Thunderbird -how to block this particular spam

No, that's not true. All spamassassin does is tag spam; it's up to you
to decide what to do with it. Thunderbird's junk mail controls have an
option to "trust spam headers" from spamasassin, and by selecting this,
Thunderbird will toss spamassassin-tagged mail into the Junk folder
where the JMC can learn it along with all the other stuff it catches.

Between spamassassin and Thunderbird's JMC very little spam makes it
through to my Inbox.

 

Incorrrect. 'trusting' another applications measurements means that JMC
DOESNT check the messsge, therefore nothing about it is added to the
training.dat.

Every message that is caught by Spamassassin, is not checked by JMC.
This will impact the current catch ratio as well as future catch ratios

 

Is there a "edit as new" feature? I am not seeing if so.

Since part of this crap is a gif, I will just save it to
disk, and cut and paste the rest. Of course the complete
header will be different than the sender, so I don't see
how this will accomplish much.

Gee if we could just get you on their mailing list....

Dan

 

Certainly is an 'Edit as New' feature, right there under the Message
menu. i.e. select the message in question, then
Message-->Edit Message as New

Why cut part of it out? Send the entire thing.

 

Didnt understand the concept. TESTSPAM on the way. Do
you want receive them for a day or so?

Doubt one or two will do you much good.

Dan

 

We shall see, I suspect that my JMC will pick them up verbatim anyway

 

Exactly as I suspected, they were picked up by my JMC with no problem
whatso-ever. They and several others of various stocks are all of a
similar type, JMC catches them quite well.

 

Headers are NOT the only part of what Junk Mail Controls consider, JMC
looks at the ENTIRE message. So you sending the message to me (which
will change most of the headers) doesnt matter. The bulk of the message
hasnt changed so it will still be picked up.

Of course, if I had you in my address book, it would be exempt, but that
isnt the case here, you dont have the spammer in your address book do you?

 

Interesting. No spammer is not in address book.

So what is your JMC doing different from mine? I have
been marking this stuff as junk for a few months now to no
avail. BTW, I am using version 1.5.0.7 (20060909).

What do you suggest?

Thanks for your help, btw.

Dan

 

As I mentioned previously, my suggestion is to restart your training.dat

Tools-->Junk Mail Controls [Adaptive Filter]
<Reset Training Data>

Caveat: this WILL zeroize you training.dat back to nothing and will
result in a temporary reduction in catch ratio to approx. 65%.
This will improve over time and usually within a month be up to 90% or more.

NB: Do NOT attempt to 'jump start' the training or 'add in' training on
old message to speed up the process. Do NOT mark unknown messages as non
spam. Do NOT use other filtering methods to augment JMC

Simply: You get a spam, mark it as such. If JMC catches a good one,
then un mark it. Thats its. nothing more.

 

Thanks Dan.

I appreciate.

BTW like the word "zeroize"

Dan

 

Where does the "training.dat" file reside? I did a
Windows explore search on computer and it does not show up.

Dan

 

Your training.dat is inside your profile.
http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile#locate

 

Note, Application Data is a hidden folder in Windows. When you do a
system search, you must include hidden files and folders.

Lee

 

I still disagree. The SA-tagged messages are tossed into the Junk
filter, where I can review them. If I agree that they are spam, I tick
the "Junk Status" flag and the JMC learns it just like any other message
for which I tick the "Junk Status" flag.

 

That's fine, except for the messages that the JMC has no means of
judging -- e.g. image spam with Bayes poison text. For messages such as
that, spamassassin can process the image to find spam text inside and
render a judgement based on that. The filters (JMC and spamassassin) are
not mutually exclusive; that can act together to provide better coverage
than either filter can do on its own.

 

Hogwash!

As I said, here my JMC is catching 99.8% of ALL spam sent my way,
inclusive of these image ones you are on about.

In fact, I just got through convincing someone else to re-do their
training.dat because these types of spams were continuatlly getting thru
his. He reports MUCH better results now.


Junk Mail Controls (JMC) WILL catch these types of spams. As I said, for
every 200 spam sent to any of my accounts, I see one in my inbox.


If your JMC isnt catching these spams, then perhaps its time to re-do
your JMC training.

 

IF you do that, then fine. But most people dont.

 

Dan,

Would you mind going through an explanation as to WHY the
training.dat file needs to be reset?
Why if it gets "too " big does it cease learning, or does
it cease learning if it gets corrupted or...?

Dan

 

It doesnt NEED to be reset unless it isnt performing as well as
expected. Size of the file is irrelevent to performance - a 'small'
training.dat (c300K) can perform as well if not better than a large
(c1m) one (or vice versa).


I never had to re-do my training because my JMC always performed well.
But for others who were having problems with the catch ratio, or JMC not
picking up on specific types of spams, restarting the training.dat went
a long way to resolving the problem. If you are not having problems
with JMC, then there is no requirement to re-do the training.dat