(Spam, this is about the spam.)
Ever since I joined COMP.LANG.C., I've noticed the obscene amounts of
spam. While I've sat down and compiled a huge list of most of the emails
the spam is from & put it in a filter, it doesn't run. Apparently
filters can only run with only one target, and since I don't want to sit
down and run like 86 filters one by one, I have to find another
solution. What do you guys do to filter out the spam? Is there an addon
I should use? Any and all advice is welcome
--
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Il Dottore wrote on 6/9/23 5:54 pm:
> (Spam, this is about the spam.) Ever since I joined COMP.LANG.C.,
> I've noticed the obscene amounts of spam. While I've sat down and
> compiled a huge list of most of the emails the spam is from & put it
> in a filter, it doesn't run. Apparently filters can only run with
> only one target, and since I don't want to sit down and run like 86
> filters one by one, I have to find another solution. What do you guys
> do to filter out the spam? Is there an addon I should use? Any and
> all advice is welcome

Your News Agent tells me you are using SeaMonkey 2.53.17, which I what I
think I am using as well.

If you look at the Tools drop-down menu, the third item is "Manage
Filters...". On that screen, look under the "Filters for:" to select a
News Server/News group that you want to alter the Filters for.

Note if you want a Filter to apply Server-wide, you can select the
server at the very top of the list.

Click on the NG and you should see the Filters that you have produced to
apply to that NG. On that screen, select "New" to create a new filter or
"Edit" to modify a filter that you have already created. Note the
"Filter name:" that you gave it when you made the filter.

On the "Filter Rules" screen, select "Match all ...", or "Match any
....." or "Match all messages" as you want. Probably "Match any ...." is
what you want.

Then, in the next portion of the screen, the first drip-down allows you
to select which portion of the Header to work on. The second drop-down
gives you some thins to test on, and then in the third part enter the
condition you want to act on.

If you want the same filter to act on several conditions, click the "+"
at the right side of the screen so you can have the one filter run for
various parts of the Header to act upon.

Similarly, in the next portion of the screen, you can have the filter do
various things.

Then click 'OK' and, hopefully, the filter should be operational.
--
Daniel

But I think Il Dottore's problem is that filters don't work
hierarchically in newsgroups, so you have to redefine all the filter
rules for each NG, not just once at the top level (and there's no way to
have rules run in the NNTP server).

A work-around is to set up your desired rules for one NG and then
manually adjust whatever configuration file holds this data (IIRC it's a
text file) to apply the same rules to each other NG of interest.

/df

--
London
UK

On 2023-09-06 16:58:47, Dirk Fieldhouse wrote:
> But I think Il Dottore's problem is that filters don't work
> hierarchically in newsgroups, so you have to redefine all the filter
> rules for each NG, not just once at the top level (and there's no way to
> have rules run in the NNTP server).

My problem is that, if I add multiple targets to a filter, the whole
thing stops working

For example, if I make a filter for messages from WEEDLEGITBUY47, it'll
filter their messages out.
However, if I make the filter target WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX,
and COOLGAMBLING9, it filters out none of them.
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Il Dottore wrote on 7/9/23 5:13 pm:
> On 2023-09-06 16:58:47, Dirk Fieldhouse wrote:
>> But I think Il Dottore's problem is that filters don't work
>> hierarchically in newsgroups, so you have to redefine all the filter
>> rules for each NG, not just once at the top level (and there's no way to
>> have rules run in the NNTP server).
>
> My problem is that, if I add multiple targets to a filter, the whole
> thing stops working
>
> For example, if I make a filter for messages from WEEDLEGITBUY47, it'll
> filter their messages out.
> However, if I make the filter target WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX,
> and COOLGAMBLING9, it filters out none of them.

On my reply, I mentioned that you could have a filter apply to ...

Quote
On the "Filter Rules" screen, select "Match all ...", or "Match any
....." or "Match all messages" as you want. Probably "Match any ...." is
what you want.
End Quote.

Have you selected "Match All ..." when you really need "Match any ..."??
Or Vice Versa??
--
Daniel

Il Dottore wrote:
> On 2023-09-06 16:58:47, Dirk Fieldhouse wrote:
>> But I think Il Dottore's problem is that filters don't work
>> hierarchically in newsgroups, so you have to redefine all the filter
>> rules for each NG, not just once at the top level (and there's no way to
>> have rules run in the NNTP server).
>
> My problem is that, if I add multiple targets to a filter, the whole
> thing stops working
>
> For example, if I make a filter for messages from WEEDLEGITBUY47, it'll
> filter their messages out.
> However, if I make the filter target WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX,
> and COOLGAMBLING9, it filters out none of them.

A simple item -- make sure that you have selected "match any" rather
than "match all". The latter is the default, and it's easy to forget to
switch that.

Beyond that, when you're wanting a lot of conditions, it's best to go
slowly, adding one at a time, rather than trying add a bunch all at
once. This is especially true if "match all" is selected, as a small
error or other minor variant of content will cause the filter not to
identify anything.

If there's a lot of things that you're trying to filter for, I also
suggest multiple filters and not doing everything on a single filter.
To me, one of the weakest parts of the Mozilla filtering engine is that
it doesn't really handle Boolean logic well, and when you need to start
mixing AND, OR and NOT conditions, then it's easy to build filters that
don't do what you want. This isn't restricted to Seamonkey, and
Thunderbird has the same issues.

