mh-e-users — Forum for MH-E users.

Re: dealing with spam

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

hi, Kevin,

thanks.  this realization i had that (currently) 99% of my spam/scams is
destined to e-mail addresses that are actually bogus (but, end up in my
inbox) has simplified my life enough that i'm not pursuing that path
right now.

i've set up the following so that, once i've scanned +inbox after
fetching e-mail, i can [M-C-x] to see only those bad-address e-mails.
-----
;; one way of dealing with spam is to look at everything to a bogus address
(add-hook
 'mh-folder-mode-hook
 #'(lambda ()
     (keymap-local-set
      "C-M-x"
      (lambda ()
        (interactive)
        (mh-narrow-to-header-field
         'to
         (mh-edit-pick-expr
          (mh-quote-pick-expr
           '("-to" "BAD...@EX..." "-or" "-to"
           "BAD...@EX..." "-or" "-to" "BAD...@EX..." "-or" "-to" "BAD...@EX..."))))))))
-----
(s/b a `dolist`)

Re: dealing with spam

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

> How do you fetch?  Is this via imap?  I've always wanted to do that.

Yes, imap, using getmail.
I can post my config later, after I review what I'm doing now.

-- Henrique

Re: dealing with spam

[Kevin L. <la...@fr...>]

Henrique Martins wrote:

>> I fetch mail from most gmail folders (on my google workspace) but
>> don't fetch from the spam folder.

How do you fetch?  Is this via imap?  I've always wanted to do that.

My problem with ignoring the spam folder, ham does end up there from
time to time, and it's important to sort that out, otherwise it
snowballs (IME).

Re: dealing with spam

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

kevin> For me, have 2,377 messags in my spam folder right now, just for the last 30 days.
kevin> ...
kevin> I get my email in MH-E that is a forwarded copy from my Google (Workspace) account.

I fetch mail from most gmail folders (on my google workspace) but don't fetch from the spam folder.

I look at the spam folder on the web, once in a while, but it is never more than a few messages here and there, and quite a few are false positives, i.e. not spam. How do you get that much spam?

I do run fetched messages through spamassassin and it catches very few that escaped google's filters.

-- Henrique

Re: dealing with spam

[Kevin L. <la...@fr...>]

Hi, Greg!

That's an interesting solution to the spam problem.  For me, have
2,377 messags in my spam folder right now, just for the last 30 days.
The only way I've been able to handle this volume of spam is to use
the Google headers:

  X-Gm-Spam:
  X-Gm-Phishy:

I get my email in MH-E that is a forwarded copy from my Google
(Workspace) account.  It's not perfect.  I have to look at the Gmail
interface for my account every few days and mark mis-indentified spam
and ham.  In MH-E I see maybe 1-2 incorrectly indentified ones a day,
sometimes 0.

Good luck with your solution!

Kevin

Greg Minshall wrote:

>> hi, i hope all are well.
>> 
>> i've always tried to live on the bleeding edge of the internet, or
>> e-mail, at least, by not having any spam filters.  and, with mh-e,
>> dealing with my normal loads of spam has not been a problem.  (plus i
>> *do* keep a "white" list, "From:" addresses that i am *not* allowed to
>> *easily delete.)
>> 
>> over the past two or so months the amount of spam i've been receiving
>> has grown by an order of magnitude, and it's becoming a burden.  the
>> 'From: "non-address"' part tends to break into a small number of
>> strings, as so:
>> 
>> x
>> 
>> so, my thought is to produce code that looks at the messages in the
>> "unseen" sequence and show me a list of unique "From:" non-address bits,
>> and then allow me to select one, pop up all the matching messages, and
>> allow me to go 'd d d d d' to my heart's content.
>> 
>> it's unlikely anyone has ever tried to do something close to that.  but,
>> if so and someone has some code that does things like that, or hints,
>> etc., i'm all grateful ears.
>> 
>> thanks for listening.
>> 
>> cheers, Greg
>> _______________________________________________
>> mh-e-users mailing list
>> mh-...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mh-e-users

Re: dealing with spam

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

Bill and Mike,

thanks for the suggestions.

i guess i could start using spamassassin and bogofilter and get them
(via procmail?) to add headers, but (given my "no false positives"
paranoia) leave in +inbox.  then, run some command (like '/m' or '/s'
do) that will subset to just ones flagged as spam, then delete from
that.

