Re: [gentoo-dev] [ANNOUNCE] bayesiam SPAM filter 'bogofilter' ebuild on bugzilla

[Alan]

On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 09:03:29PM +0100, Javier Marcet wrote:
>
> A couple hours ago I committed a new ebuild for a fast spam filter based
> on Bayesian filters, popular since the publication of Paul Graham's
> paper A Plan For Spam: http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html
>
> You can find the ebuild on bugzilla:
> http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10435

Just my $0.02 about bogofilter.... 

I started using spamassassin a while back and thought it was great.
When the "plan for spam" article came out I ignored it until someone
suggested bogofilter.   I used it a bit and was *very* dissapointed.
Unlike SA, I had to go in and individually tell it what was spam and
what wasn't, and it took a while to start getting them straight, due to
it's need to create a good spamword database and "learn".  

I went back to spamassassin, but when I did I realized that I was
missing the feeling of *power* that I got from being able to say "this
is spam".  Unlike bogofilter, with spamassassin you can't do anything if
it misses a spam, or gets a false positive (never happened on any that I
noticed, but I've heard other people have had problems).  With
bogofilter you can say "this isn't spam", or "this is spam" and know
that that choice is reflected in the database.

I did a bit of searching and found some good stuff in google here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=how+to+train+bogofilter&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=slrnao3uve.cdh.chisel%40chisel.herlpacker.co.uk&rnum=7
Basically it's the obvious answer, you have to train bogofilter with
lots of spam, and lots of "good" email.  So I sent my entire collectin
of mail (probably around 150-200m of mail, with about 4megs of that
being spam) and suddenly my results got a *lot* better.  I haven't had a
false positive since then, though if I send a single word email ('test')
to myself that is considered spam still..., and any spam that does sneak
through does so only a couple of times before it is filed where it
belongs.

The two limitations of bogofilter that need to be addressed someone are:
 1 can only "interact" with it through mutt or some custom hacking
   through other programs (I think that emacs vm can notify
   spam/non-spam with bogofilter if you know the right spell)
 2 needs enough spam and non-spam to properly set up the word lists.

However, if 2 is done right, then 1 isn't a real problem.

Anyway, that's my $0.02/testimonial :) Spread the love!

alan


-- 
Alan "Arcterex" <alan@×××××.org>   -=][=-   http://arcterex.net
"I used to herd dairy cows. Now I herd lusers. Apart from the isolation, I
think I preferred the cows. They were better conversation, easier to milk, and
if they annoyed me enough, I could shoot them and eat them." -Rodger Donaldson

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