SPAM: dealing with it

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun May 19 2002 - 12:22:35 MDT


I wanted to let the list members know that I seem to have
implemented a successful method for dealing with SPAM.

I followed Amara's suggestion and implemented the
SpamBouncer code on my system. I've also setup
my .procmailrc file to sort the mail from the various
lists I'm on directly into their various folders.

(This may be old hat to some of you on the list
but keep in mind I mostly stopped doing computer
stuff about a decade ago, so I'm playing catch-up).
It gave me a *lot* of pleasure to switch my SPAMREPLY
code from the test mode to the mode where the messages
get bounced and their ISP's get notified... :-;

So, I'm now saving time by not having to sort the messages
myself though the downside is that I need to review
multiple folders for email (there ought to be meta-folder
with the folders with unread mail according to some
priority system -- anyone know of an email system that
has this, esp. for Linux?). It also means I'm less likely
to miss personal messages of importance that get buried
under the list traffic.

What I have discovered is that there is a *lot* of spam
traffic out there and it seems to be increasing.
I'm up to getting 2-3 copies a day of the same message from
different sources in some cases. I wasn't aware of this
last year because I was using the sendmail Black List
code to block the receipt of most of this. But when
they went fee-for-service I decided their "personal use"
fee was a bit too expensive and went back to junking
the spam by hand. I finally got fed up with that last
week.

Attached to the end of the list is some of the code I
find useful for autosorting.

Now, if I could only figure out a way to take the SPAM
messages, isolate those that violate the Washington State
anti-Spam law and automatically file a suit, I might be
able to make some money from these misbehaving netizens.

Robert
-------------------------- .procmail.rc additions ----------------
# SENDER Macro
SENDER="^Sender: "
# FROM Macro
FROM="^From: (.*\<)?"

# Dump ExI Mail into ExI folder
:0:
* $ ${SENDER}owner-extropians@extropy.org
| ${FORMAIL} -A"X-Folder: ExI" >>${MAILDIR}/ExI

# Dump THT mail into THT folder
:0:
* ^TO(transhumantech@yahoogroups.com)
| ${FORMAIL} -A"X-Folder: THT" >>${MAILDIR/THT}

# Dump Folding@Home mail into F@H folder
:0:
* ^To: (\
folding-at-home@yahoogroups.com|\
folding-bugreports@yahoogroups.com|\
folding2@yahoogroups.com)
| ${FORMAIL} -A"X-Folder: F@H" >>${MAILDIR}/F@H

# Dump Slashdot mail into Slashdot folder
:0:
* $ ${FROM}slashdot@slashdot.org
| ${FORMAIL} -A"X-Folder: Slashdot" >>${MAILDIR}/Slashdot



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