Full Disclosure mailing list archives

RE: Spam with PGP


From: "Bassett, Mark" <mbassett () omaha com>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 08:46:19 -0500

Using free tool K9.  I haven't had to change one from spam to not spam
in at least a couple weeks.  Does a great job, and super easy to set up.
http://www.keir.net/k9.html


Column 1: Since Sun Apr 20 2003  12:00:00 AM (172 days)
Column 2: Since Sun Apr 20 2003  12:00:00 AM (172 days)
 
Total number of emails processed                               268
Number of Good emails processed                                 73
Number of Spam emails processed                                195
Percentage of emails that matched whitelist rules             0.0%
Percentage of emails that matched blacklist rules             0.0%
Number of emails re-classified to Good                          15
Number of emails re-classified to Spam                          12
Percentage emails misidentified as Spam (false positives)     5.6%
Percentage emails misidentified as Good (false negatives)     4.5%
Overall accuracy                                             89.9%


Mark Bassett
Network Administrator
World media company
Omaha.com
402-898-2079


-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan A. Zdziarski [mailto:jonathan () nuclearelephant com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 11:24 AM
To: Michael D Schleif
Cc: full-disclosure () lists netsys com
Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Spam with PGP

Just exactly *HOW* do you measure ``literally 100%''?

E.g. over the past four months or so, every single spam that has come
through has been caught.

How do you account for false positives and false negatives?

Haven't had any of either in four months.

Do you manually examine every message, whether or not flagged as spam?

Yes.  I go through my quarantine box daily to detect false positives,
and would know if I received a spam.

As impressive as that phrase ``literally 100%'' is, I am considerably
skeptical.  I have never -- in thirty years -- found any software
utility that can beat five-nines statistics.

I'm not suggesting DSPAM is capable of this for every user - and I am
certain that I will receive some spam eventually to ruin my golden
streak, as there are always new types of spams to learn.  My wife
doesn't get 100%; she's been getting around 99% until I tinkered with
dictionary lately (she's one of my guinnea pigs)..and I've talked to
some users who are only getting around 95%...please don't think I'm
trying to suggest my solution is the end-all-be-all solution.  But as
for me, yes I'm getting 100% so far.

How can we get hold of yours?

http://www.nuclearelephant.com/projects/dspam/


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