it is my opinion that we'd all be better >> off if the mail did not get delivered in the first place. This is >> why I suggest that adding an additional layer of robustness might >> prove useful. > > I agree with you, but with a caveat. If you run a SMTP server (incoming > MTA), the responsibility you assume for every message you accept is that > you will either deliver it to the final recipient or send a notice to > the original sender explaining why it couldn't be delivered. Since spam > has forged return addresses, it is not possible to send non-delivery > notifications. Silently discarding mail that you've accepted breaks the > assumptions behind SMTP and makes email less reliable for all of us. > > The answer is to reject, i.e. not accept in the first place, spam > messages during the SMTP transaction. It is then the problem of the > sending system as to what to do with the undeliverable message. If > stuck with enough of these, they may actually be forced to clean up > their act as to what _they_ accept for delivery. In any case, the key > is in refusing to accept unwanted mail from the sending system, not > accepting and then silently discarding it. If routers on the backbone deleted messages with forged headers, then there would be a lot less for mail servers to do. Are router obligated to pass along all packets, both forged and malicious? > While an individual user with Spambayes can glance at their spam folder > and decide what to delete, nobody gets that chance when the server > silently discards messages, and the sender isn't notified. In that case > the system has simply failed and no one can find out why. Since the > classifier that can avoid false positives has yet to be invented, it is > very important to not silently delete suspected spam, especially at the > server level. The second point is about the obligation to deliver the mail regardless. To use the snail mail parallel, they have no obligation to deliver letter bombs, why should email servers be any different? Spam or "legitimate" mail that carries a hostile payload is in the same category as letter bombs. Dump 'em in a bucket of water then dispose of them in a way that does no harm. If you really wanted absolute delivery of every bit of mail regardless of source or content, then what do you do about routers along the way that get overloaded and dump masses of packets? According to some figures I've seen (I'm not sure I believe them myself) about 30% of all e-mail is never delivered. While I wouldn't put the figure this high I do know about 2-3% of my mail is never delivered and I'd say the incoming loss is in the same range. Best, Allen From netsecurity at sound-by-design.com Sat Feb 25 07:15:45 2006 From: netsecurity at sound-by-design.com (Allen) Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 22:15:45 -0800 Subject: [Spambayes] Spybot terminates 1.04 install In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43FFF611.9010405@sound-by-design.com> Actually it might be more specific than that. I have installed both Spybot and SpamBayes on XP machines of various levels of patch, for the most part without problems. I suspect there is a registry issue involved in this as the only time I ever had a problem was when I failed to clean and defrag the registry before installing. JV16's free Registry Cleaner can be found on the net. It is an older version, 4.43 I believe, but does the cleaning trick quite well. I've been using Fixit tools for the defrag for years but I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish this. After I did both, installation went just fine. BTW, I always put Spybot on a Windoze machine as the very first step to cleaning it up. Allen Tony Meyer wrote: >> Hi - I was attempting to install SpamBayes 1.04 from the current >> Australian >> PCUser magazine cover disc, and Spybot terminates the install >> immediately >> the first screen was displayed ("Welcome, this will install... >> please turn >> off, etc before proceeding"). >> >> This is WinXP Pro SP1 (including some of the SP2 patches) on an >> Intel P4. >> >> Spybot 1.4 identified the issue as WinFixer2005. > > This is obviously a bug in Spybot. We are not able to do anything > about this; you should contact Spybot informing them of the problem. > > =Tony.Meyer > From vwd at cox.net Sat Feb 25 15:38:32 2006 From: vwd at cox.net (Van Wade-Day) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 08:38:32 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) Message-ID: <000601c63a19$28f18c70$0100a8c0@meg> I have tried to find the answer to this question in Frequently Asked Questions but if it is there I missed it. I have accidentally declared a friend's email address as Spam. How do I get this address off the Spam list? thank you van -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060225/48c46585/attachment.html From tim at aterraform.com Sat Feb 25 18:58:59 2006 From: tim at aterraform.com (Tim Stone) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 11:58:59 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Asking for a help In-Reply-To: <655973762.20060225001219@i.kiev.ua> References: <655973762.20060225001219@i.kiev.ua> Message-ID: <44009AE3.9020709@aterraform.com> Unfortunately, this translation is not available. If you would