getting rid of yucky emails

getting rid of yucky emails

[Cheryl Homiak]

Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!


-- 
Cheryl

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Janina Sajka]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2437 bytes --]

Hi, Cheryl:

You are so right. They're killing off our email, and it's a sad thing,
too.

Here's my best cut at an answer ...

Definitely use spam assassin. In fact, push the threshold score down to
5. With a proper procmail recipie, you can have messages that meet or
exceed this score automatically moved to a "spam" folder and marked for
deletion. Why? So you can look in that folder to see if you're getting
many false positives. Obviously you wouldn't want many, but you might
accept some.

There's also a good recipie for dumping duplicate emails. I'm attaching
several of my .procmail recipies for the good of the order.

Lastly, take some of the more offending and common terms into a procmail
kill file. Do you really expect to hear about viagra or perscriptions
from your friends? I don't. So, anything with the word goes straight to
/dev/null.

I have found this helps a lot and I'm willing to lose a genuine message
or two to kill spam by the hundred.


So, herewith some examples.

Cheryl Homiak writes:
> From: Cheryl Homiak <chomiak@chartermi.net>
> 
> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cheryl
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
Janina Sajka
Email: janina@rednote.net		
Phone: +1 (202) 408-8175

Director, Technology Research and Development
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
http://www.afb.org

Chair, Accessibility Work Group
Free Standards Group
http://a11y.org

[-- Attachment #2: procmailrc --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 564 bytes --]

#Set on when debugging
VERBOSE=off
#Directory for storing procmail log and rc files
PMDIR=$HOME/mail/.procmail
LOGFILE=$PMDIR/log
#     INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/rc.test
#Remove Duplicate Incoming Messages

              :0 Wh: msgid.lock
              | formail -D 8192 msgid.cache
#send fetched mail through spamassassin
#   :0fw
#   | spamassassin -P
#   :0e
#   EXITCODE==$?
#Send spam to the spam mbox
#   :0:
#   * ^X-Spam-Flag: YES
#   $HOME/mail/spam
#
#     INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/rc.afb
INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/rc.lists
INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/rc.kills
INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/rc.playsound

[-- Attachment #3: rc.kills --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 582 bytes --]


     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^From:.*mariamabacha
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*crap
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*Latest Microsoft
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*porn
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*viagra
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*Janina
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*sex
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*casino
/dev/null

     :0: #Pipe to /dev/null
     * ^Subject:.*webcam
/dev/null

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Krister Ekstrom]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Hi Cheryl and or others who may be in the know,

Are there things like Bayesian filters under Linux? (Filters that
learn what's spam as you go rather than relying on a blacklist)
- -----Original msg below-----
On 18 Jan 2004 06:26:35  (my local time 13:26:35), you typed::
CH> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
CH> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
CH> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
CH> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
CH> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
CH> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
CH> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
CH> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
CH> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
CH> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
CH> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
CH> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
CH> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!



- --
/Krister
crisekstrom@bredband.net
 Get pgp keys here: mailto:crisekstrom@bredband.net?subject=get_pgp_keys
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=Q6H6
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Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I also get about 20 or 30 of those things every day to an account
that I never use (Mary uses it) but not on two other accounts
that I do use. So one answer is to change ISP's!

I can understand why you would not be interested in viagra.
Yesterday I got an offer to increase my cup size, but hell, I
already drink way too much coffee, so I wasn't interested in that
either.



On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Cheryl Homiak wrote:


> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!
>
>
>

- -- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (15% of Full)
In a world without Fences or Walls no one needs Windows or Gates.
My home page is now at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh
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Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.  Spamassassin is the best thing I know of to stop the problem.  It
catches almost all of them and puts them into an almost-certainly-spam
mailbox to be checked later.  The only false positives I've had were
from ATT wireless.  I just added their domain to the whitelist and
problem solved.  I wish I didn't get them either, but spamassassin does
keep them out of my inbox.
I'm not sure how you handle mail, but making your MTA really picky helps
keep some of them out as well.  In exim, options like sender_try_verify
and receiver_verify stop some of them from beeing delivered.

Hope this helps.
          Kenny

On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 06:26:35AM -0600, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cheryl
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.  Yes, I believe there are.  Bsfilter and bogofilter are only  Bayesian
filters.  I don't have addresses for them.  I found them as  Debian packages.

