1 of the changes in 21277 is because of my report. Very slow startup of
the rebuild process.
minor fix for too slow SQL servers by preventing one unneeded SQL
statement
2+ of the changes in 21280 stemmed from my messages. Too many open files
in Windows, early bad SSL changes, catching invalid regex instead of ASSP
crashing
fixes a Super-DAU setup
21287 & 21290: your changes to griplist folder creation, changes/fixes to
BereleyDB error logging, gui changes, and windows file descriptor changes
are because of things I've brought up
fixes a Super-DAU setup
21293: The NWLI changes are because of what I asked
has worked before and after code changes nearly the same way (no changes
for advanced users) - yes code and doc are somehow better now
7 of the 8 changes in 21302 are because of my reports, questions,
requests, and suggestions. Related to external file change times not
being recorded in ASSP (long time bug), improvement in a single file
changing causing all to be reloaded, changes to the analyzer for reports
from Outlook, corpus cleanup for DKIM WL/NP matches.
bug in file change time for 'Groups' feature if include files are
externaly changed, not using any of the recommended and documented ways
anything else is more or less code cosmetic - there is no need to cleanup
anything from the corpus (it's nice to have) - the default rebuild engine
is doing it well
21396 more changes because of discussions about Outlook reporting (FYI
forward as attachment from Outlook still doesn't result in correct analyze
reports nor does multiple report attachments in a single email from
Outlook work at all.)
nothing really changed - one minor change to catch wrong outlook reporting
.msg + header corrections for wrong reported mails .eml
21317 After my questions about the unusual request for help for a way to
match username of the recipient to the sender we discovered the bug about
unoptimized weighted bombs with a scoring parameter and the bug with
definite statements
?(DEFINE) forced by me - nobody is using it
<<<...>>>=>xx really a bug
So what is left from over 30 of your posts in the last 2 months - hours of
reading, rereading and answering, analyzing and fixing things which
normaly never happen, thinking about touching the assp core functions? -
Not much left - one bug.
To come to an end - for example take the subject of this thread ...."Scan
entire message for Bombs, regardless of MaxBytes setting?" ....
Everybody who knows the concept of assp will get tears in the eyes if
reading this. I don't want to talk with you about the assp concept!
Thank you again Ken for testing assp and reporting bugs.
Join the assp forum, if you want. This mailing list has only ~80 members
the forum has ~1390 members. Possibly you'll get better help there. Every
forum has a 'Suggestion and Feedback', a 'How do I' and a
'Troubleshooting' section.
Ken, I don't want to prevent you from posting here using any SF project
rule - everyone should be and is free to join or left this mailinglist.
But 'think assp' before you post, keep you posts short, be patient and
accept some thing like 'I'll think about' and in particular 'No'.
Thomas
Von: "K Post" <nntp.p...@gmail.com>
An: "ASSP development mailing list" <assp-test@lists.sourceforge.net>
Datum: 14.11.2021 17:01
Betreff: Re: [Assp-test] Concept Question: Scan entire message for
Bombs, regardless of MaxBytes setting? New MaxBytes recommendation?
I can not decypher what this means:
most - where? -> forum , bug tracker , self testing, forced by attackers
and it's my lack of clarity on your short replies which leads me to
question further.
I need to find a way to still be able to report my findings and ask my
questions without being a bother. The last thing I want to be is a
burden, but I have no other way to communicate with you, as the sole
developer on a project that has minimal user communication other than what
you and I discuss.
While I wish it were easier for me to be more concise, my persistence and
full description of issues and challenges has resulted in far more than
the one change you referenced. I've outlined some of them from the last 7
versions below.
1 of the changes in 21277 is because of my report. Very slow startup of
the rebuild process.
