SpamAssassin 3.0 Released

davemabe writes "At long last, SpamAssassin 3.0.0 has been released. I've been using the release candidates for a month or so, and the results have been far improved over previous versions. Its use of SURBL along with Bayes auto learning make it seem like this solution is the one to beat. It looks like they've introduced a new logo as well. Snazzy!"

actually i've always felt their name's not right

[Build6]

You know, *assassins* are the type to take out single, lone, "high value" targets, right?

Sneaking into fortresses/castles, creeping up and then offing the bad guy, or else maybe using some nice long-distance sniper rifle to take out the bad guy, or maybe choice application of poisons at the right bottle of wine, etc.

This is not appropriate for *spam*, where we're talking about waves upon waves upon unending waves in what we would call a "target rich environment". Assassination? No, more like machine-gunning, or artillery, or, I dunno, nukes.

Assassination would take too long.

Re:Artificial intelligence was born...

[Duke Thomas]

"Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to filter your spam."

Buzzword use detection alert.

[Grumpy Troll]

Snazzy!

This word has triggered the filter of the buzzword use control, as a level 5 'useless/idiotic buzzword'. This is the last time we would like to have to alert, severe sanctions will prevail on next use of such a buzzword.

Thank you for your coordination,

the Buzzword Police.

New logo

[slaad]

I feel like that new logo should be subtitled "Message for you, sir!"
Perhaps a good "thwooop!" sound effect would go well with it too.

Re:SURBL

[slaad]

Ahh, the same principal as MT Blacklist [jayallen.org]. Good stuff, works half way descent and you're pretty much sure to not get a false possitive, unless...

From: Mom
Hi, honey, I just wanted to see how you were doing. We're doing great around here. Write back soon. I love you.

Do you yahoo? Enlarge your penis [penis-enlarge.com] today!

You never know I guess...

Re:Improved Performance?

[slobbargoat]

does anyone know of any GPL win32 anti-spam utilities capable of working with exchange?

Better names?

[Da Twink Daddy]

Well, since it's capable of removing a certain caste of emails entirely how about SpamGenocide or SpamacialCleansing?

Perhaps we should identify it with (im)famous person(s) to drive up hits like SpamHitler, SpamNazi, or SpamlobodanMilosevic?

Maybe something that has an associated coolness factor, instead of being (almost) universaly hated, like Dr. Spamibal Lecter?

Well, there's still the problem of overwhelming evil there. It's not really evil, just heartless and calculating. Hmm, heartless, calculating, killer... I got it! How about SpamAssassin? Oh, wait...

Re:A spam arms race?

[garcia]

The only way to stop drugs is to realize that it is a social problem and legislate against it. Use enforcement to stop drugs in their tracks.

New logo.

[suso]

The new logo is nice, but I was kinda partial to the nunchaku wielding ninjas knocking the crap out of spam.

still waiting for spammerassassin

[Daniel Ellard]

This looks great, and I look forward to using it, but it doesn't address the root of the problem. Anyone working on spammerassassin yet?

ColorAssassin 3.0 Released

[Anonymous Coward]

http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/22/1 30254 [slashdot.org]

Re:Does it use IP's or URI's ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can beat that. I wrote a little perl scrpt to use with procmail that marks 100% of incoming email as spam. 100% vs 50%. My way is better :)

Re:SURBL

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviscate? Is that like obfuscate?

Re:still waiting for spammerassassin

[geeklawyer]

Yes,
The spammerassassin team is active, but on my legal advice they are not documenting their work: it could, technically, be argued to be murder.

Re:Does it use IP's or URI's ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Human readable? Total bullshit. Here's an excerpt:

A Bayes net is a graph structure whose nodes are terms or concepts with attached truth values or probabilities, and whose links are conditional probabilities.

It gets worse from there.

As near as I can tell, a Bayes net is nothing but a series of tests to determine probability of spam or whatever, dressed up with hand waving and fancy words. I might be wrong, I have no idea, this incomprehensible article you linked to gives me no clue.

Here's a closing quote for those masochists looking for a headache (and mind you this is from a BULLET POINT):

It computes a mathematically provable least squares best fit model to the data you feed in, which is unlikely with a hand-engineered or even automatically generated Bayesian network. Both techniques try to generate a reduced dimensional space in which most of variance of the original data is captured - SVD guarantees it's the best one.