[Mimedefang] AWL and local.cf

[Jeff Rife]

On 27 Aug 2008 at 16:07, Kris Deugau wrote:

> > Q: Is AWL meaningful, when run on a separate mail server?
> > Isn't AWL implicitly a per-user facitlity?  Is it best
> > practice to disable AWL, when running MDf on a separate
> > mail server?
> 
> I'd say no;  in fact, spammers are *less* likely than legitimate senders 
> to regularly send email from the same IP (block) and so while the 
> spammers won't have their scores kept high, legitimate senders are more 
> likely to have their scores *dropped*.

That's somewhat true, but the reverse is also true: what would 
otherwise be treated as spam would get through if that IP generally 
sends very hammy e-mail.

Since I only mark up at 5 and reject at 10, it only happens a few times 
a year, but for lower reject scores, it might be important.

In most cases, I think you want that e-mail to get through, at least 
based on what I have seen.  The messages often had characteristics of 
spam (like lots of pictures and little text, or many typos), but were 
not actually spam.

In my setup, I have tests other than AWL that push the IP towards its 
long-term average "bad" behavior (like repeated quick retries when I 
send a 50x result).  Because of that, one IP address is on my temporary 
auto-blacklist until next June.


--
Jeff Rife |  
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