[Mimedefang] Date

[Mark Roedel]

I'd be concerned about doing anything too aggressive based on the date
header alone, just because I'd be paranoid about penalizing somebody for
having an incorrectly-set system clock (intentionally or otherwise).

Note, though, that if you're using SpamAssassin, it's already doing a
handful of sanity checks on the date header (including checking for
proper formatting, missing or nonsensical timezones, and dates in the
future).  Any one of the checks by itself wouldn't be enough for a
message to be tagged as spam, but chances are that those won't be the
only tests triggered by those messages.

And even if you'd rather not use SpamAssassin, it might be worth
downloading just to take a look at the check_for_forward_date() and
_parse_rfc822_date() routines.

But since we're talking about detecting spam anyway, I'd be inclined to
suggest that SpamAssassin is potentially worth looking into.  :)


---
Mark Roedel           | "There is only one truly satisfying way
Systems Programmer    |  to boot a computer."
LeTourneau University |
Longview, Texas  USA  |                         -- J.H.Goldfuss



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rich West [mailto:Rich.West at divatv.com] 
> Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 10:34 AM
> To: mimedefang at lists.roaringpenguin.com
> Subject: Re: [Mimedefang] Date
> 
> 
> I am sure this is possible.  I mean, heck, this is PERL. :)
> 
> You'd have to write a routine which would:
> o parse the file "./HEADERS" for "^Date:"
> o grab the formatted date
> o convert it to UNIX time format
> o then do a check to see if it falls within an acceptable range (not 
> greater than today or less than 30 days, or something similar)
> o take the appropriate action of either delivering it as is 
> or tagging 
> it as SPAM.
> 
> Not hard really.. it might be expensive as far as processing goes, 
> though, but it is a good idea.  If it can be optimized and 
> written to be 
> bullet-proof, it might prove to be a really good addition to the 
> 'default' filter. :)
> 
> -Rich
> 
> 
> J.P van Oyen wrote:
> 
> >
> > Is there a good method to check the date of a mail ?
> >
> > What I am looking for is to eliminate mails dated in the 
> future and in 
> > the past.
> >
> > I am getting mails that stay on top of the mail list so its always 
> > first until the date has past I found this is 99.999 % spam stuf.
> > Also it happens a few times a week that I get mail from older dates 
> > that I want to bounce as the date is to old.
> >
> > Question is can mimedefang help me out on this ?
> >
> > Any comments or idea's......
> >
> > Cheers....
> >
> 
> -- 
> Richard West				mailto:richard.west at divatv.com
> Sr. Systems Administrator
> Diva - Princeton, NJ			http://www.divatv.com
> 
> 
> 
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