Also, make sure you have logging active, as that will allow you to see
when a filter identifies something or not. Ultimately, the log is better
at identifying times when the filter catches something you don't want,
but it's still useful. This is also another reason to use more rules
that are relatively simple than a few ones that are really complex, as
having more rules allows for better tracking from the logging.

Smith

On 2023-09-07 00:35:43, Daniel65 wrote:
> Il Dottore wrote on 7/9/23 5:13 pm:
>> On 2023-09-06 16:58:47, Dirk Fieldhouse wrote:
>>> But I think Il Dottore's problem is that filters don't work
>>> hierarchically in newsgroups, so you have to redefine all the filter
>>> rules for each NG, not just once at the top level (and there's no way to
>>> have rules run in the NNTP server).
>>
>> My problem is that, if I add multiple targets to a filter, the whole
>> thing stops working
>>
>> For example, if I make a filter for messages from WEEDLEGITBUY47,
>> it'll filter their messages out.
>> However, if I make the filter target WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX,
>> and COOLGAMBLING9, it filters out none of them.
>
> On my reply, I mentioned that you could have a filter apply to ...
>
> Quote
> On the "Filter Rules" screen, select "Match all ...", or "Match any
> ...." or "Match all messages" as you want. Probably "Match any ...." is
> what you want.
> End Quote.
>
> Have you selected "Match All ..." when you really need "Match any ..."??
> Or Vice Versa??
Yes, as it turns out, it was a number of factors

1. I had it on "Match All..." by mistake
2. It ran slow because of how many emails it contained
3. A lot of the ones that weren't filtered were just new accounts they made

To try and get past it running unimaginably slow, I'm making a filter
that goes after their topics (drug names, cloned cards, etc.)

Thank you for the help!

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Il Dottore wrote on 8/9/23 2:33 am:
> On 2023-09-07 00:35:43, Daniel65 wrote:
>> Il Dottore wrote on 7/9/23 5:13 pm:
>>> On 2023-09-06 16:58:47, Dirk Fieldhouse wrote:
>>>> But I think Il Dottore's problem is that filters don't work
>>>> hierarchically in newsgroups, so you have to redefine all the
>>>> filter rules for each NG, not just once at the top level (and
>>>> there's no way to have rules run in the NNTP server).
>>>
>>> My problem is that, if I add multiple targets to a filter, the
>>> whole thing stops working
>>>
>>> For example, if I make a filter for messages from
>>> WEEDLEGITBUY47, it'll filter their messages out. However, if I
>>> make the filter target WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX, and
>>> COOLGAMBLING9, it filters out none of them.
>>
>> On my reply, I mentioned that you could have a filter apply to ...
>>
>> Quote On the "Filter Rules" screen, select "Match all ...", or
>> "Match any ...." or "Match all messages" as you want. Probably
>> "Match any ...." is what you want. End Quote.
>>
>> Have you selected "Match All ..." when you really need "Match any
>> ..."?? Or Vice Versa??
> Yes, as it turns out, it was a number of factors
>
> 1. I had it on "Match All..." by mistake

Pick me, too! I wondered why my filters weren't working at first!!

> 2. It ran slow because of how many emails it contained
> 3. A lot of the ones that weren't filtered were just new accounts
> they made
>
> To try and get past it running unimaginably slow, I'm making a
> filter that goes after their topics (drug names, cloned cards, etc.)
>
> Thank you for the help!

No probs!!
--
Daniel

On 2023-09-07, Il Dottore wrote:

> On 2023-09-06 16:58:47, Dirk Fieldhouse wrote:
>> But I think Il Dottore's problem is that filters don't work
>> hierarchically in newsgroups, so you have to redefine all the filter
>> rules for each NG, not just once at the top level (and there's no way to
>> have rules run in the NNTP server).
>
> My problem is that, if I add multiple targets to a filter, the whole
> thing stops working
>
> For example, if I make a filter for messages from WEEDLEGITBUY47,
> it'll filter their messages out.
> However, if I make the filter target WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX,
> and COOLGAMBLING9, it filters out none of them.

Are there many legitimate posts from Google Groups? Are these easily
identifiable in a filter? A quick glance at the spam posts in
comp.lang.c suggests they're all from Google Groups, so you could
consider filtering on message-id ending in @googlegroups.com as part of
a larger filter.

So far I've only spotted Paul Edwards and Malcolm McLean posting
non-spam via Google Groups, but it's quite possible there are more such
Google Group posters in that group, which I'm not seeing right away
because there are so many posts.

(Wow, is that really more than 1200 spam posts only in the past few
days!?)

--
Nuno Silva

Il Dottore wrote:
> WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX, and COOLGAMBLING9

Maybe you want to filter all names containing BUY, SEX or GAMBLING (for
example).

On 2023-09-13 12:00:04, Don Vito Martinelli wrote:
> Il Dottore wrote:
>> WEEDLEGITBUY47, SAMANTHASEXYSEX, and COOLGAMBLING9
>
> Maybe you want to filter all names containing BUY, SEX or GAMBLING (for
> example).
Well, those were just names I made up as examples/for funny, most of the
time they use actual human names, which, while most people on here use
pseudonyms, does make filtering them a lot harder

Nowadays I've been filtering by title, cos they tend to stick WHATSAPP
or BUY NEMBUTAL or AFRICAN GREY PARROT EGGS or whatever directly in
their titles. My main problem right now is that I can't mark them as
junk and then filter them myself, so if I go all out I risk the
possibility of actual discussion getting trashed too.

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