Newsgroup filtering with host server software

I'd like to setup something like Hamster to filter NG's since Windows Live Mail filtering is pretty inept. Hamster may be fine, but I only saw the German site when I went looking to download it. Can someone recommend an app that is well supported in English (site and/or download link appreciated)?

Reply to
Victek
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Why not use a real, actual, Usenet client instead of the broken email clients that MS provides?

If you provided a little more information - what are you wanting to filter?

Reply to
Leythos

You may wish to go to: news.software.readers

Reply to
Kayman

A number of public NG's that I frequent are being spammed so bad they are unusable. alt.comp.freeware is a good example. Users and domains can be blocked in Windows Live Mail (WLM), but then the message store has to be reset to actually remove the blocked messages. I'd like to be able to filter all this crap so that it doesn't reach the newsreader at all, but if I can't do that I'd like to use a reader that immediately removes messages after the senders are marked as blocked. Outlook Express worked this way, but WLM doesn't. I thought that a local server like Hamster might be a good way to exert more control, but perhaps a better reader would be enough?

Reply to
Victek

Try Gravity newsreader v2.7.

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has an excellent "Kill File" that can be set to block the objectional posts. Casey

Reply to
Casey

Holiday Season Greetings.

Seeing as how Hamster was created by a German author - that's sort of expected, isn't it?

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However, if you insist on using windoze, you will be somewhat limited in your choices.

That's certainly good advice - there are dozens of real news readers with more adequate filtering capabilities, although most of them do expect you to have some idea of how filtering works - that is, what headers you can most easily filter on (those in an NNTP XOVER list, which is "From:", "Subject:", "References:", "Date:", "Bytes:", "Lines:", "Message-ID:" and "Xref:") and how to make the mail reader display these headers.

I don't look at that newsgroup, and a quick glance suggests it is of little possible interest to me, but even looking at the last 100 articles posted suggests several types of posts that might be objectionable. Advertisements: subject keywords, posting name or domain, message-ID components. Religious postings: same as advertisements (which in a way, they are). Trolls and troll feeders: posting name or domain, message-ID components - subject keywords may also be useful. Sporge, also called Hip-crime attacks: best dealt with by screaming at the news provider to have them reject the spew, (many do this automatically) and if necessary, de-peer with the idiot news provider that is being used as an injection port.

Sounds like a pretty useless application.

A problem about blocking "by sender" is the fact that frequently the sender name is false and may change several times a minute. Most users are not aware of other possibilities. Reading the RFCs that define how USENET works (RFC0977, RFC1036, RFC2980, and RFC3977) may be helpful in this understanding.

Another possibility is to use a News Provider that doesn't have their head up and locked and actually has a real live person (or more) who monitors what's going on and filters the obvious crap before your news reader (or news downloading tool) even has a chance to see it. None the less, you are correct that a local server can exert a lot more control over what your reader sees.

[compton ~]$ grep -vE '^([%\\[ ]|Score|$)' /var/spool/slrnpull/score | cut -d' ' -f1 | sort | uniq -c | column 923 From: 12 References: 2 ~Subject: 2 Lines: 305 Subject: 15 Message-ID: 78 Xref: [compton ~]$

No, I don't expect you to understand UNIX command line, but this shows that my news spooler (slrnpull) has been told to ignore "From:" lines (you call this "Sender") with 923 different rules. It filters on the "Message-ID:" headers to (FOR EXAMPLE) ignore spam posted from google in several newsgroups. Several trolls in the groups I read have unique "Message-ID:" headers, and the "References:" rules are used to filter replies to the trolls. As noted, you need to look at those headers, and then you can make simple filtering rules.

Old guy

Reply to
Moe Trin

You're correct that Windows Live Mail has poor filtering capability, but it's good for Hotmail which is my main reason for using it. I some other NG readers though, such as Gravity.

Regarding NG servers, I currently use news-byoa.prodigy.net because my ISP account gives me access, but I would happily switch to a different server. Do you have a recommendation?

Thanks for all the information about filtering.

Reply to
Victek

I will, thanks!

Reply to
Victek

X-No-Archive: Yes

Windows is a MUST for computing existence. You cannot get along without Windows, for many applications. For example, to run my online radio station through Live 365, I HAVE to use Windows.

If you are not using Windows, you are missing out on a lot of stuff.

Reply to
Chilly8

On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:49:33 GMT, Victek wrote: [...]

Xnews and 40tude Dialog are two of the better Windows newsreaders with good filtering/scoring capabilities. If the news server(s) used support filtering on any header then look at Xnews first, and if the news server(s) used don't support filtering on any header then look at Dialog first as Dialog can filter twice - headers in the overview and any other header during article retrieval.

News.Individual.NET (NIN) is about the best for text, very reliable, charge a small annual fee, and do a good job with spam and sporge.

Otherwise try Motzarella , as it's one of the better free news services, although NIN do a better job with sporge (last time I compared two of the ongoing sporged groups).

Reply to
Rom
  • Chilly8 :

That is without a doubt the funniest and stupidest thing I've ever seen you spew. And you've spewed some very funny and stupid things.

Jason

Reply to
Jason

Motzarella works great - thanks!

