Mailing List Archive: Making custom black/white lists of subject and body text

Making custom black/white lists of subject and body text

Feb 3, 2004, 5:45 PM

Post #1 of 4 (1335 views)

I've accumulated a black and white list of words that are found within
the subject or body of a message that, for my purposes, guarantee spam.
Is there a simple way to import a list of words (preferably in
reg-expression format) to automatically black or whitelist the email?

For example, if the subject has Viagra in it, then I'm comfortable with
trashing it immediately. However, if the body mentions specific
hobby-related words that I receive on a regular basis from various
mailing lists and individuals, then I definitely want to keep them.

I've successfully created a rule within my userprefs file and assigned
it a high value, but I'd hate to create hundreds of these just for my
custom list. It seems like there ought to be a file somewhere to
associate lists of words, similar to the whitelisting on the email
addresses. Maybe I'm just missing it.

Thanks,
Zack

Making custom black/white lists of subject and body text [ In reply to ]

zclobes at swbell

Feb 3, 2004, 5:46 PM

Post #2 of 4 (1293 views)

Permalink

Making custom black/white lists of subject and body text [ In reply to ]

zclobes at swbell

Feb 3, 2004, 5:47 PM

Post #3 of 4 (1295 views)

Permalink

Re: Making custom black/white lists of subject and body text [ In reply to ]

mkettler at evi-inc

Feb 3, 2004, 6:00 PM

Post #4 of 4 (1300 views)

Permalink

At 07:46 PM 2/3/2004, Zack Clobes wrote:
>I've accumulated a black and white list of words that are found within the
>subject or body of a message that, for my purposes, guarantee spam.
>Is there a simple way to import a list of words (preferably in
>reg-expression format) to automatically black or whitelist the email?
>For example, if the subject has Viagra in it, then I'm comfortable with
>trashing it immediately. However, if the body mentions specific
>hobby-related words that I receive on a regular basis from various mailing
>lists and individuals, then I definitely want to keep them.
>
>I've successfully created a rule within my userprefs file and assigned it
>a high value, but I'd hate to create hundreds of these just for my custom
>list. It seems like there ought to be a file somewhere to associate lists
>of words, similar to the whitelisting on the email addresses. Maybe I'm
>just missing it.
>
>Thanks,
>Zack

AFAIK there's nothing simpler than writing a custom rule to do this.
There's no "blacklist_word" or other command of the type.

SA was originally developed because of the FP problems with "one work
block" filters. Since this is fundamentally contrary to the concept behind
the creation of SpamAssassin in the first place, it would be strange for it
to have such a feature.

Not to say that you're outright wrong-headed to do it that way, but it is
completely against the concept of SpamAssassin, and thus no surprise that
SA doesn't have shortcuts to make doing it easier.

With all the bayes poison going around, it's hard to say that
"whitelist_word" would be useful at all.