[wellylug] Spam

[Ewen McNeill]

In message <KHEPLPGKPDDJAPPAIGCIEEGKCBAA.jamie.dobbs at paradise.net.nz>, "Jamie Do
bbs" writes:
>I think the time has come to get one of my Linux boxes to get all of my
>email from my ISP (via. Fetchmail most likely). This part I can do without
>too much trouble, but my main issue is what can I use to easily weed out
>Spam from the email received on the accounts that I will be using Fetchmail
>to check (around 6 accounts)?

spamassassin.  http://www.spamassassin.org/

It _is_ worth the trouble of building or otherwise obtaining a newish
version, especially the 2.5 series which adds bayes filtering.

I actually run it on my mail server (mail.naos.co.nz) to tag the mail,
and then file it appropriately during the fetchmail download.  (This means
that the "slow" spamassassin tests can be done when I'm not waiting for
it.)  But you can run it all on the fetchmail end of the process if you
want.

>Also I am at some stage considering getting my own domain name and have
>emails coming to that, the issue there is that since I am on ADSL and don't
>have a fixed IP I guess I'd have to use a multidrop POP? Are there any other
>options?

Some ISPs (I know Clear used to do it, and I think Actrix used to as
well; others may too) offer "mail bagging" (Clear's (old?) name
for it), where they will hold mail for you, until you send a special
signal to say "send now" then they send it to you directly via SMTP.
I don't know for certain but I think that should work with a dynamic IP,
perhaps with the help of a dynamic DNS provider.

Ewen

PS: Thanks to the people who contacted me with mail archives.  I've now
    got an archive back to mid-2001 which I'll try to put online when
    I've got some time.  (Someone else mentioned they had an archive
    back to 1999, but alas email to them bounces.  If you're still keen
    on helping out email me from an account with a working email address.)