with '/m' or '/s' i end up with a small list (two, three e-mails), and
so having to do that for 100s of such small lists is a true pain.

but, now, looking at the spam e-mails more carefully (they're *spam* --
i don't *look* at spam :), i see they are often to bogus e-mail
addresses that end up getting routed to me.  so, maybe some '/t' will
help.

again, thanks.

cheers, Greg

Re: dealing with spam

[Mike K. <ku...@ra...>]

Greg Minshall wrote:

> so, my thought is to produce code that looks at the messages in the
> "unseen" sequence and show me a list of unique "From:" non-address bits,
> and then allow me to select one, pop up all the matching messages, and
> allow me to go 'd d d d d' to my heart's content.

If I understand what you're looking for, "/ m" almost does what you want
in terms of grouping messages together.  It's not exactly what you want,
in that it groups on the address, not the non-address text.  But maybe
you could look at how "/ m" is implemented and tweak it to get what you
want?

mike

Re: dealing with spam

[Bill W. <wo...@ne...>]

Interesting idea. I would guess that mh-thread.el is doing something
similar as it groups messages in the same thread. It has a `T d' command
to delete the entire thread. In addition to being a good, if complicated
model for you, using the threading commands might work for you in a
pinch. You might consider binding a single character to
`mh-thread-delete' for ease of use. In the example you gave, you could
also use `C-x h' to select the entire buffer and use `d'.

I use a combination of spamassassin and bogofilter to keep this dreck
out of my inbox, but many messages still end up in my +spam/quarantine
folder. Fortunately, selecting all of the messages and running `J b' on
them is quick.

Greg Minshall <min...@um...> wrote:

> hi, i hope all are well.
> 
> i've always tried to live on the bleeding edge of the internet, or
> e-mail, at least, by not having any spam filters.  and, with mh-e,
> dealing with my normal loads of spam has not been a problem.  (plus i
> *do* keep a "white" list, "From:" addresses that i am *not* allowed to
> *easily delete.)
> 
> over the past two or so months the amount of spam i've been receiving
> has grown by an order of magnitude, and it's becoming a burden.  the
> 'From: "non-address"' part tends to break into a small number of
> strings, as so:
> 
> 
> x
> 
> so, my thought is to produce code that looks at the messages in the
> "unseen" sequence and show me a list of unique "From:" non-address bits,
> and then allow me to select one, pop up all the matching messages, and
> allow me to go 'd d d d d' to my heart's content.
> 
> it's unlikely anyone has ever tried to do something close to that.  but,
> if so and someone has some code that does things like that, or hints,
> etc., i'm all grateful ears.
> 
> thanks for listening.
> 
> cheers, Greg
> _______________________________________________
> mh-e-users mailing list
> mh-...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mh-e-users

-- 
Bill Wohler <wo...@ne...> aka <Bil...@na...>
http://www.newt.com/wohler/, GnuPG ID:610BD9AD

dealing with spam

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

hi, i hope all are well.

i've always tried to live on the bleeding edge of the internet, or
e-mail, at least, by not having any spam filters.  and, with mh-e,
dealing with my normal loads of spam has not been a problem.  (plus i
*do* keep a "white" list, "From:" addresses that i am *not* allowed to
*easily delete.)

over the past two or so months the amount of spam i've been receiving
has grown by an order of magnitude, and it's becoming a burden.  the
'From: "non-address"' part tends to break into a small number of
strings, as so:

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

Bill,

> Given that I don't have any messages in my +inbox, it's impossible for
> me to reproduce. I can't reproduce it in other folders, but as you note,
> you don't see it in other folders either.

yes, my deviance from accepted social norms is exposed.  778 messages
and counting.  clearly i'm more popular than you, so nyaah nyaah nyaah!
(especially back in 2001, from when many of these originate.)

