Need to upgrade heh? I installed it from source and am very weary of doing
any updates as it's a "production" server. But I guess I don't have a
chance. Any documents out there you suggest reading on steps to upgrade it?

Thanks
Robert 

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Kettler [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:04 PM
To: Robert Bartlett
Cc: users@spamassassin.apache.org
Subject: Re: AWL and Auto Learn Bayes

Robert Bartlett wrote:
> Since finding out the trusted_network issue I question the rest of my 
> local.cf setup. Right now I have AWL turned off and auto learning for 
> bayes turned off. My question is does SA benefit from turning those 2 
> back on? Of course I would clear out AWL and bayes and start from 
> scratch if I did. But would it make it easier for bayes to be 
> "poisoned" if I turned auto learn on? Im on SA 3.0.1.

Warning: 3.0.1 is subject to a DOS vulnerability. Unless you're using a
distro-port which has backported fixes, consider upgrading to 3.0.5 or
3.1.0.


Personally, I don't like the AWL, but it does have its uses. The nice thing
about the AWL is you'll avoid  FPs from people who frequently mail you. At
the same time, people who frequently spam you will be less likely to have a
FN, but since spam addresses change constantly this is less common.

The AWL can be poisoned by a slightly clever spammer, but at best this gets
them a "half off your score" for the real spam. For this reason, I keep it
disabled.


Bayes autolearning can be very useful, but I'd suggest adjusting the ham
learning threshold. The default of 0.5 is too high for my liking and can
sometimes cause problems. I run mine at -0.01 and have added a bunch of
simple rules with small negative scores (-0.01 to -0.1) such that common
business related ham messages will get autolearned.

That said, several people like Justin Mason run the bayes system on
autolearning only with the default settings and have no problems. Really
most of the sites I've seen where the autolearner went awry started off with
no manual training.
While most of the time this goes OK, sometimes the bayes DB can start off on
the wrong foot due to some low-scoring spam. It seems that this is the
biggest risk of the bayes autolearner.





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