RE: NANFA-- NANFA Email Archive suggestion

Bill Wallace (bwallace_at_mitra.com)
Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:02:10 -0500

No, a much better option is to run a bayesian spam filter. I know there are
ones for both Outlook and Netscape email packages, and I expect that Notes has
one as well, but I don't know off hand about one. The one that yahoo uses is
not too bad, and catches about 90% of my spam (and also about 10% of my real
mail which is more problematic.) The filters for Outlook and Netscape (they
use the same algorithm, so they work the same), catches about 99% of spam, and
have error rates of much less than 1% (that is, marking real mail as spam), in
5-6 months using one, once past the first week training period, no email has
gotten classified as spam that wasn't supposed to be. This is so much better
than hiding the emails that it just doesn't make sense to hide them, as that
only affects 1 avenue of getting email addresses, but the filters protect
all.

A spam filter for Outlook is:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=61702&release_id=183129

For Netscape 7.1+, it is built in.

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Sajjad Lateef
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 12:36 PM
To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
Cc: peter.unmack_at_asu.edu; sajjadlateef at yahoo.com
Subject: NANFA-- NANFA Email Archive suggestion

In order to protect email addresses on the NANFA email archive
from being harvested by spammers, it was suggested that we modify
the email addresses in the archive in a manner to make it
hard or impossible for spammers to get at them.

We need to get the opinion of NANFA mailing list members first.
Please send feedback on the following questions to both
sajjadlateef_at_yahoo.com and peter.unmack at asu.edu

(offlist messages, please - comments will be summarized
and presented on the list later)

1. Should we be protecting the email addresses from spammers?
Yes/No

2. If so, should be modify them so that they are still
understandable by humans?
i.e. sajjadlateef_at_yahoo.com becomes
2a. sajjadlateef fishy.fishy yahoo.com (easy)
2b. sajjadlateef fishy.fishy yahoo.ocm (harder, com -> ocm)

3. Make last part of email address un-understandable?
i.e. sajjadlateef_at_yahoo.com becomes
3a. sajjadlateef_at_......... or sajjadlateef_emailhidden

4. Remove the email address totally?
i.e. sajjadlateef_at_yahoo.com becomes
4a. _email_address_hidden_

A prompt response would be appreciated.
(A short 1 line message like: "Yes and I like option X"
or "No, don't bother." is sufficient. It's easier on us)

Thanks
Sajjad

=====

--
Sajjad Lateef   e-mail: sajjad_at_acm.org
Note: Any e-mail to me with my first name in Subject  or
without a subject line is automatically filtered out
and discarded as  s p a m .
-
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/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org