Interview With The SpamAssassin

comforteagle writes "Howard Wen has conducted an interview with Daniel Quinlan of SpamAssassin. In it he explores what keeps Daniel motivated in the face of the unrelenting torrent of spam and new spamming techniques, as well as, what is working - what is not, and what he predicts spammers have up their sleeves next for defeating spam detection." From the interview: "If you don't mind deleting spam manually, that's your prerogative, but don't complain about it. If your ISP doesn't do a good job fighting spam, then switch ISPs or install your own anti-spam software. There are a lot of choices out there."

Comments

gmail has good spam protection

[erick99]

When I got to over 300 spam a day was just about the time I tried gmail (google mail). So far this is the best spam protection I have come across. My spam folder is getting about 400 a day now but I can't remember the last time a "good" message went in there. I still get about five spam a day that I need to manually deal with.

Cloudmark SpamNet

[Zendar]

Been using Cloudmark's SpamNet for over a year and haven't looked back since. Nothing gets by.

Disclaimer: No interest in the company. Just a satisfied customer.

Complain as much as you can!

[iolaus]

"If you don't mind deleting spam manually, that's your prerogative, but don't complain about it. If your ISP doesn't do a good job fighting spam, then switch ISPs or install your own anti-spam software. There are a lot of choices out there."

How the hell do you think the national do-not-call list came about? Because people bitched and complained! I agree there are spam solutions out there but I still think there should be an easier, more fool-proof, and legally backed way of opting out of spam.

SURBL

[JohnGrahamCumming]

OSDir.com: What's the most effective anti-spam technology that SpamAssassin uses right now?

Quinlan: I think network rules are the most effective single technology, in particular, the URI rules that use SURBL, looking for spammer domains in Web links.

The SURBL can be found here: http://www.surbl.org. It's a very good thing, so much so that spammers are starting to try to get around it by doing stuff like this:

Copy the following URL removing the space into your browser:

www. spammer-site.com

John.

Business cards

[nizo]

I bet he has cool business cards:
Daniel Quinlan - Spam Assassin
He can tell people his job is to kill spammers. Which reminds me, I wonder if anyone at the IRS actually checks what job title you put on your tax forms?

How I beat spam

[Just Some Guy]

I just wrote an article for this month's issue of Free Software Magazine on building spam filters. The long and short of it is that Spam Assassin is a very, very good last line of defense. However, there's a lot you can do to limit the amount of junk that even makes it that far into your system:

1. Filter the HELO messages. If the sender says "HELO yourownname.example.com", then it's lying and you can safely reject the connection.
2. Don't be overly picky about reverse DNS lookups, but do check that the domain of the From: address is resolvable. After all, what's the point of getting mail from "spew@nonexistentdomain.com" if you can't reply to them?
3. Selective DNS blacklists. Do your homework and find a couple that are picky about what they add. Remember: false negatives are much better than false positives!
4. SPF. It's not a cure all, but it works and it's available today.
5. Greylisting. Oh, how I love thee!
6. Finally, Spam Assassin, ClamAV, and other "expensive" defenses.

Since I implemented the above as a Postfix ruleset, I don't get spam anymore, and it's not exactly like I've actually kept my primary address secret. No, I'm not kidding or exaggerating - basically, my mailbox is my own once again. Viva Postfix! Viva greylisting!