like to contribute this translation to the project, that would be great! Zhenya wrote: >????????????, spambayes. > >Dear friends! >I address you from Ukraine! I am very interested in your programme but >for better understanding of it I need all the information(instalation >and further using) in Ukrainian or Russian. If you have any, please send it to me or give contacts >where I can find it. All these information I need first of all for my >diploma paper. If I write my diploma I will be able to acquaint all my >mates with this programme. I need you programme for a practise part of >my diploma, because the main topic of it is Bayesian networks. >Thanks beforehand! >Wait for you answer if any. > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Free Edition. >Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.0.0/268 - Release Date: 2/23/2006 > > From tim at aterraform.com Sat Feb 25 19:01:48 2006 From: tim at aterraform.com (Tim Stone) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 12:01:48 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Spybot terminates 1.04 install In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44009B8C.9060000@aterraform.com> Did you download the version of Spambayes that you were installing from spambayes.sourceforge.net? If not, please do so and try again. I suspect that the version you got had been corrupted. Bernie Dwyer wrote: >Hi - I was attempting to install SpamBayes 1.04 from the current Australian >PCUser magazine cover disc, and Spybot terminates the install immediately >the first screen was displayed ("Welcome, this will install... please turn >off, etc before proceeding"). > >This is WinXP Pro SP1 (including some of the SP2 patches) on an Intel P4. > >Spybot 1.4 identified the issue as WinFixer2005. > >I then went to the sourceforge site to download 1.04 and try again (just in >case the PCUser disc was corrupted/infected) - same result. > >I found a copy of 00.81 and it installed without any problems (removed it >afterwards). > >I updated Spybot's detection files & rules, but no good. There don't appear >to be records in the Spybot report/log). > >Any ideas? If there's any more info you need, please let me know and I can >forward screen dumps, etc. > >regards > > >Bernie Dwyer >********************* >-- >No virus found in this outgoing message. >Checked by AVG Free Edition. >Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 24/02/2006 > > > > > From tim at aterraform.com Sat Feb 25 19:04:27 2006 From: tim at aterraform.com (Tim Stone) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 12:04:27 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <000601c63a19$28f18c70$0100a8c0@meg> References: <000601c63a19$28f18c70$0100a8c0@meg> Message-ID: <44009C2B.7010902@aterraform.com> Spambayes does not keep lists of addresses that have been "declared" to be spammer addresses. I suspect having classified your friend's email as spam will have done little harm. Simply continue training ham and spam as you would and all will be well. Van Wade-Day wrote: > I have tried to find the answer to this question in Frequently Asked > Questions but if it is there I missed it. > I have accidentally declared a friend's email address as Spam. How do > I get this address off the Spam list? > > thank you > van > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >SpamBayes at python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes >Check the FAQ before asking: http://spambayes.sf.net/faq.html > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Free Edition. >Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 2/24/2006 > > From dwywit at bigpond.net.au Sun Feb 26 00:18:36 2006 From: dwywit at bigpond.net.au (Bernie Dwyer) Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 09:18:36 +1000 Subject: [Spambayes] SUMMARY Spybot terminates 1.04 install In-Reply-To: <44009B8C.9060000@aterraform.com> Message-ID: Tony Meyer: > This is obviously a bug in Spybot. We are not able to do anything > about this; you should contact Spybot informing them of the problem. > =Tony.Meyer I thought that was probably the case - no references from Google or sourceforge about these symptoms, and I'm unlikely to be the first to discover it :-) I thought it might be wise to check first. Allen: > Actually it might be more specific than that. I have installed both > Spybot and SpamBayes on XP machines of various levels of patch, for the > most part without problems. > I suspect there is a registry issue involved in this as the only time I > ever had a problem was when I failed to clean and defrag the registry > before installing. JV16's free Registry Cleaner can be found on the net. > It is an older version, 4.43 I believe, but does the cleaning trick > quite well. I've been using Fixit tools for the defrag for years but I'm > sure there are other ways to accomplish this. > After I did both, installation went just fine. > BTW, I always put Spybot on a Windoze machine as the very first step to > cleaning it up. > Allen Yep - AVG, Zonealarm, Spybot and Adaware for all my customers. Unless they insist on keeping Norton... I'll follow your advice about the registry and try again. Tim Stone: > Did you download the version of Spambayes that you were installing from > spambayes.sourceforge.net? If