2+ of the changes in 21280 stemmed from my messages. Too many open files
in Windows, early bad SSL changes, catching invalid regex instead of ASSP
crashing
21287 & 21290: your changes to griplist folder creation, changes/fixes to
BereleyDB error logging, gui changes, and windows file descriptor changes
are because of things I've brought up
21293: The NWLI changes are because of what I asked
7 of the 8 changes in 21302 are because of my reports, questions,
requests, and suggestions. Related to external file change times not
being recorded in ASSP (long time bug), improvement in a single file
changing causing all to be reloaded, changes to the analyzer for reports
from Outlook, corpus cleanup for DKIM WL/NP matches.
21396 more changes because of discussions about Outlook reporting (FYI
forward as attachment from Outlook still doesn't result in correct analyze
reports nor does multiple report attachments in a single email from
Outlook work at all.)
21317 After my questions about the unusual request for help for a way to
match username of the recipient to the sender we discovered the bug about
unoptimized weighted bombs with a scoring parameter and the bug with
definite statements
And over the years you've added useful features and fixed bugs because of
my questions or requests which you originally dismissed as being misguided
There's a trend here. When I'm active on this forum, I discuss things that
lead you to improve ASSP which benefits everyone.
If I had asked my question and then not responded to your short "no" or
"have you thought about this" type of replies, would these changes have
been made? If I hadn't fully described the issue/question/challenge, how
would you have known what I was talking about?
I will now step away from this form as requested for as long as I am able.
I do hope that you are willing to entertain future questions/concerns once
I return, if not for me, then for the rest of the quiet spam fighters on
this list.
On Sun, Nov 14, 2021 at 5:59 AM Thomas Eckardt <thomas.ecka...@thockar.com
> wrote:
>How many of the changes in the last 10 or so versions of ASSP have been
from the requests of anyone else on this list?
how many? 1 at 5.11.2021 - weight bug
most - where? -> forum , bug tracker , self testing, forced by attackers
You may use the forum, where everyone is free to skip reading your endless
posts and blogs. It takes simply too much time to pick up the 1 to 5% of
helpful content and to be forced by you to answer also the rest.
Thomas
Von: "K Post" <nntp.p...@gmail.com>
An: "ASSP development mailing list" <
assp-test@lists.sourceforge.net>
Datum: 14.11.2021 00:14
Betreff: Re: [Assp-test] Concept Question: Scan entire message for
Bombs, regardless of MaxBytes setting? New MaxBytes recommendation?
I don't know what I've done to deserve that reply, but regardless, I'm
sorry to have upset you. I will take a long break from posting
further here, but please do know that I'm appreciative of your continued
support of this important program.
Before I go, please entertain these thoughts:
I hope that you're able to re-evaluate your request for me to go away.
I've recommended more very good change requests to ASSP than ones that you
consider to be bad. I'm not able to implement them myself. I'm not
perfect, but your request for me to sign off of this list, which is a
critical resource, is unfair.
How many of the changes in the last 10 or so versions of ASSP have been
from the requests of anyone else on this list? How many bugs have been
quashed because of things I've discovered? How many improvements did you,
and only you, make because of questions I've asked and because of feature
requests I've made (recently and over the many years)?
Are you angry because I'm (adminitedly) long winded? Please understand
that this is not out of disrespect, it's because I want to make sure that
I'm being clear. When I get a short answer, I try to continue the
conversation. This is a discussion list after all.
Are you angry because I'm persistent? My persistence is also not out of
disrespect, it's because I'm inquisitive, am by no means an expert in
coding or the inner workings of spam detection, and have a burning desire
to continue to see ASSP improve. Often I ask a detailed question, and
only get an answer back from you like "have you considered this?" or "no"
without explanation. Is it so bad that I ask why not? I wait patiently
for your replies, but do inquire more if my questions haven't been fully
answered. If you don't have the time or desire to entertain my questions,
so be it, but please remember that most of what I ask has ultimately led
to you eventually improving ASSP.
Anyway, I don't expect and certainly don't require a reply here. But
please know that my intentions are pure, I'm charitable, patient, and a
good person. It hurts deeply that you seem to think otherwise. I don't
have the experience nor the ability that you do, not even close, but I
like to think that even if I can be frustrating that I'm ultimately bring
some good to the ASSP world by offering suggestions and asking questions.