Hope this helps.
          Kenny
	  
On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 02:38:28PM +0100, Krister Ekstrom wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: RIPEMD160
> 
> Hi Cheryl and or others who may be in the know,
> 
> Are there things like Bayesian filters under Linux? (Filters that
> learn what's spam as you go rather than relying on a blacklist)
> - -----Original msg below-----
> On 18 Jan 2004 06:26:35  (my local time 13:26:35), you typed::
> CH> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
> CH> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
> CH> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
> CH> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
> CH> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
> CH> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
> CH> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
> CH> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
> CH> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
> CH> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
> CH> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
> CH> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
> CH> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!
> 
> 
> 
> - --
> /Krister
> crisekstrom@bredband.net
>  Get pgp keys here: mailto:crisekstrom@bredband.net?subject=get_pgp_keys
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-nr2 (Windows XP)
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> =Q6H6
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Cheryl Homiak]

Thanks for the suggestions and especially to Janina for the attachments.
I've got procmail and spamassassin working and I've captured four
definitely spam messages in my spam box and probably avoided even seeing
some in my pine mailbox. I sent myself a messages with viagra in the
subject, and it never did show up in my pine inbox.
And from what I capture in the spam box, I can create more entries for the
rc.kills file.
this is a major improvement!!!
Will try looking at my exim setup also.
thanks again!!!


-- 
Cheryl

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Buddy Brannan]

In fact, I'm trying to get bogofilter to work, but I haven't got it going yet....
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3    | But I will lay my burden 
Email: davros@ycardz.com   | in the cradle of your grace,
ICQ: 36621210              | And the shining beaches of your love,
http://www.ycardz.com      | and the sea of your embrace.--Dave Carter

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Garrett Klein]

Try having a hotmail account... you'll get spam like crazy...On Sun, Jan 
18, 2004 at 06:26:35AM -0600, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cheryl
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Jes and guide dog Harley]

A harty amen to that! Get a hotmail account, and within a day you'll have 31 messages, and over a week you'll have 800 messages
talking all about sex to drugs to whatever else the government doesn't take the time to regulate. It's rediculous trash. When I
get my network card in my Linux box installed later today, I'm going to try spam assassin. It seems like a nice way of killing off
those automated robots.
The internet used to be a trusted network, until the wrong minds became pros.
Jes and Harley
Email: jesman598@triad.rr.com
Msn instant messenger: subman70@hotmail.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Garrett Klein <kleins@iquest.net>
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: getting rid of yucky emails


Try having a hotmail account... you'll get spam like crazy...On Sun, Jan
18, 2004 at 06:26:35AM -0600, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!
>
>
> --
> Cheryl
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Lorenzo Prince]

The famous speaker who no one had heard of said:
> A harty amen to that! Get a hotmail account, and within a day you'll have 31 messages, and over a week you'll have 800 messages
> talking all about sex to drugs to whatever else the government doesn't take the time to regulate.

Not only that, but Hotmail is now turning all messages sent through their servers into spam.  I am about to block all 
Hotmail messages coming into my server because of their high spam content, even in legitimate messages.

PRINCE

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Steve Holmes]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 09:29:11AM -0600, Kenny Hitt wrote:
> I'm not sure how you handle mail, but making your MTA really picky helps
> keep some of them out as well.  In exim, options like sender_try_verify
> and receiver_verify stop some of them from beeing delivered.

In addition, exim has a filtering language which can be inserted into
your .forward file too.  This could take the place of procmail or at
least gives another option.  I use that to catch the Spam=yes string
and throw them away.

-- 
HolmesGrown Solutions
The best solutions for the best price!
http://ld.net/?holmesgrown

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Kirk Reiser]

I have developed a local.cf or user preferences file for spamassassin
which is pretty aggressive at scoring incoming mail.  If anyone would
like it drop me a note off list and I'll push a copy back to them.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Janina Sajka]

I generally hate emails that just say "I agree." But this one is worth
underscoring, imho. I think turning on whatever one needs to turn on to
verify senders is one of the most powerful spam blocking approaches
around. Spamers love to hide. Verification seeks to ascertain that
there's a real there there before accepting mail.

