POPFile - Automatic Email Classification / News: Recent posts

POPFile v1.1.0 has been released on our new website:

http://getpopfile.org/

You can read the release notes here:

http://getpopfile.org/docs/releasenotes:1.1.0

The POPFile Core Team

Welcome to POPFile v1.0.1

POPFile is an email classification tool with a Naive Bayes classifier, POP3,
SMTP, NNTP proxies and IMAP filter and a web interface. It runs on most
platforms and with most email clients.

This version is a bug fix and minor feature release. It's also the first
release to have been built by Brian Smith.

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE v1.0.0

1. Bug fixes

When POPFile starts up it no longer complains about a missing IMAP file if
IMAP has not been installed.... read more

Welcome to POPFile v1.0.0

POPFile is an email classification tool with a Naive Bayes classifier,
POP3, SMTP, NNTP proxies and IMAP filter and a web interface. It runs
on most platforms and with most email clients.

This version is a bug fix and minor feature release. It's also the
first release to have the version number 1. This is because we've
finally decided to stop pretending that POPFile is 'beta' software :-)... read more

POPFile has been nominated for a SourceForge Community Choice Award
due to the efforts of many people.

Voting closes on July 20 and there's strong competition in POPFile's
category from the likes of Pidgin (formerly GAIM) and phpBB.

If POPFile wins SourceForge will be making a donation to a charity
that I picked: Doctors without Borders.

If you feel like voting for POPFile, please vote in the Best Project
for Communications category here:... read more

POPFile has been nominated for a SourceForge Community Choice Award
thanks to the efforts of many users. If you love POPFile please vote for
it here:

http://sourceforge.net/awards/cca/vote.php

It's in the Best Project for Communications category.

Welcome to POPFile v0.22.5

This version is a bug fix and minor feature release that's been over a
year in the making (mostly due to me being preoccupied by other
things).

NOMINATING POPFILE FOR AN AWARD

SourceForge has announced their 'Community Choice Awards' for 2007 and
is looking for nominations. If you feel that POPFile deserves such an
honour please visit the following link and nominate POPFile in the
'Best Project for Communications' category. POPFile requires multiple
nominations (i.e. as many people as possible) to get into the list of
finalists.... read more

Welcome to POPFile v0.22.4

This version is a bug fix release and contains an important security
related bug fix. It is a highly recommended upgrade because of the
problem described in #1 below.

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE v0.22.3

1. A bug in the handling of the charset in an email could be exploited
to cause POPFile to crash when downloading messages.

2. Japanese users were unable to use the insert.pl script. This has
been corrected so the Nihongo language is now correctly recognized.
In addition the Nihongo language translation has been updated.... read more

Here's an interesting use of POPFile:

http://www.jgc.org/blog/2006/01/deconstructing-sundance-with-popfile.html

John.

Welcome to POPFile v0.22.3

This is a minor bug fix release prompted by POPFile developer Brian
Smith who pointed out that we hadn't done a POPFile release for a
while, that there was a much newer version of Perl available and that
there were lots of changes in the installer that would help people.

The new version of Perl enables Windows POPFile to use the latest SSL
code (for connections to secure mail servers) and fixes the "3935 byte
problem" that made POPFile's web server fail on some systems.... read more

I'll be appearing as a guest on Computer America (www.computeramerica.com) this Thursday; I'll be on in the second hour of the show talking about POPFile, spam, email filtering, and who knows what else.

John.

POPFile won a Productivity Award in the 2005 Jolt Awards.

Thanks for everyone who has contributed to POPFile!
John.

POPFile has been shortlisted in the 15th Annual Jolt Awards and is a finalist in the Security category.

Read all about it here and keep your fingers crossed:
http://www.sdmagazine.com/jolts/15th_jolt_finalists.html

John.

Mac OS X users who want a simpler install than the current Cross Platform Version available here should take a look at Fink: http://fink.sf.net.

There's a POPFile package available there: http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/section.php/net

John.

Japanese magazine Windows Forest has selected POPFile as one of this year's best pieces of software. You can see the article here:

http://www.forest.impress.co.jp/article/2004/12/22/yearly_okiniiri.html

A hideous machine translation reads...

