[Dev] Re: Dev Digest, Vol 16, Issue 13

[Brian Kirsch]

Hi Piero,
I would have to agree with Alex. However, we will certainly provide 
spam detection (spambayes, whitelists) in future releases of Chandler.
As Alex points out the key to Bayesian filtering is a well designed UI 
to allow the user to train the
spam detection software properly.

Regarding Virus Protection, should OSAF or a volunteer deem inline 
protection to be an important feature,
  the Mail Service API is designed to allow 3rd party developers to 
register as listeners at various mail processing stages.
But at this stage it is not a high priority on the development schedule.




Brian Kirsch - Email Framework Engineer
Open Source Applications Foundation
543 Howard St. 5th Floor 
San Francisco, CA 94105 
(415) 946-3056 
http://www.osafoundation.org

On Jan 20, 2005, at 2:08 PM, Alec Flett wrote:

> Piero Giuseppe Goletto wrote:
>
>> Should we have sort of an antispam module linked to Chandler?
>>
>> You might want a *white list* and a *black list*. While the former 
>> would be explicitly created by the user (If I want 
>> dev at osafoundation.org and heikki at osafoundation org to be in the white 
>> list I must enter them in it), the latter would be created by using 
>> both a black list of known spammers' addresses, a black list of virus 
>> signatures and a filter (look at bogofilter.sourceforge.net, for 
>> instance, it is the Bayesian filter used by Novell Evolution for 
>> instance)
>>
> (Howdy, I'm new to chandler but spent a long time working on Mozilla 
> Mail and even spent a little time on spam)
> Trying to maintain some kind of blacklist sure seems like a nightmare 
> unless you have some centrally managed list - the same goes for virus 
> signatures. Is that a business that OSAF wants to get into, or a 
> burden that it wants to place on the shoulders of an organization 
> deploying chandler? I'd think no on both counts.
>
> The Bayesian filter seems to be a fairly effective filter once it is 
> trained properly and it at least allows the user to determine what is 
> and isn't spam without having to set up complex rules regarding 
> specific attributes on messages like To or From. Thunderbird doesn't 
> have the greatest user experience to allow proper training but if you 
> can get the training experience down, it can be pretty effective. I'm 
> curious how well Evolution's anti-spam stuff works.
>
> But back to blacklists - There already are effective means for 
> anti-virus software developers to plug into Outlook and such - it 
> seems like if we were able to provide those same or similar hooks in 
> Chandler then we could leverage existing products. Perhaps there are 
> already similar means in other mail clients to hook up to 
> SpamAssassin, Razor and the like? There are some commercial products 
> (i.e. http://www.mailfrontier.com/ etc) that do this on both the 
> client and server side that might be worth looking at as well.
>
> Alec
>
>> My idea is:
>>
>> Chandler receives a message M via pop3/imap
>>
>>    Chandler stores the message M in a temporary area T
>>
>>       Chandler checks the message M against the Virus Signature List V
>>
>>             If the Message M *contains* a Virus Signature, then
>>                    Chandler deletes the message
>>                    Chandler stores, in the message Inbox, an error 
>> message
>>             end if
>>
>>             If the Message M *does not contain* a Virus Signature, 
>> then
>>
>>                     Chandler checks the from: address against the 
>> White List
>>
>>                      if From: address of the Message M is into the 
>> White List then
>>                            Chandler stores the message in the Inbox
>>                      else
>>                            Chandler checks the message agains the 
>> black list and the spam filter
>>                            if the message is spam - postive then
>>                               Chandler marks the message as spam
>>                      end if
>>
>>               end if
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>> Piero Giuseppe Goletto
>>
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>
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