[Gllug] spam harvesting

[Benedikt Heinen]

>> To train a spam filter you have to have spam to throw at it. While it may 
>> be possible to just wait for spam to come along it's usually more 
>> convenient to throw a bunch now while you're in the mood for training it, 
>> than later when it gets in the way of what you will want to do then. 
> Training a spam filter with someone else's spam isn't entirely effective.

It may in fact be counter-productive to a certain extend.


> Going out and deliberately attracting more spam just wastes bandwidth.

That's where I disagree. Spammers DO change their spams semi-regularly, 
and often that means that the "newly" changed spam has a higher chance of 
bypassing your spam filter (until then you pass the spam back to the 
spam filter to train it). If you get some duplication of spams in a way 
that you have a sure way to be sure that something IS spam, you can use it 
to safely and continuously adjust your spam filter.




   Benedikt

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