Linda Walsh wrote: > Bowie Bailey wrote: >> Linda Walsh wrote: >>> >>> I got a really poorly scored piece of spam -- one thing that stood out >>> as weird was report claimed the sender was in my AWL. >> >> Any sender who has sent mail to you previously will be in your AWL. >> This is probably the most misunderstood component of SA. Read the wiki. >> >> http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/AutoWhitelist >> > > ---- > At face value, this seems very counter productive. It's obvious you're taking it at "face value" and you've not read the URL above.
You're seeing "whitelist" in the name, and beliving it. Sorry the name is misleading, but the AWL is not a whitelist. > > If I get spam from 1000 senders, they all end up in my > AWL??? > > WTF? You're leaping to wildly incorrect conclusions, mostly because you're assuming the AWL is a whitelist. It's not. *READ* the URL above. No, really READ IT. You don't understand the AWL yet. > > AWL should only be added to by emails judged to be 'ham' via > the feed back mechanisms --, spammers shouldn't get bonuses for > being repeat senders... Who says they get bonuses just for being a repeat sender?? They get bonuses or penalties, all depending. The AWL isn't a whitelist Linda. It's an averager. It can whitelist or blacklist messages. If they send a message that scores less than their previous average, they get a positive AWL score (blacklisting). If they send one that's higher they get a negative score (whitelisting). HOWEVER, in the AWL, a simple look at the positive or negative sign on the score doesn't really tell you much. Take this example: Pre-AWL score +12, AWL -2, Final score +10, . What did the AWL think of this sender based on history? +6, spammer. If the same sender instead sent: Pre-AWL score +4 the AWL would hit at +1.0 resulting in Final score +5.0. End result: same sender, different messages, different signs on the AWL, but both are still tagged as spam. And in one example, a false negative was avoided based on their history. > > How do I delete spammer addresses from my 'auto-white-list'? \ spamassassin --remove-addr-from-whitelist=...@example.com > > (That's just insane..whitelisting spammers?!?!) No, it's insane to have the AWL named AWL, because it's not a white list. It's really "A history-based score averaging system with automatic whitelisting and blacklisting effects". However, AHBSASWAWB is an awfuly long name. I *REALLY* suggest you read up on how the AWL works, for real, before jumping to conclusions about what it is, and what it does. It really doesn't work the way you think. > > >