not, please do so and try again. I > suspect that the version you got had been corrupted. Yes, that's where I got the copy for the second attempt. Thanks for your quick reponses and help regards Bernie Dwyer ********************* -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 24/02/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 24/02/2006 From sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com Sun Feb 26 05:13:13 2006 From: sethg at GoodmanAssociates.com (Seth Goodman) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 22:13:13 -0600 Subject: [Spambayes] Beyond Spambayes In-Reply-To: <43FFF353.8060709@sound-by-design.com> Message-ID: On Saturday, February 25, 2006 12:04 AM -0600, Allen wrote: > Seth Goodman wrote: > > On Thursday, February 23, 2006 3:01 PM -0600, > > netsecurity at sound-by-design.com wrote: > > > > > From this point of view it is my opinion that we'd all be better > > > off if the mail did not get delivered in the first place. This is > > > why I suggest that adding an additional layer of robustness might > > > prove useful. > > > > I agree with you, but with a caveat. <...> > > The answer is to reject, i.e. not accept in the first place, spam > > messages during the SMTP transaction. <...> > > If routers on the backbone deleted messages with forged headers, then > there would be a lot less for mail servers to do. Are router obligated > to pass along all packets, both forged and malicious? Routers on large pipes are moving packets at wire speed, which means gigabits/second. They don't have the resources to do much besides figure out where to send each packet next. They cost hundreds of thousands of USD and they don't get replaced every other year. Keep in mind that these routers are not aware of protocols at a level as high as SMTP. They generally are concerned only about individual packets, unless the pipe is running ATM or frame relay, where the routers have to guarantee bandwidth for virtual circuits. Email is transmitted by SMTP, which in turn sits on top of TCP/IP. The packets making up a message therefore do not necessarily travel via the same route from source to destination, nor do they have to arrive in the correct order. Individual packets can have errors, and the recipient can request retransmission of bad packets at any point. There is no way that an individual router, which may only see some of the packets in a particular TCP transaction, possibly out of order and with errors, can determine what is going on. TCP is complicated and has long timeouts (minutes). A backbone router cannot afford to be very aware of TCP, and it has no chance of being able to deal with something like SMTP, which is layered on top of TCP. Even if each router did magically obtain orders of magnitude more CPU and memory at no cost, many of the authentication schemes available require that you have the entire message. This means the router becomes a SMTP relay. Now you have the problem that whomever owns the relay decides the policy for what mail to reject and what to deliver. That would probably be someone like AT&T, Sprint, Comcast, BT, the government of the PRC, etc. Need I say more? <...> > > Since the classifier that can avoid false positives has yet > > to be invented, it is very important to not silently delete > > suspected spam, especially at the server level. > > The second point is about the obligation to deliver the mail > regardless. To use the snail mail parallel, they have no obligation > to deliver letter bombs, why should email servers be any different? Because a parcel in snail mail travels in one piece, it is relatively easy to X-ray it and analyze the image to determine if it contains a bomb. An SMTP email transaction consists of dozens of TCP packets that can take different routes, arrive out of order and have errors in some packets. Examining an email in transit is virtually impossible. Even if it were, who is going to be the universal arbiter of what is spam? > Spam or "legitimate" mail that carries a hostile payload is in the > same category as letter bombs. Dump 'em in a bucket of water then > dispose of them in a way that does no harm. If that were practical, we wouldn't have spam. > If you really wanted absolute delivery of every bit of mail regardless > of source or content, then what do you do about routers along the way > that get overloaded and dump masses of packets? Since the SMTP session runs over TCP, the recipient will request retransmission of bad or missing packets. TCP is designed so that the recipient can detect either of these conditions. The internet was designed for survivability, not efficiency. The one thing that TCP, combined with the routing protocols, does very well is to complete transactions. It may take a long time and the packets may travel a circuitous path, but if there is any route to reach a node, the system will find it. Even temporary outages don't affect final delivery. Most reasonably configured MTA's queue temporary delivery failures for retransmission at regular intervals for up to five days. > According to some figures I've seen (I'm not sure I believe them > myself) about 30% of all e-mail is never delivered. That would probably include mail that can't be delivered due to addressing problems, and a lot of that