Steve Holmes writes:
> From: Steve Holmes <steve@holmesgrown.com>
> 
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 09:29:11AM -0600, Kenny Hitt wrote:
> > I'm not sure how you handle mail, but making your MTA really picky helps
> > keep some of them out as well.  In exim, options like sender_try_verify
> > and receiver_verify stop some of them from beeing delivered.
> 
> In addition, exim has a filtering language which can be inserted into
> your .forward file too.  This could take the place of procmail or at
> least gives another option.  I use that to catch the Spam=yes string
> and throw them away.
> 
> -- 
> HolmesGrown Solutions
> The best solutions for the best price!
> http://ld.net/?holmesgrown
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
Janina Sajka
Email: janina@rednote.net		
Phone: +1 (202) 408-8175

Director, Technology Research and Development
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
http://www.afb.org

Chair, Accessibility Work Group
Free Standards Group
http://a11y.org

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Krister Ekstrom]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Hi Janina,

On 19 Jan 2004 10:43:08  (my local time 16:43:08), you typed::
JS> I think turning on whatever one needs to turn on to
JS> verify senders is one of the most powerful spam blocking approaches
JS> around. Spamers love to hide. Verification seeks to ascertain that
JS> there's a real there there before accepting mail.

Ummm, i wonder if Postfix has such a verification feature and how you
get to it. Anyone found something to that effect, or is it time for
some boring man page reading again?:)

- --
/Krister
crisekstrom@bredband.net
 Get pgp keys here: mailto:crisekstrom@bredband.net?subject=get_pgp_keys
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Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Kelly Prescott]

SpamAssassin includes bayesian filtering...
It is a little tuff to config, but I can eliminate 95 percent of my spam, 
and more every day...
The better you teach it, the better it is.
kp




On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Krister Ekstrom wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: RIPEMD160
> 
> Hi Cheryl and or others who may be in the know,
> 
> Are there things like Bayesian filters under Linux? (Filters that
> learn what's spam as you go rather than relying on a blacklist)
> - -----Original msg below-----
> On 18 Jan 2004 06:26:35  (my local time 13:26:35), you typed::
> CH> Can anybody tell me if there's a way to get rid of these stupid emails
> CH> about viagra, sex, how to get drugs online without a prescription, and
> CH> other horrible and/or stupid stuff. I know there's spamassassin, but since
> CH> the emails come with different subject headings, often innocent or
> CH> important-looking ones, and they're always purportedly from different
> CH> people, I don't know how to get rid of them. I never knowingly did
> CH> anything to solicit such stuff, and email used to be a complete pleasure,
> CH> but sometime this summer this kind of junk started becoming prevalent. Of
> CH> course, I usually can avoid reading it; if it tells me to pick up my order
> CH> for instance and i don't have an order to be picked up I delete it, and if
> CH> it's supposedly to me but the index in pine doesn't give a name or email I
> CH> know I delete it. but really, I don't even want the stuff coming here.
> CH> Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really frustrated!!!
> 
> 
> 
> - --
> /Krister
> crisekstrom@bredband.net
>  Get pgp keys here: mailto:crisekstrom@bredband.net?subject=get_pgp_keys
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-nr2 (Windows XP)
> 
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> 4Jfizb6Ud1CPa+ZiU3BrfFI=
> =Q6H6
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: getting rid of yucky emails

[Krister Ekstrom]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Hi Kelly,

On   (my local time 19 jan 2004 22:41:50), you typed::
KP> SpamAssassin includes bayesian filtering...
KP> It is a little tuff to config, but I can eliminate 95 percent of my spam,
KP> and more every day...
KP> The better you teach it, the better it is.

Ok, i'd better have a look at it when i've collected enough energy to
start fiddling with Linux again... I've got Spam Assassin, i even got
it running, but i haven't the slightest idea of how to manage it, and
judging from what i've seen of Linux up to here, it's *not* gonna be
easy...:) Oh no, i'm not complaining in anyway, it's just that
sometimes i get a little nervous about things in Linux. I guess i'm
not a fanatical enough Microsloth hater to get the beast running, but
eventually i'll succeed.

- --
/Krister
crisekstrom@bredband.net
 Get pgp keys here: mailto:crisekstrom@bredband.net?subject=get_pgp_keys
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