Re: [cobalt-developers] Adding spam blacklists to sendmail on aCobalt server

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"E.B. Dreger" wrote:

> And, frankly, we've had much better results using Bayesian
> filters than blacklists.  Consider combining with SpamAssassin if
> you can stand Perl.

My experience has been that using Bayesian filters results in two
problems; one a system problem, and the other a user problem:

1) We use a lot of system resources to do the filtering... with 1,000
fairly active mail-users (easy to do on a RaQ) with a 450 mHz processor
we're seeing a lot of resources tied up in spam.. someting we'd rather
not tie up any resources on.

2) We find that when we use a filter and _can_ quarantine suspected spam
in a folder to look up later, we do.  And that wastes a lot of time as
well.

> I'm not one of the kooks who thinks it's illegal to run
> blacklists... but those who use bad blacklists deserve the mail
> and customer loss that they get.

We tell our clients how we filter spam.  We're implementing now for
ourselves and all our customers, a page to send people to, which
explains why their email got bounced, so they can contact us or our
clients if they get bounced.  So far in about a year we've had only two
positives.

One of our clients successfully refuses about 500 pieces of spam a day
on his own server, using spamcop, spamhaus, and ordb.  He's happy; we're
happy <smile>.

> I also recommend blacklist users maintain a whitelist.

I agree but I've not been successful in implementing one; do you have
any clues/suggestions?

Thanks.

Jeff
-- 
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