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Re: Blocked?

Subject: Re: Blocked?
From: Kat Nagel <mlists -at- masterworkconsulting -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 22:10:10 -0400

My ISP (for my personal Internet access) uses a program called
SpamAssassin. This past weekend it caught every single one of a deluge of
virus-infected emails.


My personal-mail ISP has recently implemented SpamAssassin, too. I love it. The default rules were pretty good---only a few false positives out of a day's worth of SPAM (roughly 100 junk messages %-{ ) and a sprinkling of false negatives. The individual customization options are flexible enough for my needs. Between those customizable rules and the individual blacklist/whitelist capability, I've got it tweaked so I get only one or two false positives a week, and almost no SPAM in my inbox.

Today I changed the settings for my business domain email so that from now on it will all be forwarded through SpamAssassin on my personal account. (Tomorrow I call my domain host and request SpamAssassin *their* mail server!)

Tech-writing tie-in
----------
The messages that pass through SpamAssassin carry their
individual SPAM scores (a numerical value for each rule applied)
*along with a hyperlink to the SpamAssassin help files*. The
combination of [a] detailed information about why a message was
blocked or not blocked (if the total score was less than the
server's threshold value), and [b] a direct link to the help
files makes it very easy for the users to customize the filters
to suit their individual needs.

I'd love to see more customizable applications do that sort of thing. I can visualize some really useful ways to implement this in Outlook, for example --- a sort of low-key context-sensitive help that discreetly guides you through the customization process just when you notice you need it, without interjecting those yammering, blinking, thoroughly irritating Assistants, or forcing you to search through thousands of poorly indexed help files.

K@
Kat Nagel



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