is spam. > While I wouldn't put the figure this high I do know about 2-3% of > my mail is never delivered and I'd say the incoming loss is in the > same range. I'd suggest that you look for a new provider. This would make doing business via email virtually impossible, and something I would surely have noticed over the years. I don't know about the situation in other countries, but my guess is that in the U.S., it's far less than that. The only real reason for a message not getting delivered without a DSN showing up at the sender is either a server-side spam filter that silently deletes the message, or a badly misconfigured MTA (I would argue the former is a subset of the latter). That would only create a problem at a specific site and is not general to email delivery. If you are experiencing 2-3% incoming and outgoing non-delivery without appropriate notification, it sounds like your provider has a badly configured MTA. -- Seth Goodman From AGera72360 at aol.com Mon Feb 27 07:06:21 2006 From: AGera72360 at aol.com (AGera72360 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 01:06:21 EST Subject: [Spambayes] retrieving a deleted spam e-mail Message-ID: <9d.71bd2b7c.3133f0dd@aol.com> How do I retrieve deleted mail from the Spam folder? While checking my Spam folder, I accidentally click on the delete all button when I intend to click on delete for one item. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060227/29b58777/attachment.htm From oliver.marshall at g2support.com Mon Feb 27 10:11:55 2006 From: oliver.marshall at g2support.com (Oliver Marshall) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 09:11:55 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] not displaying mailbox folders Message-ID: Hi, I have two folders, one with spam and one with ham, with which I want to train spambayes. Thing is, in the SpamBayes configuration wizard, when I click on the + by the name of my mailbox, it doesn't display anything. It should give me a list of all my outlook folders, but it doesn't. Im using Outlook 2003 with an Exchange mail server. Does anyone know why spam-bayes refuses to display my mailbox folders ? Heres my log file. C:\Program Files\SpamBayes C:\Program Files\SpamBayes\lib\spambayes.modules\spambayes\languages Loaded bayes database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_bayes_database.db' Loaded message database from 'C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\default_message_database.db' Bayes database initialized with 0 spam and 0 good messages SpamBayes Outlook Addin Version 1.1a1 (April 2005) on Windows 5.1.2600 (Service Pack 2) using Python 2.4 (#60, Nov 30 2004, 11:49:19) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] Log created Mon Feb 27 09:09:25 2006 *** SpamBayes is NOT enabled, so will not filter incoming mail. *** FAILED to add the toolbar item 'SpamBayesCommand.Manager' - (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (0, None, None, None, 0, -2147467259), None) The above toolbar message is common - recreating the toolbar... Saving configuration -> C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\Outlook.ini Dumping configuration to save: [Experimental] timer_interval: 1000 timer_only_receive_folders: True timer_start_delay: 0 [Filter] enabled: False filter_now: False ham_action: Untouched ham_folder_id: ham_mark_as_read: False save_spam_info: True spam_action: Moved spam_folder_id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spam_mark_as_read: False spam_threshold: 90.0 timer_enabled: True timer_interval: 1.0 timer_only_receive_folders: True timer_start_delay: 2.0 unsure_action: Moved unsure_folder_id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unsure_mark_as_read: False unsure_threshold: 15.0 watch_folder_ids: [] watch_include_sub: False [Filter_Now] action_all: True folder_ids: [] include_sub: False only_unread: False only_unseen: False [General] data_directory: delete_as_spam_message_state: None field_score_name: Spam recover_from_spam_message_state: None verbose: 9 [Notification] notify_accumulate_delay: 10.0 notify_ham_sound: notify_sound_enabled: False notify_spam_sound: notify_unsure_sound: [Training] ham_folder_ids: [] ham_include_sub: False rebuild: True rescore: True spam_folder_ids: [] spam_include_sub: False train_manual_spam: True train_recovered_spam: True -- end of configuration -- Folder 'Mailbox - Oliver Marshall/Junk E-mail' already has field 'Spam' SpamBayes: Watching (for incremental training) in 'Mailbox - Oliver Marshall/Junk E-mail' Folder 'Mailbox - Oliver Marshall/Junk Suspects' already has field 'Spam' OnActivate ERROR enumerating a receive folder - (-2147221246, 'Invalid window handle', None, None) ERROR enumerating a receive folder - (-2147164406, 'OLE error 0x8004df0a', None, None) Ignoring OnCommand for 65535 GetNextPage with current 0 IDD_WIZARD_WELCOME Failed to open a message store for the FolderSelector dialog Exception details: (-2147221231, 'ClassFactory cannot supply requested class', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) Python WNDPROC handler failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 707, in OnNotify File "dialogs\FolderSelector.pyc", line 87, in _BuildFoldersMAPI pywintypes.com_error: (-2147467259, 'Unspecified error', None, None) OnActivate