SpamPal

I seem to attract spammers. being very active on the web and previously unaware of just how much of a spamtrap using uncloaked mailto: links can be, I have a fair amount of spam to filter

I have been using SpamArrest (paid service) however I discovered SpamPal:

A free intermediate filter/tagger that works by reading your mail before the mail package gets it and tagging it accordingly

You then use the filter functioning of the mailer to move the tagged spam as you like

PROBLEMS:

Hotmail: Unless you pay for MSN/Hotmail Plus, you can't POP into hotmail nor send out from a traditional mail client, I use Hotmail Popper: http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/ Since SpamPal uses the local host 127.0.0.1 to work you need to reset HotPop to use 127.0.0.2, I think you can leave the ports setting as is I am still trying to get HotPop to work with SpamPal "as a filter in the line"

Gmail:

I just can't get Gmail to work via it's POP settings so having it work without it.. Gmail spam trapping seems pretty good though

Email Filtering:

If you choose some of the tighter requirements for spam tagging YOU WILL tag some of your legitimate emails as spam, usually from Yahoo! users or people unwittingly using ISPs with a reputation as spammers

My answer to this is to look for UNIQUE subject lines that never occur in spams

So if you are a member of a list called [Worzel Gummidges Dress Sense list]

Place a filter to move posts with this subject tag to the right folder BEFORE the filter moving **SPAM** to the junk folder etc etc etc

If you are very active in online groups you should filter group posts based on tags and notifications based on text in the body BEFORE the spam filter to Junk

This way you can get the maximum benefit from the spam tagging and at the same time reduce the time spend checking the junk for badly assigned spam ratings

The header X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: groups-compose may well identify posts made to you direct (not via a list) from the yahoo! groups web email portal in response to messages you have posted (check this headr is still OK), SPBAG will tag Yahoo web portal posts as spam!!! for example IP 66.218.69.6    

If you want to see why a mail got tagged as spam, look at the headers SpamPal should be set to add........ For example: X-SpamPal: SPAM SPBAG 219.190.228.34        This identified the IP address 219.190.228.34  as having been picked up by the SpamBag Blacklist You can use this information to remove blacklists from your options that are either NOT doing any filtering OR causing a lot of false tags More blacklists used = more time to filter

To establish which blacklists are catching most Spams take a look at the results in the SpamPal Status window This will also give you the dialogue of any mail activity SpamPal is acting a a filter for

I will update this page as I learn more.... PROMISE

If this has helped you let me know

If you have HotPop and or Gmail sucessfully running through SpamPal let me know how!