Michael Sammartano <volinaz@cox.net> wrote:
 > I also have several folders set up in Thunderbird
 > for email. I get more porn, viagra spam though,
 > and I can't get rid of it...

A few notes about spam filtering.

I'd say it takes about 5 minutes a day to ensure
that I never miss a wanted message, and don't
have to wade through piles of spam to find the
good stuff.  This is out of maybe 300 messages
a day, due to having the same address exposed
to the Web for several years.  I guess about
3% of my mail is directly for me, 50-60% is
spam, and the rest is subscribed list traffic.

(I *never* give out my business address publicly,
and my company filters for me, so I have not
had a single spam message there in two years.
Good thing, since I'm using Outlook there.)

The Thunderbird filter is amazingly good, but
the Cox filtering is better, probably because
they are using a blackhole list on the senders'
IP addresses.  So I use both:

1. I get my email through Cox, and I have their
   filter turned on so that the subject lines
   have "Spam -- " prefixed.  I have a filter in
   Thunderbird to direct these messages to my
   Junk folder.

2. I have my Junk filter wired to move anything
   that Thunderbird thinks is junk to my Junk
   folder.

3. All mailing lists are filtered to their own
   dedicated folders.  I have a number of
   list subscriptions.

4. That leaves a few false negative spams, and
   all the mail that is sent specifically to me.
   This comes into my Inbox.  I click the spam
   button on the obvious spams, leaving the stuff
   that demands my personal attention.

5. About once a day, I visit my Junk folder and
   look at all my spam.  There are very few
   false positives -- one or two a mont, I'd say.
   I "process" them as follows:

   a. Sort on subject line.  Since spam has a lot
     of duplicates, these stand right out.
   b. Glance through the subject lines.  They have
     a pattern that allows me generally not to
     read the subject.  Any wanted mail (very rare)
     needs the sender added to my address book.
   c. Forward some phishing messages to the FTC.
   d. Do Tools > Run Junk Mail controls.
     Then Tools > Delete Mail Marked as Junk.
   e. A few messages survive this process.  I
     mark them as junk again (select top and
     bottom messages, click the Junk button at
     the top of the window); and repeat step d.
     My purpose is to train the spam filter.
     I repeat step e as needed.

As I said, this is *very* effective in getting
almost all of my spam filtered correctly.

Vic
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