How effective is it?

[John Woolsey <jw...@Activation.net>]

Is SA more effective than popfile? And can you manually train it (if you have root access)?

                                      - thanx - JAW

Re: How effective is it?

[Magnus Holmgren <ho...@lysator.liu.se>]

Andy Pieters wrote:
> On Sunday 27 November 2005 22:59, Steven Stern wrote:
> 
>>sa-learn --spam --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-spam
>>sa-learn --ham --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-ham
> 
> 
> Isn't this dangerous?  I mean, what if a user saves a message with the name 
> "|passwd -d" (without quotes)
> 
> It would get executed then as
> 
> sa-learn --spam --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-spam|passwd -d

No. To begin with, when the shell expands glob patterns, it doesn't
suddenly treat special characters in filenames specially (that would be
suicidal); it simply treats them as part of the filenames they are in
fact part of. Furthermore, there isn't even any * or ? to expand at the
ends of Steven's commands.

Try this: Create a file named "|echo foo", then run "echo bar *echo*".
"*echo*" matches the file just created, but the result isn't the
execution of

  echo bar |echo foo

(which would output "foo"). Instead, it does this:

  echo bar "|echo foo"

(which outputs "bar |echo foo").

-- 
Magnus Holmgren

Re: How effective is it?

[Andy Pieters <x_...@yahoo.fr>]

On Sunday 27 November 2005 22:59, Steven Stern wrote:
> sa-learn --spam --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-spam
> sa-learn --ham --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-ham

Isn't this dangerous?  I mean, what if a user saves a message with the name 
"|passwd -d" (without quotes)

It would get executed then as

sa-learn --spam --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-spam|passwd -d

Effectively removing the root password


With kind regards

Andy

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Re: How effective is it?

[Steven Stern <su...@sterndata.com>]

John Woolsey wrote:
> Is SA more effective than popfile? And can you manually train it (if you have root access)?
> 
>                                       - thanx - JAW
> 
I set up popfile on clients' computers to help them both with spam and 
categorization, but it's not the best solution to spam.

1. Yes.  It has access to more tests.  Popfile is only (only?) a Bayes 
analysis filter.  SpamAsssassin uses a wide variety of tests, some 
coming with the system, some self-made, and some from places like Rules 
Emporium.

2. Yes, but root access is not required.  I set up IMAP folders 
"should-be-spam" and "should-be-ham" for each user and have them drag 
messages that are misclassified into them. A scheduled job (run as root) 
executes  sa-learn to update Bayes filters.

For example:

sa-learn --spam --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-spam
sa-learn --ham --mbox /home/*/mail/should-be-ham

-- 

   Steve