Re: [Evolution] How to handle unsolicited e-mails with evolution 2.32.2 ?

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Sat, 2011-11-26 at 23:25 +0100, Thomas Prost wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, den 23.11.2011, 16:52 +0100 schrieb Andre Klapper:
> > On Wed, 2011-11-23 at 10:47 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2011-11-23 at 15:00 +0100, Andre Klapper wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2011-11-22 at 23:10 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, 2011-11-23 at 01:41 +0100, Thomas Prost wrote:
> > > > > > Has anyone here any of the two possible plugins working ?
> > > > > > Using ubuntu 11.04 seems to me that none is going to filter anything :-(
> > > > >
> > > > > http://live.gnome.org/Evolution/FAQ#Why_does_Evolution_not_automatically_filter_for_spam.3F
> > > >
> > > > Or better nowadays:
> > > > http://library.gnome.org/users/evolution/3.2/mail-spam.html
> > >
> > > Actually I would dispute that. I know the latter URL is now the official
> > > FAQ, and it certainly looks nice, but I feel the info in the original
> > > FAQ is currently a bit more complete, at least for this specific
> Maybe, you didnÂt notice, but this was an absolute beginners question.
> What I miss ? There is not a bit of a hint, how to check, if the botched
> up configuration is acceptably functioning :-(
>
> Following is not for me, I believe ...
> > If you feel like patching, these files are named mail-spam*.page in
> > http://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution/tree/help/C/
> >
> > > Also, the new FAQ points the user
> > > to specific SourceForge pages to install Bogofilter or SpamAssassin. Not
> > > a good idea IMHO, as most distros already offer them via their usual
> > > installation mechanisms.
> ... but nowhere the user is told how to check his installation.
> Simplest: Some WARN me, not to use both, even not to check both boxes in
> the evolution plugins. Your Infos say, you can check both without being
> scared. ThatÂs unfriendly inconsistency of those, who call themselves
> supporters - my lightweight opinion :-(((

Well, the "supporters" are mostly just people like you and me. We don't
have secret meetings to agree on what to say, so it's not impossible for
inconsistent information to appear. It usually works itself out over
time. And of course you can always contribute yourself.

Getting back to the question: under Preferences->Mail Preferences->Junk
there's a drop-down menu to select which spam filter is the default. It
also checks that the appropriate binary is installed. It's my
understanding that Evo will only use the default plugin, even if both
are installed and selected in the main Plugins menu. However this
applies only to what Evo itself is doing. Your mail may already have
been marked as spam on its way to Evo, either at the mail server or in a
mail fetcher in your own machine (if you use one). Many servers have
SpamAssassin installed, and they could be marking messages as spam. In
that case, if "Check custom headers for junk" is selected, any matching
messages will *not* be passed through the default plugin, they'll just
be assumed to be spam.

However your problem seems to be the reverse, i.e. you're getting spam
in your inbox. In that case, it's a strong indicator that the filter has
not learned enough to distinguish between ham and spam. The way to deal
with that is to train it. The exact method varies according to the
filter, but with Bogofilter (the one I use), the easiest way to to save
a bunch of spam messages (the more the better but around 100 is a good
number) in an mbox file and run "bogofilter -M -s < file". Do the same
with a bunch of non-spam messages (using '-n' instead of '-s') and
you'll have an initial corpus that Bogofilter can use.

poc