From: "Geo." 

"Tony Williams"  wrote in message
news:3dfbe15f{at}w3.nls.net...

> Depends on your perspective. As an email user I can set up a filter
> which sends all messages starting with the string "[SPAM]"
to a separate
> folder and either ignore them or send complaints. If you run the
> receiving servers it's true that tagging won't cut down the load but you
> can use it as a sort of probation instead of going straight to blocking.

But in that case why not just get an unfiltered account and do your own
filtering? What's the point of putting the filtering load on the server at
all if  you aren't going to block? There are way more spare cycles at the
client end so why not spread out the load by taking advantage of that?

> As always: your server, your rules.

My servers do both filtered and unfiltered mail, the choice is the users. I
just don't see any sense in having the server read every email if all it's
going to do is give you an opinion on that email. Better you have your
machine give you an opinion because you can customize it to your liking
then.

> Filters which use Bayesian statistical techniques are surprisingly good
> at identifying spam (no, I don't understand the math very well).

They are only as good as the people who configure them.

> Blacklists are the ultimate weapon though, and I wish there were some
> sort of official blacklist rather than the multiple private ones we have
> at the moment. Probably won't happen.

I think I understand why, because it would be more effective if there were
one that lots and lots of people use. But something else to consider. If
everyone ran their own blacklist then it would be a real pita for an ISP
who didn't deal with the spam problem because they would be on hundreds of
blacklists and it would be very difficult to get off them all just because
they cleaned up this month. It would make it more important to all ISPs to
get and stay spam free because of the time it would take to get off all the
blacklists.

Geo.

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