I recently added the conservative (mass-check testing hit ONLY spam) version of all the SARE rules that had been updated in 2005. I figured that was as good a place as any to start. So far so good. Thanks to the Ninjas.
Below are some related stats from my current maillog. I don't make any claims to their validity or accuracy. Server config is spamd (SA 3.0.2) being called as a content filter from Postfix. Postfix relays to a MS Exchange server. Anyone have observations or stats to compare? Rhett Roy top 10 individual SARE rule hits 1654 SARE_FROM_SPAM_WORD3 482 SARE_FROM_SPAM_WORD1 434 SARE_HEAD_SPAM 323 SARE_TOCC_COMBO1 302 SARE_URI_NO_THANKS 302 SARE_FROM_SPAM_WORD4 256 SARE_BOUNDARY_09 254 SARE_MSGID_IP 250 SARE_HEAD_XBEEN 204 SARE_REPLY_SPAMWORD1 total individual SARE rules that had one or more hits 277 total hits by SARE rule file 565 70_sare_header0.cf 200 70_sare_genlsubj0.cf 191 70_sare_specific.cf 130 70_sare_html0.cf 88 70_sare_evilnum0.cf 45 70_sare_uri0.cf 12 99_sare_fraud_post25x.cf top 50 rule hits (SARE or other) 4898 RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_51_100 4814 RAZOR2_CHECK 3954 HTML_MESSAGE 3525 URIBL_SBL 3262 BAYES_99 3259 URIBL_OB_SURBL 2868 NO_RDNS 2815 DCC_CHECK 2541 URIBL_WS_SURBL 2499 DIGEST_MULTIPLE 1831 URIBL_SC_SURBL 1654 MIME_HTML_ONLY 1515 MSGID_FROM_MTA_ID 1227 URIBL_AB_SURBL 1147 BAYES_50 1012 HTML_90_100 994 HTML_80_90 950 HTML_IMAGE_RATIO_02 750 HTML_FONT_BIG 725 DRUGS_ERECTILE 682 MPART_ALT_DIFF 612 MIME_QP_LONG_LINE 612 DNS_FROM_AHBL_RHSBL 606 HTML_WEB_BUGS 603 HTML_TEXT_AFTER_BODY 597 DNS_FROM_RFC_POST 569 HTML_TEXT_AFTER_HTML 566 SARE_FROM_SPAM_WORD3 532 NO_RDNS2 515 MARKETING_PARTNERS 503 EXCUSE_1 500 RCVD_NUMERIC_HELO 473 EXCUSE_3 459 HTML_TAG_EXIST_TBODY 414 SARE_HEAD_SPAM 400 BAYES_00 398 RCVD_HELO_IP_MISMATCH 382 HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_08 382 EXCUSE_7 374 HTML_IMAGE_RATIO_04 373 PRIORITY_NO_NAME 354 HTML_40_50 318 BAYES_80 310 HTML_50_60 310 DRUGS_ERECTILE_OBFU 302 SARE_URI_NO_THANKS 299 HTML_NONELEMENT_00_10 298 REMOVE_PAGE 296 MIME_HTML_MOSTLY -SPAM blocked by RBL today- 3436 - sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org 565 - dnsbl.sorbs.net 535 - dnsbl.njabl.org Total SMTP Connections 6008 Total Rejected By RBL 4803 Total Flagged By SA 431 Total Delivered 774 Percentage Delivered 12