On 23 Nov 1997, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen wrote: > Much of the spam aren't addressed to you directly. > > Make a list of all the addresses and mailinglists to which you get > mail, filter that mail into list.debian, mail.private, and similar. > Leave the rest in mail.unsorted and take a look in that once a week, > to see if anything important has slipped through. >
An alternative approach is this, which I copied from someone else, I don't know where it originally came from. This doesn't require you to make a list of people you get mail from, so you can still get mail from unanticipated but non-spam sources. It works pretty well, but occasionally misses a spam or junks a real email. I'd say it gets 90% of spam and junks 1% of real mail, though I filter all list email before this recipe so it never has a chance to junk that. If nothing else it's really funny to read, I think. Shows how cliche and formulaic most spam is. Havoc Pennington procmail recipe to catch spam: :0D: * ^Subject:.* FREE .* $MAILDIR/junk-folder :0: *^Subject:.* lifestyle *change $MAILDIR/junk-folder :0: *^TO.*friend $MAILDIR/junk-folder :0B: *!!! $MAILDIR/junk-folder :0B: *-150^0 *50^0 ^Dear (friend|net surfer)[:,]?^ *100^2 limited .*offer *50^1 to order( please)? call *50^1 free *5^2 (wealth|money|income|cash|dollar|\$[\$1-9]) *2^2 ! *100^2 act now supplies are.*limited *100^1 never (ever )?(have to)? pay for .* again *200^1 remove.* in .*subject *100^2 reply with .* in .*subject *100^2 free.*(trial|info) *300^1 to [EMAIL PROTECTED] *200^2 wealth[ -]building *100^2 (income|money[ -]making|business) (opportunit|system|method) *100^2 (no|minimal) (outlay|investment|skills|training|experience) *200^2 (instant|overnight) wealth *100^2 now, with .*, you can *100^2 not a (chain letter|pyramid scheme|scam) *200^2 couldn't.*make ends meet *100^.5 I owed.*over \$[1-9]+0*(,000)+ *200^2 .*(turn|convert).*\$[0-9]+ into \$[1-9\$]+ *100^2 (ma[kd]e|bec[oa]me).*million( dollars|aire) *100^2 make.*(money|dollars) *500^2 (money|dollars|\$+[0-9,.$]+).*\ (fast|immediately|quickly|(((with)?in|per|every).*(day|week|wks|month|short time))) *200^2 after .*, i decided to open my own business *500^2 multi-level (sales|marketing) *100^2 satisfaction.*guaranteed *100^2 (lose weight|weight loss) *50^2 herbal *100^2 (18 years old|18 and over|over 18) *500^2 adult service *100^2 (nude|naked|topless|sex) $MAILDIR/junk-folder -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
