[Mimedefang] Check this X-header out

[Wesley Peters]

On Monday, March 15, 2004 7:54 AM, David F. Skoll <mailto:dfs at roaringpenguin.com> alleged:

> On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, Ben Kamen wrote:
> 
>> Has anyone else seen this - I just looked at a spam and saw:
> 
>> X-Habeas-SWE-1: winter into spring
> 
> ..etc..
> 
> This is Habeas's idea to allow "legitimate" bulk e-mail
> through.  Basically:
> 
> - Habeas copyrights a Haiku.
> - Habeas licenses the Haiku to "legitimate" e-mail senders.
> - Habeas convinces anti-spam vendors to permit mail with the
> Haiku in it
>   to pass.  In SpamAssassin, this is the HABEAS_SWE rule,
> with a default
>   score of -8.0
> - If spammers abuse the Habeas mark, Habeas sues for
> copyright violation.
> 
> Unfortunately, in my experience, spammers _do_ abuse the
> Habeas mark, so
> I've nuked the HABEAS_SWE score down to zero.  Sorry, Habeas;
> nice idea,
> but criminals who think nothing of taking over armies of computers to
> send spam are unlikely to be perturbed by copyright violation.

At SpamCon, several participants joked that the Habeas notice has
actually become a very good predictor of spam, since it hasn't
achieved widespread acceptance anywhere but spammers trying to
blow through your filters.

As always, YMMV.

	-- Wes