The editing staff chooses, this year most you were deeply impressed "the favorite" software

[snip]

At each time it receives the annoyance mail repulse software "POPFile" which becomes wise
It accesses the configuration picture with the Web browser
It accesses the configuration picture with the Web browser
　Everyday life the annoyance mail which is increased, either the people who are bothered probably will not be few. Because the annoyance mail reaches in remainder, to be good it designates also that as the ear mail address is changed periodically. "POPFile" operates, between the mail server and the mail software like the staging terminal being automatic, distinguishes the annoyance mail. Because, the individual header appends in the annoyance mail which is distinguished, then it distributes on mail software side and should have configurated. Because it is possible, to continue to use the mail software which presently has been utilized that way also introduction is easy. However because this software is study type, it starts using, just the annoyance mail cannot distinguish. While using, it is the mechanism where distinction precision keeps rising gradually. By the way, the writer has used this software over 1 year 2 month, presently 98.The annoyance mail is distinguished at 46% precision. Because this software can verify the statistics of annoyance mail distinction in the configuration picture, also those where the way of growth is looked pleasantly are straw raincoat one.... read more

Welcome to POPFile v0.22.2

This version consists of a minor bug fix update to v0.22.1. A
collection of bugs had been discovered and fixed and it seemed prudent
to do a .2 release to get these fixes in the hands of people.

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE v0.22.1

1. POPFile comes with a new "packing list" which will check
automatically that the correct Perl modules are installed
for POPFile to work correctly. This is important to cross
platform users as it sanity checks the POPFile installation
on start up.... read more

The kind folks who maintain the Mozilla Thunderbird extension called MNENHY have added the POPFile email headers to the default list in the latest release (0.7).

http://mnenhy.mozdev.org/

John.

Folks,

As part of developing POPFile and working on spam filtering I've put together a comprehensive, 20 page survey. This survey will lead you through a number of pages asking about you, your attitude towards spam and spam filtering, your experience with spam filters and ends with a short exercise where you act as a human spam filter.

If you have the time (I would set aside 15 to 20 minutes) then please visit: http://getpopfile.org/cgi-bin/start.cgi... read more

There's an interesting article here:

http://arachnid.homeip.net/papers/VB2004-Canning-more-than-SPAM-1.02.pdf

written by Martin Overton about (successful) experiments he's done in using POPFile to detect email borne viruses and worms.

John.

POPFile finally has a web address of its own:

getpopfile.org

From now on we'll be using this address instead of popfile.sf.net. If you need to tell a friend about POPFile all they need to know is getpopfile.org.

John.

Welcome to POPFile v0.22.1

This version consists of a minor bug fix update to v0.22.0. It is a
recommended upgrade for people using v0.22.0 because of problems #1
and #12 below.

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE v0.22.0

1. Added a missing </a> that appear in the magnet page navigator
2. Problem with redefined separator value in POP3 proxy
3. Updated installer
4. Fix in the API for handle_message to ensure that messages appear in the
history correctly.
5. Reinstate API get_html_colored_message
6. Fix a problem with X-POPFile-Link header and the optional < >
7. Much improved decision chart
8. Allow spaces in the Windows user name
9. Stop the SOCKS widget producing undefined variables
10. Updated Arabic UI translation
11. Restore compatibility with MySQL
12. Fix problem with null characters in mail headers
13. Added special skin for use with the Klingon language
14. Updated Japanese UI translation
15. Fix problem with SSL connections being very slow
16. Updated Turkish translation... read more

See the announcement here:

https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1141039&forum_id=213099

John.

And some of these "mentions" are full tutorials on how to install it.

Fighting Spam for Dummies
by John R. Levine, Ray Everett-Church, Margaret Levine Young
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764559656

Privacy Tactics
by Scott Germaise
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974449709

Anti-Spam Tool Kit
by Paul Wolfe, Charlie Scott, Mike Erwin
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/007223167X... read more

v0.21.2 RELEASE

This is a release containing a fix for a security flaw found
in v0.21.1 and is identical to that release apart from the
fix.

More details of the flaw can be found here:

http://sf.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=5248725&forum_id=12356

John.

Recently POPFile has become a part of many Linux distributions, including Debian, Gentoo and Lindows. POPFile is an email classification tool with a Naive Bayes classifier, a POP3 proxy and a web interface. It runs on most platforms and with most email clients.

Debian:
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/popfile

Gentoo:
http://packages.gentoo.org/packages/?category=net-mail;name=popfile

Lindows:
http://www.linspire.com/lindows_products_details.php?id=11920... read more

Folks,

Some time I ago I announced (http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=265173) that I was working as a consultant for ActiveState (who recently were acquired by Sophos) on their anti-spam products and task force.

I have recently cancelled my agreement with them and so I'm a free agent again. This has no affect on POPFile.

John.