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List:       novalug
Subject:    Re: Repeat Off Topic SPAM
From:       Bruce Israel <israel () his ! com>
Date:       1999-09-29 20:55:54
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>From: "Jaime" <jaimefuentes@ccl-eng.com>
>
>To All, Thanks in advance.  I remember SPAM being discussed at one of the
>NOVALUG meetings.  Does anyone have any documentation or links about
>procedures for handling SPAM on the user level, that they would be willing
>to share?


Sure, there are a few techniques/tricks/procedures.  Here are my
recommendations: 

1. As mentioned before, don't respond, even to complain, so that you don't
get verified as a good address.  I don't know if this is actually true or
just an urban legend that they do that, but it seems to be common sense
anyway. 

2. There are projects for collecting and addressing such that you can
forward the messages to.  For example, my ISP has an 'abuse' mailing list
for handling that.

3. Don't get too upset about it.  It's like getting upset about gravity or
the weather.  You feel lousy and the universe doesn't care that you feel
lousy, and hasn't changed its behaviour at all.

4. Apply filters as needed.  the 'procmail' program is an excellent program 
for filtering mail to separate folders/mailboxes according to certain
criteria.  My approach to my .procmailrc file is to do the following rules
in order:

- put mail to or from me explicitly into a personal folder.  The rule looks 
like:

    :0
    * ^(From|To|Cc):.*israel@
    personal

- File mail to each mailing list I'm on into a particular folder.  My
software rules look like:

    :0
    * ^(To|Cc|From):.*([jJ]ava.*|soar-.*|omniorb-list|majug|linux.*)@
    software

    :0
    * ^(Sender|To|Cc):.*(lug|linux).*@.*tux.org
    software

These rules have to include every mailing list I'm on because of the
following catch-all rules.

- Catch a bunch of the fairly common SPAM patterns that I tend to get.  I
file those into a separate folder that my mail reader ignores, and which I
check every week or two.  I like doing that because it allows me to catch
any refiling errors, and doesn't lose anything potentially important (not
that it's ever caught anything non-spam yet).

    :0
    * ^Subject:.*(RECOMMENDATION|AD:|STOCK|BUY|FREE|ALERT|ADV:)
    .mktg

    :0
    * ^Subject:.*([Hh]ome.*[Bb]usiness|XXX|[$]|[Cc]redit|[Ss]ale)
    .mktg

- Finally, catch everything else into an 'unknown' folder.  Often catches
spam, but sometimes it catches good stuff as well.

    :0
    Munknown

Anyway, that's my approach, for what it's worth.

Bruce

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