PC Online 1998 January/PCO0198.ISO/filesbbs/os2/post300.arj/POST300.ZIP/prmblams.doc

Text File | 1997-10-23 | 7.9 KB | 148 lines

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                            BlamSpam Version 1.0
                  Adaptation for Use with Post Road Mailer
                      InnoVal Systems Solutions, Inc.
                                May 12, 1997
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     BlamSpam is a Spam Filter (or Twit Filter) for use with an InnoVal
     product named Hacksaw.  BlamSpam will blow away the spam messages,
     right on your POP3 server, before your regular email program has to
     deal with them.  This is an adaptation of BlamSpam, for use with the
     Post Road Mailer.  The files must be renamed to PRMRECV.CMD and
     PRMRECV.CFG, or they won't work.  (They're not distributed with those
     filenames, because a Post Road Mailer user might already have a
     PRMRECV.CMD, and we certainly don't want to overwrite that when you
     unzip this program into the directory!)  Furthermore, the files must
     be in your Post Road Mailer directory (the one with INBASKET.NIX and
     PRMSYS.INI in it).  The Post Road Mailer executes any file named
     PRMRECV.CMD that it finds in that directory, at the end of the Refresh
     process.  This BlamSpam program, then, renamed to PRMRECV.CMD, will
     search all of the messages, as they arrive from the POP3 server, for
     the strings specified in the PRMRECV.CFG file, and delete the messages
     which contain any of those strings in their applicable portions.

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                            The PRMRECV.CFG File
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     A sample PRMRECV.CFG file is included, which contains entries for many
     internet addresses that are known to send spam messages.

     Blank lines, and lines which begin with /* are ignored.

     There are two other types of lines in a PRMRECV.CFG file:

     The only required lines in this file are the lines which tell the
     program which messages to delete.  Each of these lines contains a
     single search string, which can be the author's email address, a word
     or phrase in the subject line, or even a string of text from the body
     of the message.  Choose a string which will appear in the messages you
     want deleted but which will not ever, under any circumstances, appear
     in the applicable part(s) of any other messages.

     If you don't tell it otherwise, the program will find these strings in
     any message header line (which, by definition, means any line before
     the first blank line of the message) but not in any of the message
     body text (past the first blank line, which is the divider between the
     headers and the body of the message).  If you need to make the program
     search the message body text as well as (or instead of) the header
     lines, or if you need to make it search only certain ones of the
     header lines instead of all of them, you can do that, too, using a
     HEADERLINES parameter.

     To make the program apply a HEADERLINES parameter to one single line
     of the PRMRECV.CFG file, you can put it on that same line of the file,
     after a <TAB> character.  For example:

        spamco.com<TAB>From:

     This example would kill all the messages with "spamco.com" in the
     From: header, but no messages with that string in the Subject: header
     or anywhere else in the message.

     In order for that to work, you must create the PRMRECV.CFG file with a
     text editor which actually places <TAB> characters into the file,
     rather than converting them to a certain number of spaces the way so
     many text editors do!  OS/2's E.EXE is safe for this purpose.

     In order to make a HEADERLINES parameter apply to all subsequent lines
     of the PRMRECV.CFG file instead of only the one line, you insert a
     line such as this one:

        <headerlines>=From:

     before the first of the lines to which you want it to apply.  That is
     the third possible type of line in a PRMRECV.CFG file.  It will change
     the HEADERLINES parameter for all PRMRECV.CFG lines below it, until
     the next <headerlines>= line in the file (if any).  Except, of course,
     for any lines which have their own HEADERLINES parameters (that is, a
     <TAB> character and another string, following the search string).  A
     HEADERLINES parameter on a search string line overrides whatever
     global HEADERLINES parameter default is in effect in that part of the
     PRMRECV.CFG file.

     The reason the default behavior of BlamSpam is to look for matches in
     all the header lines and none of the message body text, is because the
     default HEADERLINES value is NOBODY.  NOBODY means not to search the
     body text, just the header lines.

     Another valid value for HEADERLINES is ENTIRE.  This means that the
     entire message will be searched:  The header lines and the message
     body text.

     The other possible values for HEADERLINES are MSGTEXT which means just
     the message body text and no header lines; or any valid internet
     message header tag such as TO, FROM, SUBJECT, X-MAILER, REPLY-TO,
     RECEIVED, etc.  These must be spelled the same way as they are spelled
     in the headers of the messages, though they're case insensitive and
     the colon is optional. That is, the program will treat "FROM:" and
     "From:" and "FrOm" and "from" identically.

     Except for NOBODY and ENTIRE, all other possible HEADERLINES values
     can be combined, using spaces or commas.  For example, you can say
     "FROM,REPLY-TO" or "REPLY-TO FROM" to have the program search only
     both of those header lines in each of the messages.

     Remember, when using the ENTIRE or MSGTEXT value for the HEADERLINES
     parameter, keep the search string as short as possible.  If the string
     is more than one word long, it can occur with a carriage return in the
     middle of it instead of a space, in which case the program will not
     recognize it as a match!  If the string is only one word long, then
     the only way it can be missed is if it's hyphenated and split across
     two lines of the message.

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                          Example PRMRECV.CFG File
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     [e-mail]
     Spamco<TAB>Sender: Reply-To:
     Spamco, Inc.<TAB>subject,msgtext
     <headerlines>=msgtext
     Spamco Product Name
     111.222.333.444<TAB>Received
     foul language<TAB>entire
     4letterword
     [e-mail]<TAB>NoBody

     Since NOBODY is the default HEADERLINES parameter value, the program
     will search only the header lines, and not the message body text, for
     [e-mail].  It will search for Spamco in only the Sender: and
     Reply-to: header lines.  It will search only the Subject: header line
     and all of the message body text for Spamco, Inc.  The next line,
     <headerlines>=msgtext, causes the default HEADERLINES parameter to be
     changed from NOBODY to MSGTEXT for all future entries which don't have
     their own HEADERLINES parameter on them.  So the phrase "Spamco
     Product Name" will be searched for only in the message body text, not
     in any header lines.  The same will be true for the word 4letterword.
     The IP address 111.222.333.444 will be searched in only the Received:
     lines, and the phrase "foul language" will be searched for in all
     header lines and the message body text as well.  Finally,
     [e-mail] will be searched for in all the header lines but
     not the message body text.  The only reason the NOBODY parameter is
     needed there is because the global default had been changed from
     NOBODY to MSGTEXT by the earlier <headerlines>= line of the file.