> Without being fed data for individual users, Bayesian 
> filtering becomes 
> less effective (how much less effective depends on how 
> similar your users 
> are; a small business will see better server-wide results 
> than an ISP, for 
> example), and that is most likely just a limitation you would 
> need to accept.
>                                              -Scott

FYI, Spamassassin by default comes with a default Bayesian database that is
used server-wide which will work out of the box for the "average" user, but
obviously you are going to get less than perfect results. From there, you
can drill things down to a domain-wide Bayesian database, where things get a
bit more precise. From there, individual users are able to able to create
their own internal Bayesian database. Obviously, the most accurate results
come from the user tuning the system themselves, rather than relying upon
domain-wide or server-wide databases.

Since Imail's software isn't exactly open source, there's no real telling
how it is designed, although I'm guessing that it is loosely based on the
Bayesian theory. As a server-wide implementation it has limited usefulness
though. It should probably only be trusted in a weighted system to detect
the "most obvious" of spam.

One thing to also keep in mind is that just feeding a Bayesian database with
equal amounts of spam and ham is usually not adequate to get accurate
results. Most spam is full of HTML and obfuscation that helps little with
Bayesian filtering, which usually takes a look at individual word or
character strings. Most ham is full of words, with little HTML. When
"balancing" a Bayesian database, I try to make sure that there is about 1.5x
as much spam as ham, to make up for the lack of actual words that the
Bayesian filter can catalog. That's only a general rule though, and should
be tweaked in actual use. I think that there is some type of Spamassassin
plug-in for Windows, and know that it can be used in a front-end MTA Postfix
box, like an Imgate machine.


William Van Hefner
Network Administrator
Vantek Communications, Inc.




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