On Sat, Nov 13, 2021 at 3:56 AM Thomas Eckardt <thomas.ecka...@thockar.com
> wrote:
Ken , it would be nice if you consider to signoff this list or at least to
no longer post here.
Thank you.
Thomas
Von: "K Post" <nntp.p...@gmail.com>
An: "ASSP development mailing list" <
assp-test@lists.sourceforge.net>
Datum: 12.11.2021 22:46
Betreff: Re: [Assp-test] Concept Question: Scan entire message for
Bombs, regardless of MaxBytes setting? New MaxBytes recommendation?
First off, WOW. Our rebuild times are in no way similar. At first I
thought it was you with fancy SSD's and lots of horsepower, but I'm seeing
now that you have both useDB4Rebuild off and RebuildUseFileModel on. The
opposite of my settings. I have useDB4Rebuild on and never enabled the
RebuildUsedFileModel after initial attempts were failing (Early on with
that feature). useDB4Rebuild is the default and I was always worried
about RAM when I started using ASSP 10+ years ago and never looked back.
A long rebuild time doesn't bother me, but seeing how fast you can do one
has got me back to needing to test the settings on my end again. Thanks
for that encouragement.
I'm worried that going up to 50k maxbytes on my system seemed to cause a
lot of false positives. I don't understand how that's possible, but it's
what happened. I would have thought it was the other way around, too much
spam getting through vs. too much legit being blocked. Plus, I don't
think that generally using that much for bayesian is necessary (or maybe
it's even detrimental?) Accuracy was very high for me at 6k and 10k, but
I was missing the bombs.
The question remains for me about the >CONCEPT< of optionally scanning
more of a message at the time of attempted delivery for bombs. ClamAV
uses its own maximum size setting. Why not also give us that option for
Bombs? For the case I explained where bombs are late in the email body
and likely other scenarios, don't you think it would be helpful to have a
BombAddlBytes variable in the GUI?
You know there's no way that I could ever code a plugin and that there's
even less of a chance of this charity paying for one to be built! I still
have duct tape holding my desk chair together.
Modifying getbody seems pretty straight forward. Add a new variable
called $bombdataref that would be used in place of $dataref for all bomb
comparisons - similarly to the way that $clamavbytes is for the clamav
stuff.
my $bombdataref = $maxbytes + $BombAddlBytes : $BombAddlBytes : 0;
then, instead of if ( ! BombOK( $fh, $dataref ) ) {
if ( ! BombOK( $fh, $bombdataref ) ) {
and the like everywhere that there's a bomb or script check in getbody
There would also need to be changes in analyze and anywhere else that the
bomb checks are done.
I'm more than willing to try to modify ASSP as described above, give it a
go, and report back. It won't be easy for me to make the changes and have
it work, but I'm game. Before I do though, I'm concerned that you don't
think that scanning more for bombs is a sound concept. Or maybe you just
don't think it's necessary? I'm most interested in your opinion on that
before I move forward.
On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 1:08 PM Thomas Eckardt <thomas.ecka...@thockar.com
> wrote:
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB-thread rebuildspamdb-version 8.14 started
in ASSP version 2.6.6(21314)
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 detection of local disclaimers is enabled
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 info: 'useDB4Rebuild' is NOT set to on - the rebuild
spamdb process will possibly require a large amount of memory - but it
will run very fast!
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB reloaded and uses the internal FileModel
(with 39917 entries) to speedup processing
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB allocated 963.08 MByte of RAM to load the
internal FileModel
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB will create a Hidden Markov Model
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB will include attachment-database-entries
in to spamdb
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB will create unicode enabled databases
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB will process all words as Sequence of UAX
#29 Grapheme Clusters
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB will normalize unicode characters
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB will use the ASSP_WordStem engine
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 ---ASSP Settings---
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildSpamDB will create private spamdb entries for
users email addresses and each local domain.