Cancelling wizard Saving configuration -> C:\Documents and Settings\Olly\Application Data\SpamBayes\Outlook.ini Dumping configuration to save: [Experimental] timer_interval: 1000 timer_only_receive_folders: True timer_start_delay: 0 [Filter] enabled: False filter_now: False ham_action: Untouched ham_folder_id: ham_mark_as_read: False save_spam_info: True spam_action: Moved spam_folder_id: ('0000000038A1BB1005E5101AA1BB08002B2A56C20000454D534D44422E444C4C000000 00000000001B55FA20AA6611CD9BC800AA002FC45A0C00000053414D534F4E002F4F3D53 4B494C4C53454152434820434F4D505554494E47204C54442F4F553D4351444F4D41494E 2F434E3D524543495049454E54532F434E3D4F4C495645524D00D83521F3970000000100 000014000000630000002F4F3D536B696C6C73656172636820436F6D707574696E67204C 74642F4F553D4351444F4D41494E2F636E3D436F6E66696775726174696F6E2F636E3D53 6572766572732F636E3D53414D534F4E00730061006D0073006F006E002E0073006B0069 006C006C007300650061007200630068002E0063006F002E0075006B0000000000', '00000000B97E4D5D2E9A0B409FA2D7D45111C9090100F9D2BC45FB86C14A96864886B5E 70D3D0000007CBA250000') spam_mark_as_read: False spam_threshold: 90.0 timer_enabled: True timer_interval: 1.0 timer_only_receive_folders: True timer_start_delay: 2.0 unsure_action: Moved unsure_folder_id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unsure_mark_as_read: False unsure_threshold: 15.0 watch_folder_ids: [] watch_include_sub: False [Filter_Now] action_all: True folder_ids: [] include_sub: False only_unread: False only_unseen: False [General] data_directory: delete_as_spam_message_state: None field_score_name: Spam recover_from_spam_message_state: None verbose: 9 [Notification] notify_accumulate_delay: 10.0 notify_ham_sound: notify_sound_enabled: False notify_spam_sound: notify_unsure_sound: [Training] ham_folder_ids: [] ham_include_sub: False rebuild: True rescore: True spam_folder_ids: [] spam_include_sub: False train_manual_spam: True train_recovered_spam: True -- end of configuration -- Folder 'Mailbox - Oliver Marshall' already has field 'Spam' SpamBayes: Watching (for incremental training) in 'Mailbox - Oliver Marshall' Folder 'Mailbox - Oliver Marshall' already has field 'Spam' From billb at mousa.uk.com Mon Feb 27 08:54:15 2006 From: billb at mousa.uk.com (Bill Bedford) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 07:54:15 +0000 Subject: [Spambayes] socket.error:(24, 'Too many open files' Message-ID: <20060227075415.861687.96572740@mousa.uk.com> I've recently upgraded my system from Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.3.9 and since then I have been having problems with Spambayes crashing. I suspect that this is caused by something wrong with the system rather than Spambayes itself. Can anyone point me to a solution? error: uncaptured python exception, closing channel <__main__.BayesProxyListener listening :8110 at 0x5f4558> (socket.error:(24, 'Too many open files') [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py|read|69] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py|handle_read_event|385] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages/spambayes/Dibbler.py|handle_accept|293] [sb_server.py|__init__|449] [sb_server.py|__init__|270] [sb_server.py|__init__|151] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py|create_socket|258] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/socket.py|__init__|156]) error: uncaptured python exception, closing channel <__main__.BayesProxy connected 127.0.0.1:51468 at 0x2069800> (exceptions.AttributeError:'_socketobject' object has no attribute 'isClosed' [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py|read|69] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py|handle_read_event|391] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asynchat.py|handle_read|89] [sb_server.py|recv|472] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py|recv|347] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asynchat.py|handle_close|156] [sb_server.py|close|480] [/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py|__getattr__|366]) Traceback (most recent call last): File "sb_server.py", line 1096, in ? run() File "sb_server.py", line 1090, in run start() File "sb_server.py", line 1025, in start main(state.servers, state.proxyPorts, state.uiPort, state.launchUI) File "sb_server.py", line 1005, in main Dibbler.run(launchBrowser=launchUI) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages/spambayes/Dibbler.py", line 727, in run asyncore.loop(map=context._map) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py", line 192, in loop poll_fun(timeout, map) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py", line 133, in poll read(obj) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py", line 73, in read obj.handle_error() File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages/spambayes/Dibbler.py", line 213, in handle_error asynchat.async_chat.handle_error(self) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py", line 421, in handle_error self.close() File "sb_server.py", line 480, in close if not self.isClosed: File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/asyncore.py", line 366, in __getattr__ return getattr(self.socket, attr) AttributeError: '_socketobject' object has no attribute 'isClosed' logout [Process