> >this is only one example of a large number of problems with SpamAssassin. > > it is a problem with the configuration of spamassassin, not with the > software and not with the basic paradigm of rule-based filtering. it is > simply a matter of tuning the ruleset better. true, much of the problem is with the default rulesets. they might correleate well to observed spam but that doesn't mean they are good predictors of spam. a more general problem is the notion of applying rule-based filtering on behalf of recipients who don't either understand or choose the rules. rules can implement recipient preferences, but it's simply not true that you can reliably determine whether something is spam by looking at it, no matter how "well-tuned" the rules are. Keith