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 Do Not Collect RedRe Messages: Enabled
**Messages matching the RedRe will be removed from the corpus!**
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 Use Subject as Maillog Names: True
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 Maxbytes: 25,000
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 Maxfiles: 31,000
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildFileTimeLimit: 1 5
Nov-12-21 04:00:20 RebuildFileTimeLimit: files will be moved away from the
corpus if their processing takes longer than 5 second(s)
processing ~40.000 corpus files in ~4 minutes
building 15.500 spamdb.helo records in 2 seconds
building 3.200.000 spamdb records in 25 seconds
building 7.200.000 hmmdb records in 1:33 seconds
complete processing time is 6 minutes.
populating the records to the mysql database takes some minutes longer
So - maxBytes:=100.000 seems to be a possible setting (but this will IMHO
not improve detection rates)
If you need to process complete mails for bombs - you'll need to write
your own level 2 assp-plugin.
Thomas
Von: "K Post" <nntp.p...@gmail.com>
An: "ASSP development mailing list" <
assp-test@lists.sourceforge.net>
Datum: 12.11.2021 16:56
Betreff: Re: [Assp-test] Concept Question: Scan entire message for
Bombs, regardless of MaxBytes setting? New MaxBytes recommendation?
Absolutely I've thought about this. I consider everything I post prior to
posting.
Can you briefly explain why the ability to scan (MaxBytes + some
additional amount)kb on incoming mails for bombs but only use MaxBytes for
bayesian and the rebuild would be such a bad idea?
Since you questioned if I ever thought about this, here's what the thought
process is and the reason for the request. Maybe I didn't explain myself
well enough in the previous messages:
The MaxBytes "documentation" says to lower it to 3000 for a mature
installation, but 10x larger than that if you can handle it.
How many bytes of the message body will ASSP look at - the message header
is always included in all checks. Mails stored in the collecting folders
will be truncated to this size, if StoreCompleteMail is disabled. The
average of Ham messages (message body) is 6K, the average of Spam messages
is 3K. Usually the spam folder will be filled quicker than the notspam
folder, therefore set this value to 4000 to get more wordpairs per Ham
Message. When both folders are close to the maxfiles limit, reduce it to
3000.
If your system is fast enough and has enough RAM multiply all the above
recommendations and the default value by ten.
The gui doesn't say "IF the average is 6k ham, 3k spam," is says that it
IS 6k ham / 3k spam. That's not true of my installation. My average spam
size, as I've mentioned before, has a median size of about 20kb because of
all of the html in them. And not-spam has a median size of 40kb. Using
the logic in your gui, I believe I should set my MaxBytes to 20kb, the
median size of my spam corpus.
But, if I set my MaxBytes to 20kb (which it appears to be able to handle
okay, rebuilding in an hour and change), then bombs after 20kb aren't
detected when a message is attempting delivery.
Why does this matter to me?
We're seeing messages with @gmail.com and @whatever.onmicrosoft.com
addresses that are copying legitimate looking order receipts from vendors
like Amazon.com, BestBuy (US based big box electronics store), and
Norton. Many look identical to a legitimate message. Ultimately, they
want to call them on the phone and give your credit card number, using the
guise that they're going to refund it. Classic scam.
These messages will always pass bayesian, they read identically to real
messages. BUT, I can detect some with the phone numbers that they direct
people to. The email addresses change frequently, but the scam phone
numbers remain pretty constant. I could maintain a list of known bad
phone numbers (also available online) to capture these messages before
they're delivered. Simple. If the message has one of these phone
numbers, score it such that it'll get blocked.
The problem with many of these emails is that the phone number is way past
the 3k mark, and past the 20k mark too. The scammers have a bunch of HTML
in the "confirmation" email, just like real stores tend to do. I tried
increasing MaxBytes up to 50kb, which easily caught messages with bombs
later in the body, but that then seemed to cause a lot of false positives
and obviously much longer rebuild process.
If there could be a "continue canning for bombs for ___kb after maxbytes"
setting, that would let bombs later in the body be detected. I don't know
what the downside to having such a feature would be.
