Last modified: May 10, 2008

Spam Filtering How To

This is an obsolete rough draft of the document. Current version is in Russian and can be found by this link.
Thiы version of the document is discontinued and not updated nor supported in any way!

Wildcard-based Domain Filtering (e.g. mail.ru's blacklist)

The Bat!

Here is my own spam filter file that I keep updated daily. It is based on signal strings found in message headers. If some signal string found in incoming message header, the message is killed without getting downloaded from mail server. As a result of use of this filter, I have to download and delete manually only about 1/10 of SPAM messages arriving into my mailbox. It saves me a lot of time and even some money, because I don't have to pay for downloading kind of messages I never read!

Of course, this file quickly becomes obsolete, although there are some strings which detect spam by sender's email program or specific words in message subject. I recommend you to start your own spam-list file as one more filter, trained to kill your own actual 'set' of spammers. If you will do it, please feel free to email it to me. I would be glad to put it to this page too.

Important warning: if you decide to use the filter, you will not be able to receive some news messages and even letters from your friends who use words like 'porn' or 'adult' e.g. in message subject. I strongly recommend you to have at least 2 emails: one for your friends, business and registration on trusted services (not filtered), and another one for subscriptions, instant messengers (e.g. ICQ) and signing in forums (filtered).
I do not take any responsibility for any loss of your correspondence while using this filter. Use it at your own risk.

If you want to receive the file as often as it is being updated via email, please email me about it.

Instructions For The Bat!

1. Download SPAM signal strings list file and save it on your disk.
2. In The Bat!'s menu, click Account->Sorting Office/Filters.
3. In the tree view at left (Sorting Rules) click on Selective Download.
4. Click on New.
5. At the tab named Rule, select Detect By->Entire Header.
6. At the tab named Advanced, select Action->Kill, check Load signal strings from file. Browse for the spamsignal.txt file.
7. Close the window by clicking Close.

If you know how to set up this file for use in another mail program, please help me to update this page with more intructions.

Click here to download SPAM Signal String file (spamignal.txt).

Bad Domains List

Here is the list of domains from which 99% of spam comes. You can use this list on your subscriptions-only mailbox.

---- List of domains too often used to send SPAM
@hotmail.com
@aol.com
@excite.com
@earthlink.net
@earthlink.com
@europe.com
@altavista.com
@msn.com

---- match .com, .co.uk, .com.ru etc:
@yahoo.
@lycos.
@usa.

---- .ru domains
@hotbox.ru
@smtp.ru

Click here to view/download Bad Domain List (spamignal-2.txt).