completed] -- Bill Bedford "Nothing is as important as model railways and even that isn't very important" -some wiseguy somewhere From julianandlaura at blueyonder.co.uk Mon Feb 27 22:01:13 2006 From: julianandlaura at blueyonder.co.uk (jules) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 21:01:13 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) Message-ID: <000c01c63be0$f1cc9ef0$17cc2052@julianh> hello -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060227/1345466b/attachment.html From julianandlaura at blueyonder.co.uk Mon Feb 27 22:01:16 2006 From: julianandlaura at blueyonder.co.uk (jules) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 21:01:16 -0000 Subject: [Spambayes] (no subject) Message-ID: <001001c63be0$f32c2ef0$17cc2052@julianh> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060227/17fd2128/attachment.htm From mzdorov at i.kiev.ua Tue Feb 28 07:38:08 2006 From: mzdorov at i.kiev.ua (Zhenya) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 08:38:08 +0200 Subject: [Spambayes] Asking for a help Message-ID: <889641601.20060228083808@i.kiev.ua> ????????????, spambayes. First, I want to thank you for answering me, but information you gave us is not enough for my diploma paper. I am very interested in wider information on several questions: 1. How does the Spambayes system work with the using of Bayestian networks? 2. Where we can get full version of your programme? 3. Detailed (step-by-step)information about setting. 4. How to configure your programme? And also if you have tables or graphics please send it to me. Thanks beforehand. -- ? ?????????, Zhenya mailto:mzdorov at i.kiev.ua From jbinkley at lancasterlibraries.org Tue Feb 28 18:31:06 2006 From: jbinkley at lancasterlibraries.org (Jordan Binkley) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 12:31:06 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] log files Message-ID: <200602281234312.SM01344@LENOVO> Version is spambayes-1.0.4 Attached is the log files... Sorry I forgot to include this information... -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes1.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 766 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060228/e78aebc9/attachment.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes2.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1532 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060228/e78aebc9/attachment-0001.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes3.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 393 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060228/e78aebc9/attachment-0002.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spambayes4.log Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1532 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060228/e78aebc9/attachment-0003.obj From jbinkley at lancasterlibraries.org Tue Feb 28 18:25:55 2006 From: jbinkley at lancasterlibraries.org (Jordan Binkley) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 12:25:55 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] install issue Message-ID: <200602281229890.SM01344@LENOVO> I am trying to get spam bayes working with a outlook 2000 computer. I can install it with no problems. When I start outlook spambayes dose not pop up. So I go into tools, options, other, advanced and com adds in. I point it out to the proper plug in but when I click ok it does not take effect. She has full control in the spambayes folder. I also uninstalled and reinstalled it numerous times. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] From mzdorov at i.kiev.ua Tue Feb 28 22:00:18 2006 From: mzdorov at i.kiev.ua (mzdorov at i.kiev.ua) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 23:00:18 +0200 Subject: [Spambayes] Asking for a help Message-ID: Wre agree to destribute the Ukrainian translation but at first you should help us i.e. give us all necessary information for my diploma paper in English and if it's possible with tables and pictures, than I'll translate it into Russian/Ukrainian and destribute to you : 1. How does the Spambayes system work with the using of Bayestian networks? 2. Where we can get full version of your programme? 3. Detailed (step-by-step)information about setting. 4. How to configure your programme? From Brian.Piltin at jerhel.net Tue Feb 28 22:07:08 2006 From: Brian.Piltin at jerhel.net (Brian Piltin) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 16:07:08 -0500 Subject: [Spambayes] Thwarting SPAM that only contains an image... Message-ID: Hi All, I am new to this list and I haven't been able to figure out how to read past archives so I don't know if this issue has been addressed but here goes... I really love this program and thank all of the developers for doing such a great job. I've recently noticed that more and more spam is coming in the form of a single image with all of the text rendered within this image. It seems as if Spambayes has a difficult time categorizing messages like this one as spam. Is there a solution for this? I also noticed that my confirmation for this mailing list went straight into my junk email box. Not even a suspect! Just a note... Thanks, Brian Piltin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20060228/54172258/attachment.htm