oheso
11-06-2009, 11:38 PM
I'm typically not too upset by spam, but it became more annoying when I started using my cell phone to read my mail (because I'm more likely to be interrupted from some non-computer task, only to find a spam message).
It's been pretty clear for a while that SpamAssassin is doing a very poor job generally. Replica watches and enhancement products come through with a score of 0 or 0.1.
After thinking about it for a while, I came up with a solution that works for me(1). I've been using it for about three weeks now and it's great. I call it my "three tier solution."
First, I have three mailboxes: main@example.com, no2@example.com and junk@example.com (for the purposes of illustration -- not my real mailboxes obviously). The one I'm interested in is main@example.com, and mostly what I get here (in terms of legitimate mail) is mail from my friends and a short list of known clients. In other words, a perfect white listing opportunity.
So, after some fiddling around, I figured out the thing to do with main@example.com was remove SpamAssassin entirely(2) and go with a filter checking against a white list. Anything not on the white list gets redirected to no2@example.com.
no2@example.com has SpamAssassin enabled. I do not check this account via my cellphone. I check it at the office (and I have it set to only poll the server once every 30 minutes). Anything that SpamAssassin thinks is spam then gets redirected to junk@example.com.
Sometimes I check junk@example.com via Quest Mail for false positives, but I usually don't bother.
Results after about three weeks: very good. I only get stuff at main@example.com (and hence my cell phone) from my white list. My friends and some select clients.
no2@example.com is about 40% people I forgot to whitelist, and universities. (My son has good SAT scores, so we're hearing from a lot of universities.) The other 60% is junk, plain and simple. Mostly these days it's replica watches and diplomas (nice overlap there with the universities).
That might make it sound like SpamAssassin is doing a terrible job, but remember I've stacked the deck against it. It's only filtering stuff that isn't on my white list; i.e., probably 99% of what makes it to this step is already junk.
The first few days I was religiously checking junk@example.com for false positives. There have been none. It's still possible, so I shouldn't get lazy. But it's just too easy to ignore this mailbox and zero it out every so often.
Notes:
1. Why this works for me: I have a pretty well defined list of correspondents for main@example.com. If you have a mailbox that you're using for initial sales contacts (info@example.com, for example) or if you're in a job search and want to hear from potential employers even if you've never heard of them before, this approach will probably not be good for you.
Also, I do not forward main@example.com to an outside host (gmail, etc.). So I don't have to worry about spamming someone else by not having SpamAssassin enabled on main@example.com.
I'm now happy enough with this approach that I'm thinking of removing some mailing lists from my white list. I can read them at no2@example.com during the day, so I don't need them appearing on my cell phone in the evening.
2. I tried working with SpamAssassin's white list feature for main@example.com. The problem was that when a message was passed to no2@example.com it would be immediately redirected to junk@example.com. SpamAssassin on no2@example.com would see that SpamAssassin on main@example.com had already rejected the message, so it would reject it, too. I could only get stuff to stick in no2@example.com by turning off SpamAssassin on main@example.com and using a rule-based white list.
It's been pretty clear for a while that SpamAssassin is doing a very poor job generally. Replica watches and enhancement products come through with a score of 0 or 0.1.
After thinking about it for a while, I came up with a solution that works for me(1). I've been using it for about three weeks now and it's great. I call it my "three tier solution."
First, I have three mailboxes: main@example.com, no2@example.com and junk@example.com (for the purposes of illustration -- not my real mailboxes obviously). The one I'm interested in is main@example.com, and mostly what I get here (in terms of legitimate mail) is mail from my friends and a short list of known clients. In other words, a perfect white listing opportunity.
So, after some fiddling around, I figured out the thing to do with main@example.com was remove SpamAssassin entirely(2) and go with a filter checking against a white list. Anything not on the white list gets redirected to no2@example.com.
no2@example.com has SpamAssassin enabled. I do not check this account via my cellphone. I check it at the office (and I have it set to only poll the server once every 30 minutes). Anything that SpamAssassin thinks is spam then gets redirected to junk@example.com.
Sometimes I check junk@example.com via Quest Mail for false positives, but I usually don't bother.
Results after about three weeks: very good. I only get stuff at main@example.com (and hence my cell phone) from my white list. My friends and some select clients.
no2@example.com is about 40% people I forgot to whitelist, and universities. (My son has good SAT scores, so we're hearing from a lot of universities.) The other 60% is junk, plain and simple. Mostly these days it's replica watches and diplomas (nice overlap there with the universities).
That might make it sound like SpamAssassin is doing a terrible job, but remember I've stacked the deck against it. It's only filtering stuff that isn't on my white list; i.e., probably 99% of what makes it to this step is already junk.
The first few days I was religiously checking junk@example.com for false positives. There have been none. It's still possible, so I shouldn't get lazy. But it's just too easy to ignore this mailbox and zero it out every so often.
Notes:
1. Why this works for me: I have a pretty well defined list of correspondents for main@example.com. If you have a mailbox that you're using for initial sales contacts (info@example.com, for example) or if you're in a job search and want to hear from potential employers even if you've never heard of them before, this approach will probably not be good for you.
Also, I do not forward main@example.com to an outside host (gmail, etc.). So I don't have to worry about spamming someone else by not having SpamAssassin enabled on main@example.com.
I'm now happy enough with this approach that I'm thinking of removing some mailing lists from my white list. I can read them at no2@example.com during the day, so I don't need them appearing on my cell phone in the evening.
2. I tried working with SpamAssassin's white list feature for main@example.com. The problem was that when a message was passed to no2@example.com it would be immediately redirected to junk@example.com. SpamAssassin on no2@example.com would see that SpamAssassin on main@example.com had already rejected the message, so it would reject it, too. I could only get stuff to stick in no2@example.com by turning off SpamAssassin on main@example.com and using a rule-based white list.