Book Image

SpamAssassin: A practical guide to integration and configuration

Book Image

SpamAssassin: A practical guide to integration and configuration

Overview of this book

As a busy administrator, you know Spam is a major distraction in todays network. The effects range from inappropriate content arriving in the mailboxes up to contact email addresses placed on a website being deluged with unsolicited mail, causing valid enquiries and sales leads to be lost and wasting employee time. The perception of the problem of spam is as big as the reality. In response to the growing problem of spam, a number of free and commercial applications and services have been developed to help network administrators and email users combat spam. Its up to you to choose and then get the most out of an antispam solution. Free to use, flexible, and effective, SpamAssassin has become the most popular open source antispam application. Its unique combination of power and flexibility make it the right choice. This book will now help you set up and optimize SpamAssassin for your network.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
SpamAssassin
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Introduction
Glossary

Summary


Spam can be identified using a number of techniques. Header and body tests search for known words and other characters; these are the bulk of tests provided by SpamAssassin. Various network tests including ORBLs and message databases can be used to detect spam.

Statistical filters that use mathematical techniques to learn the properties of spam and ham can be used to effectively filter spam in addition to email header analysis. Although tools to detect spam are available and can be used, it is also the users' responsibility to report spam to effectively reduce the constant menace of spam emails.