[KLUG Members] junk mail filters

[Mike Williams]

Jason Edward Durrett wrote:
> Mike Williams wrote:
>   
>> Jason Edward Durrett wrote:
>>     
>>> In the past month I have noticed a increase in legitimate mail not
>>> getting to the intended recipients because  of client side junk
>>> filters.  I have seen this even with emails that are replies to emails
>>> that other people have sent.
>>>
>>> Now, it could be that the excuse "It was sent to my Junk Mail so I did
>>> not get it" is replacing the "I got stuck in traffic" excuse, but it
>>> seems more widespread especially with Outlook - especially replies
>>> getting sent to Junk.  However, I have seen it as a problem with all
>>> client filters.
>>> Does anyone else have this problem?  Does anyone know of a way to get a
>>> notification if a message is moved to Junk?  I am fairly sure there is
>>> not but it does not hurt to ask.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> I don't have a solution suggestion, but I'll take a wild guess at the
>> cause:  filters getting confused by a technique called Bayesian
>> Poisoning.  Bayesian Filtering is where you (the user) tell the
>> filters what is spam and what is not, and it learns to identify it. 
>> This trick has been successful enough that spam campaigns have started
>> trying to confuse it by inserting phrases that are not commonly found
>> in advertisements (bits of poetry, literary quotes, and other strange
>> things) into the spam email.  The more of this that you tell your
>> Bayesian filter is spam, the more likely it will get confused and
>> quarantine something legitimate or let something through.
>> Filters are not perfect, and all they can do is have false positive
>> and false negative rates that are "as low as possible".  Spam
>> campaigns keep getting sneakier, and unless there is a major change in
>> the way the Internet works, it will always be a battle between those
>> who are trying to keep it out and those who are trying to sneak it in.
>> _______________________________________________
>>     
>
> You are quite right with the problem.   There is another problem, though
> - and that is how to make sure email continues to be a reliable form of
> communication.  It seems to me that the filters are making email less
> reliable - does anyone know of a client side filter that alerts the
> sender that the message is never going to be read?
>
>   
No, and there's unlikely to be one because it would be too useful to 
spammers.  They would get instant feedback on whether or not their most 
recent trick to beat the filters is working.

Filters are our best hope at the moment for keeping email a usable form 
of communication.  Without them, the signal to noise ratio of email 
would be so low it would be useless.  The way the economics of the Net 
work, this could still happen even with the filtering technologies 
available.