> I'd suggest running "emacs -Q" to skip reading your .emacs,
> .emacs-custom.el, and any other customizations of yours that those files
> reference. If the problem goes away, look inside related hooks that
> might be calling (goto-char (point-min)) directly or indirectly.
> 
> The next debugging strategy is to comment all of your customizations out
> in lieu of running emacs -Q, confirm that the problem goes away, and
> then uncomment chunks until the problem reappears. Then comment stuff
> out slowly until the problem disappears. Then you should have your
> errant code.

well, when i have the annoyance/energy, i'm single stepping through
persp code (that is in the area of frames).  cl-related constructs
(`when`, `unless`, et al.) make that exercise slightly less pleasant,
but it's still tractable.

if i find anything of note, i'll report.

cheers, Greg

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Bill W. <wo...@ne...>]

Given that I don't have any messages in my +inbox, it's impossible for
me to reproduce. I can't reproduce it in other folders, but as you note,
you don't see it in other folders either.

I took a quick look at the repl and send man pages and the only mention
of updating cur is that if you were to say "repl 42" your current
message would be set to 42. MH-E calls repl with the message to which
you are replying, which is what you are seeing in .mh_sequences.

I'd suggest running "emacs -Q" to skip reading your .emacs,
.emacs-custom.el, and any other customizations of yours that those files
reference. If the problem goes away, look inside related hooks that
might be calling (goto-char (point-min)) directly or indirectly.

The next debugging strategy is to comment all of your customizations out
in lieu of running emacs -Q, confirm that the problem goes away, and
then uncomment chunks until the problem reappears. Then comment stuff
out slowly until the problem disappears. Then you should have your
errant code.

Good luck!

Greg Minshall <min...@um...> wrote:

> hi.  any ideas why this might be happening?  after i reply to a message
> in +inbox, i end up not at current message, but at first message in
> folder?  if i look in .../inbox/.mh_sequences, i see (among other things)
> ----
> cur: 6358
> unseen: ....
> header: 726
> ----
> 
> my sense is that this does *not* happen in other folders (though i don't
> reply to message in those very often).
> 
> cheers, Greg

-- 
Bill Wohler <wo...@ne...> aka <Bil...@na...>
http://www.newt.com/wohler/, GnuPG ID:610BD9AD

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

> > are you by any chance running perspective.el when you have this problem?
> 
> No, never heard about it until you mentioned it.

okay, thanks.

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

> are you by any chance running perspective.el when you have this problem?

No, never heard about it until you mentioned it.

-- Henrique

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

Henrique,

> If I have two or more frames opened, I end up in +inbox at the
> first message, when I run mh-rmail in any of the frames.

are you by any chance running perspective.el when you have this problem?

looking at this i find myself deep in that code.

cheers, Greg

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

> ah!  recently i switched from multiple instances of emacs
> (...), to "perspective.el" which uses frames and using
> emacsclient everywhere.

Yes, emacsclient is your friend. I have two emacs running, one at
home another at work, cross ssh session, multiple virtual fvwm
desktops on zaphod heads, and it is emacsclient (X and TTY)
frames everywhere.

> if the annoyance passes the activation threshold (...) maybe
> i'll try to look at it.

Same here, doubt it will hit the threshold any time soon.

> many thanks.

You're welcome.

-- Henrique

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

Henrique,

> Do you happen to be have more than one frame opened?

ah!  recently i switched from multiple instances of emacs (in only one
of which did i run mh-rmail), to "perspective.el" which uses frames and
using emacsclient everywhere.

many thanks.  if the annoyance passes the activation threshold
(unlikely, as the latter is very high these days...) maybe i'll try to
look at it.

cheers, Greg

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

> If I have two or more frames opened, I end up in +inbox at the
> first message, when I run mh-rmail in any of the frames.

Well, not all the times, make it sometimes.
I may depend on whether the buffer is shown or buried.

-- Henrique

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

> hi.  any ideas why this might be happening?  after i reply to a
> message in +inbox, i end up not at current message, but at
> first message in folder?

Do you happen to be have more than one frame opened?

When I have a single frame and run mh-rmail, I end up in +inbox
at the .mh_sequences "cur" message number.

If I have two or more frames opened, I end up in +inbox at the
first message, when I run mh-rmail in any of the frames.

Kind of annoying but I'm used to it and never tried to get to
the bottom of it.

-- Henrique

Re: after reply, at wrong message

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

hi.  just to add/be clear: this does *not* (seem to) happen after
*sending* a message; only after replying.

after reply, at wrong message

[Greg M. <min...@um...>]

hi.  any ideas why this might be happening?  after i reply to a message
in +inbox, i end up not at current message, but at first message in
folder?  if i look in .../inbox/.mh_sequences, i see (among other things)
----
cur: 6358
unseen: ....
header: 726
----

my sense is that this does *not* happen in other folders (though i don't
reply to message in those very often).

cheers, Greg

Re: draft patch set for SF#473 fix (remember dest with thread refile)

[Mike K. <ku...@ra...>]

Bill Wohler via mh-e-devel wrote:

> I'd concur with Henrique assessment that his other patches were for
> XEmacs as well, which we no longer support.

