From: Dick Davies <rasputnik@...>
Date: 2004-11-11T06:41:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby and Mozilla?

* Hal Fulton <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> [1152 20:52]:
> Bradley, Todd wrote:

> Yes, well, I wasn't really looking for a Moz-specific solution...
> unless there was one that required less coding.
> 
> >1) Write a Ruby POP3 client that analyzes message in-situ and deletes
> >the ones off the server that you don't like.  Then, when your regular
> >POP3 client (Mozilla in this case) goes to suck in mail off the server,
> >the spam's already gone.  This is the approach taken by SpamEater Pro,
> >for instance.
> 
> Yes, I thought of this, and it would be fairly easy.
> 
> Trouble is, I spend *many* hours in front of the computer each day. My
> mail client is pretty much always up and it hits the server every
> 60 seconds.

Bet you're popular with your ISP :)
 
> >2) Write a Ruby POP3 client that sits between your mail reader and the
> >server.  It acts as a proxy and listens on your local host's mail port.
> >You set your mail reader (Mozilla) to connect to localhost instead of
> >pop3.myisp.com.  When the proxy gets a request for messages, it wakes up
> >and requests messages from your real server (pop3.myisp.com), then
> >passes through the ones it thinks aren't spam.  This is the approach
> >taken by every anti-virus program I've seen.
> 
> OK, I wouldn't mind doing this... but I'm not sure how to create a
> proxy. Do I actually run a real pop3 server or what? Duh?

I think what's being suggested is to code your own pop3 server - I'm assuming
Bradley meant localhost:110 when he said "local host's mail port" - that's
actually fairly simple (pop3 is a pretty trivial protocol, and the ruby pop3
library should do all the client side for you)).  


The tricky bit is the spam filtering, which I presume is where Gurgitate comes
in - although I know precisely zip about it, I'd hope you could just feed a mail
(String) into a is_spam? method to scan it.


Personally I've made the switch to an IMAP server and never looked back; the
protocol is a lot more complicated, but lets multiple clients use the same
Sent/Drafts/Trash/Spam folders - even notifies mutt on my BSD box that I just
read a message with Thunderbird on the eMac. Add an LDAP address book and I get to 
keep almost all my mail settings on the server, backed up once, and never have to try
to remember what Sent folder that mail was in...

[ Hats off to whoever wrote our Net::IMAP libs incidentally, they are a joy to use. ]

Each client doing its own Bayesian training would drive me potty,
so I've rolled together a SpamAssassin and Sieve combo which seems to work fairly well.

Combined with exims exiscan, I get to tell spammers where to go at SMTP time rather than
scanning mails after I've accepted them, which keeps the queue relatively free of the
hundreds of bounce messages I had before.


-- 
Yeah, life is hilariously cruel. - Bender
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns