From: "Bob George" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I think the reason for bayes auto-learning being useful is that the words
in
> spam that DIDN'T trip the score get added as well. If those same words
appear
> commonly in non-spam, they cancel out. But as was pointed out recently, if
> spammers use random dictionary words that DON'T appear in non-spam, that
itself
> is a hint that it might be spammy. It adds to the "smell" of spam, which
is why
> I think bayes has been so effective at catching the random-word spams that
> bypass so many rudimentary filters.
>
> Then again, this may simply be an indicator that I subscribe to low-brow
lists.
> :)
Bob, as far as I can figure it is not the words themselves that trigger
the rules as much as the ratios of word lengths. The random alphabet
word spammers were blocked before I ever installed the .cf files I found
referenced here like chickenpox, 99_FVGT_Tripwire, or any of the others.
I was having zero false positives and maybe 1-2% false spams. (Now that
those extra filters are in the path some spams are going right around
the filter. The poor 133MHz machine I am using to filter two people gets
plain swamped so some seem to go around the spam filtering with no
spamd available for connections. So the extra rules actually made things
worse here. {^_-})
I am thinking of pulling out the "useless" Tripwire and chickenpox
scans. Working too hard to achieve perfection wastes more time than
1-2% spam does.
{^_^}
