> For the most part, the spam filter in Entourage has correctly identified the
> unsolicited commercial e-mail I've received since upgrading from Outlook
> Express. That's been a nice feature. I've always wondered what criteria the
> filter used, though, and am even more curious now. Here's why:
>
> Most messages with subject lines written in all caps are tagged as spam,
> which seems an easy, if crude, guideline. Likewise, long and complex
> originating domains seem more likely to be tagged. But I've seen two kinds
> of exceptions to both these criteria that cast doubt on the rationale behind
> the filtering.
>
> One is that Entourage tags every message I receive from Northwest Airlines
> as spam, even though I've told the filter to remember the NWA domain. This
> may be the consequence of a Microsoft programmer disliking the airline, but
> somehow I doubt it. This one remains a mystery.
Perhaps the domain is slightly different? I've had that happen before.
> Another is that I received eight variations on the same spam message this
> morning, addressed to both my main accounts. (The user name is identical,
> but the domains are different.) Entourage didn't catch a single one of them.
>
> All the messages were formatted the way most spam is, with complex HTML and
> a convoluted (faked) originating domain. The only thing that was different
> about this crop of messages was that the subject line was capitalized
> normally, in sentence case as a native speaker might have done it.
>
> The recipient line showed that mine was just one of many guessed-at
> addresses. That tells me I'm not on as many targeted lists of confirmed
> addresses as I am in the way of the address bots -- but I still get the
> spam. These were probably trawler messages, sent out to net live addresses
> for more aggressive spamming later on.
>
> Why has the spam filter stopped filtering? How can I retrain it?
The filter was designed to err on the conservative side. It is much worse to
falsely flag desired mail as junk than to not flag junk as such. If you want
a more aggressive filter, crank up the slider in the Junk Mail Filter
dialog. Or alternately you can use rules to add your own Junk criteria.
-Dave
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