Reply to
Victek

Never saw a reason/need for Hotmail. Any mail from a hotmail account is assumed to be spam as no one would be using it for business, and at work we simply block access to the IP ranges used by Hotmail (and yahoo, and gmail, and others). Family/friends know I drop all mail from these kind of accounts - but then, a lot of them do the same.

I intentionally don't recommend one provider or another. Partly, this is because it's a personal choice issue akin to "which is best" (to which I may respond "I dunno - is Ford better than Chevy?" to get the idea across). Alternative servers may be free (choose with caution if you want your posts to be seen, as they may be filtered/ignored by others if they fail to control of newsgroup abuse from their users -

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is a relatively up to date list), or minimal costs - a lot of people mention news.individual.net for about US$15 a year, but they are far from the only one. There are also commercial servers - but these tend to be more expensive.

You should also consider what you are trying to see in newsgroups. A number of the free/cheap news servers are text only (no binaries) to control their costs of bandwidth and data storage. Retentivity (how long they keep articles) may also be an issue.

Old guy

Reply to
Moe Trin

If they are on the road they might. Someone would almost certainly use a Hotmail account, if they are away on a business trip to get thier Email. One would just simply set the forwarding on their work Email account to forward everything to their hotmail account, then they can pick up their Email while they are on the road.

I travel a lot running my online radio station, and I use hotmail, when I am on the road, to get my Email. When you are travelling, it is the most convenient way to keep in touch.

Reply to
Chilly8

Chilly8 wrote, On 26/12/07 22:55:

No, in a sensible company they will be provided with some method of accessing their company email account if they are expected to read it. For example by being provided with company WebMail access or a Blackberry. There are many other solutions that do not rely on relaying email to an external email account.

Personally I would find it the *least* convenient method. However my company provides webmail for when I can't use my company notebook and other methods for when I can. The same with my personal email.

Reply to
Flash Gordon

X-No-Archive: Yes

Of course that depends on the type of server the company may have. If the company is using a Unix-based mail server, its a snap to create a .forward file and have the mail relayed where you want it to go. However, very few corporate setups use Unix, either on servers or on workstations, so this is a non-issue in most companies. That is the only problem with Windows servers. Windows does not have a function for providing mail forwarding, and nearly every corporatation around uses Windows, because most business software is written for Windows. Even if the SERVER is Unix or Linux, the workstations will likely be Windows.

In this day and age, there is no POSSIBLE a way an office can run wthout at least having the WORKSTATIONS running Windows, even if the SERVER is running something else.ww

Reply to
Chilly8

It sounds to me as if we're mixing up outgoing and incoming mail. I get most of my incoming e-mail via Yahoo (using YPOPs!, which emulates POP3 on a localhost port), or through a free Fastmail account (using IMAP), but all my outgoing mail (and news posting, I believe) goes through the SMTP service provided by my ISP.

I haven't thought about what other SMTP servers I might use away from home, but fortunately, my ISP has plenty of access numbers all over the place. I believe YPOPs! is capable of emulating SMTP through Yahoo!'s webmail interface, but I haven't tried it.

Reply to
Marshall Price

Why? Hotmail offers free and "for pay" accounts with extra services. It can be reached anywhere through a browser and also through Windows Live Mail on the XP/Vista desktop. Hotmail is one component of the larger "Windows Live Services" which can certainly meet the needs of small business. If you have a corporate job then fine you have corporate mail, but how about people who are self-employed? Just blocking hotmail is a very heavy handed way to reduce spam.

Reply to
Victek

But you have to pay to get something as simple as a POP3 access. No, thanks, GMX gives that for free.

The day when Microsoft decided to add a malus on the spam filtering for every mail that doesn't use their proprietary SPF, Hotmail became a spammer-only mail service. Using it for serious business has become impossible.

Since no serious business would use Hotmail, there are no false positives - by definition.

Reply to
Sebastian G.

it might understand hotmail, et.al. just isn't an option. As for "forwarding everything", that's even against US Federal law in some cases - but in the trolls imaginary world, that's irrelevant.

Depends on how the company has set up remote access.

"company WebMail access"???

You really should talk to your "company engineers" and if this is all they can offer, fire them and get someone who can _spell_ IP.

Personal email isn't the company's problem. As far as accessing the company services, if it's important that you be able to do so ACCORDING TO THE COMPANY, then there are alternatives. If the company IT staff are not aware/capable, there are numerous IT consultant companies who would be glad to offer advice. If the company doesn't feel like spending the coin to get that secure capability, they probably shouldn't be using the Internet for business activities. Allowing Joe User (or more likely, Joe User's son/daughter because Joe has trouble just using a web browser) to set up remote access on his work desktop is the height of folly.

What you do with your personal mail is your personal decision. Company mail should not be accessible from non-company servers. If you need access from "outside", you should be using an SSL service requiring both dedicated hard/software and a "password" (that isn't "remembered" by some application).

Sounds like you are describing personal services. If you are doing company business, the ISP should be nothing except a common carrier transporting encrypted packets. It's really not rocket science.

Personal stuff I access through an encrypted tunneling function that gives access to my home network. Workplace access is controlled much more closely.

Old guy

Reply to
Moe Trin

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