Yeah, I dug into this some more.  Henrique got added to the AUTHORS file
in 2011, which is about the same time as some XEmacs-related changes in
the separate repo; the commit comments for those changes have a
thank-you that mentions Henrique.

> In any case, let's not worry about it too much and stick with the four
> lines that we do have documentation for. Thanks!

Agreed.  Henrique's 2011 changes were most likely removed as part of the
big cleanup to remove the XEmacs support back in 2021.

cheers,
mike

Re: draft patch set for SF#473 fix (remember dest with thread refile)

[Bill W. <wo...@ne...>]

I only got one hit in the logs for a different file.

    commit 1a98ebdffb
    Author: Bill Wohler <wo...@ne...>
    Date:   Wed Jul 11 05:58:45 2007 +0000

	(mh-display-color-cells): Fix on XEmacs 21.5b28. Thanks to Henrique
	Martins for the help (closes SF #1749774).

    M       lisp/mh-e/ChangeLog
    M       lisp/mh-e/mh-compat.el

Looking at the diff, I'd attribute maybe a couple of lines to Henrique.
Not that it matters since mh-compat.el no longer exists.

I'd concur with Henrique assessment that his other patches were for
XEmacs as well, which we no longer support.

In any case, let's not worry about it too much and stick with the four
lines that we do have documentation for. Thanks!

Henrique Martins <mh-...@ma...> wrote:

> mike> Henrique, how many lines do you think you have submitted to Emacs?
> 
> I guess "think" was the keyword in there.
> 
> mike> It just occurred to me to check etc/AUTHORS, and Henrique has credit for
> mike> changes to mh-mime.el and mh-xface.el.
> 
> I somewhat remember having to change something in mh-xface, maybe for (when I was on) xemacs. Not sure about mh-mime, maybe when I was upset about utf-8 encoding if from/to/etc headers.
> 
> Don't remember submitting patches. Maybe a couple of lines in some email to the list? Maybe told Bill to not credit me?
> 
> -- Henrique

-- 
Bill Wohler <wo...@ne...> aka <Bil...@na...>
http://www.newt.com/wohler/, GnuPG ID:610BD9AD

Re: draft patch set for SF#473 fix (remember dest with thread refile)

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

mike> Henrique, how many lines do you think you have submitted to Emacs?

I guess "think" was the keyword in there.

mike> It just occurred to me to check etc/AUTHORS, and Henrique has credit for
mike> changes to mh-mime.el and mh-xface.el.

I somewhat remember having to change something in mh-xface, maybe for (when I was on) xemacs. Not sure about mh-mime, maybe when I was upset about utf-8 encoding if from/to/etc headers.

Don't remember submitting patches. Maybe a couple of lines in some email to the list? Maybe told Bill to not credit me?

-- Henrique

Re: draft patch set for SF#473 fix (remember dest with thread refile)

[Mike K. <ku...@ra...>]

It just occurred to me to check etc/AUTHORS, and Henrique has credit for
changes to mh-mime.el and mh-xface.el.  I can't find the changes in the
git history, though.

mike

Bill Wohler via mh-e-devel wrote:

> Cool.
> 
> Now you're up to 4 :-).
> 
> Henrique Martins <mh-...@ma...> wrote:
> 
> > > Finally, the 15 lines is cumulative. Henrique, how many lines do you think you have submitted to Emacs?
> > 
> > Zero :-)
> > 
> > -- Henrique
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > mh-e-devel mailing list
> > mh-...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mh-e-devel
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Bill Wohler <wo...@ne...> aka <Bil...@na...>
> http://www.newt.com/wohler/, GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> mh-e-devel mailing list
> mh-...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mh-e-devel

Re: draft patch set for SF#473 fix (remember dest with thread refile)

[Henrique M. <mh-...@ma...>]

> Looks good, thanks again! I'm looking forward to hearing whether it works to Henrique's satisfaction.

Satisfied,

-- Henrique