misnomer Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 I set up Spam Assassin about a month ago and WOW! My spam was immediately down by 3/4 or more. Now, a month later, I am suddenly getting my pre Spam Assassin amounts. I can't figure out why. All my settings are fine and I don't give out that email address. Its not on my website for bots to find and I never ever post it on forums. Any clue to what my problem is? I so hate spam and I end up occasionally deleting valid emails by mistake when deleting them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Bruce Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 The problem is spammers are getting more intelligent. What level are you using for Spam Assassin to tag email? I have set mine to level 5 and it is catching tons. About 1% is coming through which is being caught by K9 on my PC. You cna read this thread about K9. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeJ Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 I've noticed an increase in spam in general. I have 20 or so spams that made it through SpamAssassin today alone so far but got caught by my client side spam detector. I also have 400 spams sitting in my Spam box that SpamAssassion did catch from the last day and a half. And that's still after the server refused mail coming from invalid domains. spammers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeJ Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 Btw... here's a tip that I do for helping keep spam down a little... Whenever I need to sign up for something online (mailing lists, orders, etc..), I try to use disposable email addresses. For example, when I signed up for a service to notify me about house listings, I created an email forwarder called "house@****" and forwarded it to my main account. That way when I'm done with the subscription, I can delete the email address in case they sell my address to third parties. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misnomer Posted April 3, 2004 Author Share Posted April 3, 2004 Bruce, good question. How do I change the level? Mike, I do that but usually using a netscape, hotmail, yahoo or orhter disposable address. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Bruce Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 (edited) Click on configure Spam Assassin and see what the required_hits value is set to. I have mine set at 5. The lower the number the more aggressive it is. Edited April 3, 2004 by TCH-Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misnomer Posted April 3, 2004 Author Share Posted April 3, 2004 Yes, mine is at 5. I guess I will check the other suggestion. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z3NiTH Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 I just enabled Spam Assassin for my new TCH account as suggested in het Help pages: spam goes to the spam@**** address (in first instance I would like to reasure myself that only spam will be deleted ). I've used the standard settings for Spam Assassin in my cpanel, but I had a look at the configure Spam Assassin button and saw that there's really much to configure. woooot Are there any suggestions/hints for a good "standard" configuration? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 I have seen a huge increase in the amount of spam sent to my domains recently too. It looks like another major player has come to town or a whole bunch of little ones. I had to set my Spam Assassin down to 2.5 just for peace of mind. NOTE: Be sure you are very careful when changing your settings. Such an aggressive setting may cause you to miss important emails depending on the types of emails you get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Bruce Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 I have my configuration set to the defaults (level 5) and have only added a couple of white list addresses. Still catching over 92% of all Spam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z3NiTH Posted July 2, 2004 Share Posted July 2, 2004 NOTE: Be sure you are very careful when changing your settings. Such an aggressive setting may cause you to miss important emails depending on the types of emails you get. That's why I'm currently still relaying the as-spam-marked-emails-by-SpamAssassin to a spam@mydomain mailbox. I will do this until I'm somehow confident that my settings won't cause that valid e-mails are banned. @tch-Bruce: I also have the default level 5 but I'm only "catching" 40% of all the SPAM if I make a rough guess. BTW Recently, I got a free Yahoo e-mail account (for means of go-ahead-and-SPAM-me ) I also used this account to redirect the e-mails from my previous registrar to during the transfer of the name servers to TCH in order to avoid any loss of e-mails. They have a feature called SpamGuard filtering which is remarkably well in recognizing SPAM e-mail. At least I have the impression that it's performing better than SpamAssassin, so it maybe worthwhile checking out for TCH as well Naughty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Bruce Posted July 2, 2004 Share Posted July 2, 2004 @tch-Bruce:I also have the default level 5 but I'm only "catching" 40% of all the SPAM if I make a rough guess. How long has it been since you turned Spam Assassin on? It should get better as it builds it's Bayes filters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z3NiTH Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 Not that long at all, for about one and a half week since I'm a fairly new TCH customer So I guess I have to be a little more patient. Read about the Bayesian filtering once on Slashdot, so I guess I can cut Spam Assassin some slack Is there a way I can "help" the program building up its Bayes filters, e.g. by marking certain unnoticed SPAM messages as SPAM. Or does it do this all by itself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dlevens Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 Yeah I had the same question, not sure how to help it out. The configuration options we have are very limited. I am curious if anyone has installed any of the squirrelmail plugins that are supposed to give a frontend to spamassasin's settings? There are 2 or 3 of them here: http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugins_catego...p?category_id=3 Dennis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 Hehe, SA didnt work for catching my spam, so now I have filters on all of my 'Known Spam Domains' like that military.com or however they spell it. I also decided to start using Outlook express for my important accounts, such as abuse and support. And just use Norton Anti Spam which came with the norton internet security thing. :S Isnt there someway TCH could like put a filter on the mailservers and block all domains which are known spam senders? Or is there really any cost effective way to do that? :S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary8744 Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 I have just activated S.A. In an attempt to stop all this spam. I read everyone's comments in this thread. Can anyone explain how S.A. Builds these Bayes filters if I am never telling it what is or is not spam. I'm a bit confused (which is nothing new). Also, are we limited to 5 White List addresses or does anyone know a way to add more? Thanks for all of your great input. I have put many things into place from reading different things in these forums. I appreciate everyone sharing there knowledge with those of us who have very little!! Have a SUPER 4th!! Gary Rock Sign Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Bruce Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 Also, are we limited to 5 White List addresses or does anyone know a way to add more? I'm not sure how it builds it's Bayes filtering information. But it's working quite well. As for more white list or black list entries you can edit the user_prefs file in the .spamassassin folder using File Manager in cPanel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary8744 Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 GREAT info Bruce. That works fine. As I was doing that, I also found that as you fill up your white and black lists entries, you are given more slots on the config page. So it appears that you can do everything from the config page. You just fill all your slots and select save. When you go back into the config screen, you will have new blank slots. Not sure if there is a max, but if so, I can just edit the file like you suggested. Gary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z3NiTH Posted July 7, 2004 Share Posted July 7, 2004 I also have the default level 5 but I'm only "catching" 40% of all the SPAM if I make a rough guess. I have to admit that SA is indeed catching more and more of the incoming SPAM, so I reckon that the Bayes filters are building up automatically. You don't hear me complain. However, I've an additional "problem" concerning the relaying of my incoming SPAM. For the time being I'm using the tch-Bruce SA setup so I use a filter to send all the incoming SPAM to Spam@****. Nevertheless, some SPAM emails end up in my general inbox whereas they have been caught by SA, i.e. the header X-Spam-Status Yes has been added. Any ideas what may be causing this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Bruce Posted July 7, 2004 Share Posted July 7, 2004 Check the total hit points. If it's less than 5 they will come through although SA thinks (knows) it is SPAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z3NiTH Posted July 8, 2004 Share Posted July 8, 2004 The total hit points are above the required level and the message body has been altered by SA (content preview and analysis details and a link to the original message), but somehow they don't end up in my spam@**** inbox but in my general inbox instead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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