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Posted to users@spamassassin.apache.org by Jason Haar <Ja...@trimble.co.nz> on 2009/09/04 02:22:44 UTC
antispam comparison by virus bulletin
The Register reports that Virus Bulletin has announced it's latest
results comparing a range of antispam products. McAfee won - and by the
looks of it SpamAssassin and ClamAV came last.
<deep breath> the methodology was flawed of course (oh no, I've become
One of Those...). The chose SuSE10 which came with SA 3.1.8(!!) and
didn't even think it unfair to compare an old product against current
releases of commercial products - but there you go... Poor old ClamAV
was treated similarly: ClamAV is an antivirus product - they actually
tested Sanesecurity's add-on spam rules. I don't know of anyone using
those rules who doesn't use them *in addition* to SA... Really didn't
know much about what they were doing...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/03/anti_spam_run_off/
http://www.virusbtn.com/vbspam/may2009 (free registration required that
gets you access to some icons with ticks and crosses in them :-/)
Hopefully they will do a better job next time - I'd like to see the
results myself
--
Cheers
Jason Haar
Information Security Manager, Trimble Navigation Ltd.
Phone: +64 3 9635 377 Fax: +64 3 9635 417
PGP Fingerprint: 7A2E 0407 C9A6 CAF6 2B9F 8422 C063 5EBB FE1D 66D1
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by Nels Lindquist <nl...@maei.ca>.
Justin Mason wrote:
> In fairness, they got in touch to ask for help in setting up a more
> recent SA, but none of us (ie the PMC) had the spare cycles to help
> out. Comparative third-party tests like this always take a lot of
> hand-holding. We don't have the same kind of marketing budget as the
> commercial companies, needless to say.
Since SA--as with many open source projects--has a wealth of community
support, how would you feel about directing such requests to the
community (eg, this list) in the future if resources aren't available
internally?
Surely there'd be people here willing and eager to help present SA's
best possible face to the marketplace...
Nels Lindquist
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by "richard@buzzhost.co.uk" <ri...@buzzhost.co.uk>.
On Mon, 2009-09-07 at 10:00 +0100, Justin Mason wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 22:59, mouss<mo...@ml.netoyen.net> wrote:
> > Justin Mason a écrit :
> >> In fairness, they got in touch to ask for help in setting up a more
> >> recent SA, but none of us (ie the PMC) had the spare cycles to help
> >> out. Comparative third-party tests like this always take a lot of
> >> hand-holding. We don't have the same kind of marketing budget as the
> >> commercial companies, needless to say.
> >>
> >> OTOH, I think that McAfee's Email & Web Security Appliance runs on
> >> SpamAssassin, or at least it did when I worked there ;)
> >
> > they acquired Secure Computing. so I'd say the test involved what was
> > called Ironmail. Did Ironmail use SA?
>
> from TFA (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/03/anti_spam_run_off/ ):
>
> 'McAfee's Email & Web Security Appliance was alone in achieving the
> level needed for VBSpam Platinum certification' [...]
>
> 'Five products performed well enough to be awarded VBSpam Gold awards
> [...] including [..] McAfee's Email Gateway (formerly IronMail)
> software.'
>
> so the ex-IronMail product is still a different product. they tend to
> not do such a great job in product line consolidation, in my
> experience... ;)
>
Here we go again..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/03/anti_spam_run_off/
No mention of Barracuda here..... I guess it's a *non* starter?
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by Justin Mason <jm...@jmason.org>.
On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 22:59, mouss<mo...@ml.netoyen.net> wrote:
> Justin Mason a écrit :
>> In fairness, they got in touch to ask for help in setting up a more
>> recent SA, but none of us (ie the PMC) had the spare cycles to help
>> out. Comparative third-party tests like this always take a lot of
>> hand-holding. We don't have the same kind of marketing budget as the
>> commercial companies, needless to say.
>>
>> OTOH, I think that McAfee's Email & Web Security Appliance runs on
>> SpamAssassin, or at least it did when I worked there ;)
>
> they acquired Secure Computing. so I'd say the test involved what was
> called Ironmail. Did Ironmail use SA?
from TFA (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/03/anti_spam_run_off/ ):
'McAfee's Email & Web Security Appliance was alone in achieving the
level needed for VBSpam Platinum certification' [...]
'Five products performed well enough to be awarded VBSpam Gold awards
[...] including [..] McAfee's Email Gateway (formerly IronMail)
software.'
so the ex-IronMail product is still a different product. they tend to
not do such a great job in product line consolidation, in my
experience... ;)
--
--j.
RE: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by Michael Hutchinson <mh...@manux.co.nz>.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mouss [mailto:mouss@ml.netoyen.net]
> Sent: Monday, 7 September 2009 9:59 a.m.
> To: Justin Mason
> Cc: users@spamassassin.apache.org
> Subject: Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
>
> Justin Mason a écrit :
> > In fairness, they got in touch to ask for help in setting up a more
> > recent SA, but none of us (ie the PMC) had the spare cycles to help
> > out. Comparative third-party tests like this always take a lot of
> > hand-holding. We don't have the same kind of marketing budget as the
> > commercial companies, needless to say.
> >
> > OTOH, I think that McAfee's Email & Web Security Appliance runs on
> > SpamAssassin, or at least it did when I worked there ;)
> >
>
> they acquired Secure Computing. so I'd say the test involved what was
> called Ironmail. Did Ironmail use SA?
They probably used McAfee SpamAssassin. Other Net-App kit of theirs certainly does:
http://www.mcafee.com/uk/local_content/datasheets/ds_spamkiller_appliances.pdf
I'd say it is probable that McAfee use SpamAssassin in every one of their Anti-Spam devices/software products. It certainly wouldn't be surprising. When we had errors come from some of their A/V+AntiSpam products, the existence of Spamassassin "under-the-hood" became apparent (especially when it moans about not being able to load a 20_something_or_other.cf file :-)
Cheers,
Mike
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by mouss <mo...@ml.netoyen.net>.
Justin Mason a écrit :
> In fairness, they got in touch to ask for help in setting up a more
> recent SA, but none of us (ie the PMC) had the spare cycles to help
> out. Comparative third-party tests like this always take a lot of
> hand-holding. We don't have the same kind of marketing budget as the
> commercial companies, needless to say.
>
> OTOH, I think that McAfee's Email & Web Security Appliance runs on
> SpamAssassin, or at least it did when I worked there ;)
>
they acquired Secure Computing. so I'd say the test involved what was
called Ironmail. Did Ironmail use SA?
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by Justin Mason <jm...@jmason.org>.
In fairness, they got in touch to ask for help in setting up a more
recent SA, but none of us (ie the PMC) had the spare cycles to help
out. Comparative third-party tests like this always take a lot of
hand-holding. We don't have the same kind of marketing budget as the
commercial companies, needless to say.
OTOH, I think that McAfee's Email & Web Security Appliance runs on
SpamAssassin, or at least it did when I worked there ;)
--j.
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 01:22, Jason Haar<Ja...@trimble.co.nz> wrote:
> The Register reports that Virus Bulletin has announced it's latest results
> comparing a range of antispam products. McAfee won - and by the looks of it
> SpamAssassin and ClamAV came last.
>
> <deep breath> the methodology was flawed of course (oh no, I've become One
> of Those...). The chose SuSE10 which came with SA 3.1.8(!!) and didn't even
> think it unfair to compare an old product against current releases of
> commercial products - but there you go... Poor old ClamAV was treated
> similarly: ClamAV is an antivirus product - they actually tested
> Sanesecurity's add-on spam rules. I don't know of anyone using those rules
> who doesn't use them *in addition* to SA... Really didn't know much about
> what they were doing...
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/03/anti_spam_run_off/
> http://www.virusbtn.com/vbspam/may2009 (free registration required that gets
> you access to some icons with ticks and crosses in them :-/)
>
> Hopefully they will do a better job next time - I'd like to see the results
> myself
>
> --
> Cheers
>
> Jason Haar
> Information Security Manager, Trimble Navigation Ltd.
> Phone: +64 3 9635 377 Fax: +64 3 9635 417
> PGP Fingerprint: 7A2E 0407 C9A6 CAF6 2B9F 8422 C063 5EBB FE1D 66D1
>
--
--j.
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by Sahil Tandon <sa...@tandon.net>.
On Thu, 03 Sep 2009, LuKreme wrote:
> On 3-Sep-2009, at 18:22, Jason Haar wrote:
>> The Register reports that Virus Bulletin has announced it's latest
>
> its
Pedantic drivel.
>> results comparing a range of antispam products. McAfee won - and by
>> the
>> looks of it SpamAssassin and ClamAV came last.
>
> SpamAssassin is not an anti-spam program.
Really? What is it then?
>> Hopefully they will do a better job next time - I'd like to see the
>> results myself
>
> Really? i don't care if SA is 'last' in anti-virus. It's a bt like
> saying that frogs are last in trans-atlantic migrations.
You are clearly confused. Try actually READING the article. From the first
sentence: "McAfee has claimed the crown in a run-off of anti-spam products
organised by Virus Bulletin, the independent security certification body."
Perhaps the "Virus" in the name of the organization conducting the anti-spam
product review threw you off?
--
Sahil Tandon <sa...@tandon.net>
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by Benny Pedersen <me...@junc.org>.
On fre 04 sep 2009 06:00:23 CEST, LuKreme wrote
>> looks of it SpamAssassin and ClamAV came last.
> SpamAssassin is not an anti-spam program.
priceless
--
xpoint
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by LuKreme <kr...@kreme.com>.
On 3-Sep-2009, at 18:22, Jason Haar wrote:
> The Register reports that Virus Bulletin has announced it's latest
its
> results comparing a range of antispam products. McAfee won - and by
> the
> looks of it SpamAssassin and ClamAV came last.
SpamAssassin is not an anti-spam program.
> Hopefully they will do a better job next time - I'd like to see the
> results myself
Really? i don't care if SA is 'last' in anti-virus. It's a bt like
saying that frogs are last in trans-atlantic migrations.
--
#27794 <Vellius> ... I wonder if the really nerdy Klingons learn how
to speak english
Re: antispam comparison by virus bulletin
Posted by Michael Scheidell <sc...@secnap.net>.
Jason Haar wrote:
> The Register reports that Virus Bulletin has announced it's latest
> results comparing a range of antispam products. McAfee won - and by
> the looks of it SpamAssassin and ClamAV came last.
doesn't McAfee still use SpamAssassin in the backend?
<http://www.mcafee.com/uk/local_content/datasheets/ds_spamkiller_appliances.pdf>
--
Michael Scheidell, CTO
Phone: 561-999-5000, x 1259
> *| *SECNAP Network Security Corporation
* Certified SNORT Integrator
* 2008-9 Hot Company Award Winner, World Executive Alliance
* Five-Star Partner Program 2009, VARBusiness
* Best Anti-Spam Product 2008, Network Products Guide
* King of Spam Filters, SC Magazine 2008
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