Based on your reaction to my question, I'm obviously missing something
important.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 1:38 AM Thomas Eckardt <thomas.ecka...@thockar.com
> wrote:
>Is there logic to having a separate MaxBytes setting like
MaxBytesForBombs that's used only during message delivery? That way, the
entire message can be scanned for bombs, but the rebuild could use a lower
number to better balance the differential between the average sized spam
and average sized not-spam message.
DID YOU EVER thougth about that ??????????????? Or do you only write
something to fillup the community mailing list?
No - no way!
Thomas
Von: "K Post" <nntp.p...@gmail.com>
An: "ASSP development mailing list" <
assp-test@lists.sourceforge.net>
Datum: 10.11.2021 20:22
Betreff: Re: [Assp-test] Concept Question: Scan entire message for
Bombs, regardless of MaxBytes setting? New MaxBytes recommendation?
After about 12 weeks of going from MaxBytes of 4k to MaxBytes of 50k, 've
seen:
1) Rebuild go from just over an hour (with 30k MaxFiles) to just over 2
hours. I'm fine with that, there's more to scan
2) Bomb detections improve, as a lot of what's detected is beyond the 20k
or 30k mark
3) but, bayesian false positives going way up. Lots of mail that would
have (correctly) been delivered, is now getting too high of a score and is
blocked.
Surely #3 is specific to the types of messages my users are getting and I
can tweak settings. BUT, it makes me raise this question again:
Is there logic to having a separate MaxBytes setting like MaxBytesForBombs
that's used only during message delivery? That way, the entire message
can be scanned for bombs, but the rebuild could use a lower number to
better balance the differential between the average sized spam and average
sized not-spam message.
On Mon, Nov 1, 2021 at 2:43 PM K Post <nntp.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
When looking at the "Use this HTML Parser" section on the GUI, I found
this line:
it is recommended to set MaxBytes to 50000 (be carefull on heavy load
systems - spam bomb regular expressions will take longer using 50000!).\
I'm going to change my settings and see how bad the rebuild time is. I've
got enough processing power and RAM now, but the disks aren't SSD. Just a
4 disk Raid 1+0 traditional HDD setup. We'll see...
Since HTMl email accounts for a big percentage of all mail, might it be a
good idea to update/expand the guidance in the MaxBytes section of the
GUI?
On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 8:40 PM K Post <nntp.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
Summary:
Should/could any consideration be given to having ASSP scan the entire
message at the time it is received for Bombs (only), while still using
MaxBytes for Bayesian/HMM?
We've been having some cleverly crafted messages slipping through all
filters that would be easy to catch with Bombs if only the catchable
content came before MaxBytes. These messages are 20kb+, They have a scam
phone number at the very end of the larger than MaxBytes messages. I
want/need to use bombs to catch the scam phone numbers.
With MaxBytes set to 3000, which is useful for faster RebuildSpamDB, these
BombDataRE matches just aren't being caught. If I increase MaxBytes, my
BombDataRE catches them, but then rebuildspamdb is (probably? see below)
longer than it needs to be.
So, is there any value in considering a MaxBytesAdditionalForBombs
variable which would be added to MaxBytes and only used when scanning for
bombs as messages arrive? Would that kill performance?? Other
downsides?
We could still only look at MaxBytes for Bayesian/HMM since it's only
MaxBytes used when building those databases.
What do you think?
And while we're talking MaxBytes:
I've asked this before, is the guidance for 3kb for MaxBytes once there's
a mature corpus still a valid recommendation? With unlimited horsepower
and ram, sure, why not, do 30kb or 100kb. That's not my reality, so I
want to see where to best allocate resources. If 3kb is still the
guidance, even though the spam files I'm seeing have a median size around
20kb, so be it. I feel like when that guidance was written, html wasn't
used as prolifically in spam. The median size of notspam in my corpus is
about 40kb. That's determined unscientifically by sorting by size and
scrolling to approximately half way down.
Thanks. Have a good weekend.
Ken
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