InfoSecurity show

[Spicer, Kevin]

> 
> What do you need that a custom SpamAssassin rule with a high score
> doesn't provide?
> 
In a word granularity.
The ability to classify incoming/ outgoing email.  The ability to reject/ edit (strip images etc.) on the basis of what they are and who they are going to.  Detailed reporting (x% of mail is 'adult' y% of mail is 'violence' z% of mail is 'profanity' etc.).  Take a look at surf patrol's email filter and the features it offers.  When trying to explain why we should stick with MS and not move to surf patrol its difficult to justify keeping MS when it doesn't have these features.  It doesn't really matter how well MS works and how badly the competitors work its all to do with the 'features' the marketing presents to those who actually buy the products.  Unfortunately I've not seen any objective comparison of both the features and the quality of their implementation (a few on the list - but its difficult to present these as objective, no matter how accurate they may be).

Another problem with using spamassassin rules to implement a crude content filter is that this may require changes to spam filtering policies, and would require that outoing mail is filterd for spaminess, which could be embarassing / annoying (depending on what actions you choose) if you get false positives in outgoing mail. It just simply isn't granular enough.

It also doesn't help when the commercial products chief way of competing with MS is by spreading FUD about open source in their slick marketing.

 



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