3 ms·

I have a small helpdesk software[1] that can sometimes get an awfully enourmous amount of spam. It is behind Mailgun, so it should get spam protection from Mail

by fiatjaf 11y ago

I have a small helpdesk software[1] that can sometimes get an awfully enourmous amount of spam. It is behind Mailgun, so it should get spam protection from Mailgun, but that doesn't really works, so I wander what could I do to prevent spam myself. After reading about the Gmail spam protection I thought it was impossible to do anything against spam, because what Gmail does is not really possible to common people. So I would like to know from you, that is much more experienced than I, what are my possibilities? Also, isn't there a hosted service, SaaS or something, that offers filters and allow for feedback (users marking messages as spam), like a pay-as-you-go trained Bayes filter? [1]: https://boardthreads.com https://boardthreads.com

onli 11y ago
That's right, you can't beat the scale of gmail. But you can run a filter yourself, and because your personal filter will be more adapted to the specific spam you get, the results can be suprisingly good. https://spamassassin.apache.org/ https://spamassassin.apache.org/ is one of the old ways of doing that, it should work fine for your scenario. > Also, isn't there a hosted service, SaaS or something, that offers filters and allow for feedback (users marking messages as spam), like a pay-as-you-go trained Bayes filter? Yes, tailored for blog-comments even. It is called akismet and run by Automattic, the company behind Wordpress, see https://akismet.com/ https://akismet.com/. It is very effective and a good solution without costs if you are willing to give the comment data to an US-entity, which is very critical in Europe where I live. Though you can't train it yourself from outside of Wordpress, to my knowledge. For mails there are several spam filter services, like http://www.mailroute.net/ http://www.mailroute.net/, but I do not have any experience with them.
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  I think Mailgun runs SpamAssassin on their side, but that's what fails so heavily.
  - onli 11y ago
    When you train it yourself this could be a different story. However, I do not use a spam filter for mails anymore and can't be absolutely sure. I just know that the idea can work fine for blog comments and their spam.
stevekemp 11y ago
Do take a look at my service - http://blogspam.net/ http://blogspam.net/ It is designed for realtime testing of blog-comments as spam/ham. There are a lot of options, and it has been in use for a couple of years.
- onli 11y ago
  That looks nice. It is good to have another option than akismet for that, especially an open source one we could host ourself if necessary. And do I see that right that no API key is necessary? How do you protect yourself against spammers falsely classifying their comments as ham? I'm not sure I want to integrate that for ursprung. So far, the local methods were enough (and the bayes filter easy to provide via a gem), if that changes for me or others I will reconsider. But serendipity (http://www.s9y.org/ http://www.s9y.org/) should get a plugin for that. that is certainly used in places where more options would help. I'll look into it.
  - stevekemp 11y ago
    I've had a few people self-host their own instances, and I like that this is possible. As you say this is key-free, which with the benefit of hindsight was perhaps a mistake, but nowadays I'm happy enough with it. Spammers would need to train their comments as ham for every domain - since if bayasian testing is done it is done on a per-site basis. I think that's probably the biggest reason why they've not bothered.
    - onli 11y ago
      > since if bayasian testing is done it is done on a per-site basis. Oh, I did not realize that. That at the same time is totally cool and will help to tailor the filter, and misses some potential by not having the global spam characteristics. I added the plugin to my todo-list. Not having to force the user to bother with an Api-key alone is worth the effort.
      - stevekemp 11y ago

by fiatjaf 11y ago

onli 11y ago

That's right, you can't beat the scale of gmail. But you can run a filter yourself, and because your personal filter will be more adapted to the specific spam you get, the results can be suprisingly good. https://spamassassin.apache.org/ https://spamassassin.apache.org/ is one of the old ways of doing that, it should work fine for your scenario. > Also, isn't there a hosted service, SaaS or something, that offers filters and allow for feedback (users marking messages as spam), like a pay-as-you-go trained Bayes filter? Yes, tailored for blog-comments even. It is called akismet and run by Automattic, the company behind Wordpress, see https://akismet.com/ https://akismet.com/. It is very effective and a good solution without costs if you are willing to give the comment data to an US-entity, which is very critical in Europe where I live. Though you can't train it yourself from outside of Wordpress, to my knowledge. For mails there are several spam filter services, like http://www.mailroute.net/ http://www.mailroute.net/, but I do not have any experience with them.

fiatjaf 11y ago
I think Mailgun runs SpamAssassin on their side, but that's what fails so heavily.
- onli 11y ago
  When you train it yourself this could be a different story. However, I do not use a spam filter for mails anymore and can't be absolutely sure. I just know that the idea can work fine for blog comments and their spam.

stevekemp 11y ago

Do take a look at my service - http://blogspam.net/ http://blogspam.net/ It is designed for realtime testing of blog-comments as spam/ham. There are a lot of options, and it has been in use for a couple of years.

onli 11y ago
That looks nice. It is good to have another option than akismet for that, especially an open source one we could host ourself if necessary. And do I see that right that no API key is necessary? How do you protect yourself against spammers falsely classifying their comments as ham? I'm not sure I want to integrate that for ursprung. So far, the local methods were enough (and the bayes filter easy to provide via a gem), if that changes for me or others I will reconsider. But serendipity (http://www.s9y.org/ http://www.s9y.org/) should get a plugin for that. that is certainly used in places where more options would help. I'll look into it.
- stevekemp 11y ago
  I've had a few people self-host their own instances, and I like that this is possible. As you say this is key-free, which with the benefit of hindsight was perhaps a mistake, but nowadays I'm happy enough with it. Spammers would need to train their comments as ham for every domain - since if bayasian testing is done it is done on a per-site basis. I think that's probably the biggest reason why they've not bothered.
  - onli 11y ago
    > since if bayasian testing is done it is done on a per-site basis. Oh, I did not realize that. That at the same time is totally cool and will help to tailor the filter, and misses some potential by not having the global spam characteristics. I added the plugin to my todo-list. Not having to force the user to bother with an Api-key alone is worth the effort.
    - stevekemp 11y ago