[SURBL-Discuss] Rookie Question

Jeff Chan jeffc at surbl.org
Thu Dec 30 23:35:06 CET 2004


On Thursday, December 30, 2004, 6:57:24 AM, Kevin McGrail wrote:
> And I have switched the SpamCop 2.6 config to the updated file above to
> ensure that a small typo isn't my issue.  I have then sent myself an email
> with just this text in the body sans the munged: healthyandcozy-MUNGED.com

> It does not hit.

> However, I have found that if I have put www.healthyandcozy-munged.com the
> URI hit is positive.  I have further confirmed that
> http://healthyandcozy-munged.com/ is a hit as well.

> This seems like a loophole to me since it's still possible that an MUA will
> automatically make just something.com into a link and it's annoying since
> I'd still like these emails marked as SPAM.  Can anyone comment?  Am I over
> worried?  Is this by design?  Is it fixed in SA 3.0?

This is a design choice.  Programs that look for URIs, whether
they are MUAs or spam checkers need to decide what they will
consider to be URIs.  Clearly most things that start with
"http://" and have hostnames are probably meant to be URIs.
So are www.host.com.  But checking for host.com may not be
too productive and would get confused about mentions of DOS
programs like command.com, etc.

The behavior is probably similar in SA 3 for similar reasons,
though I can't recall the details.

The quick answer is SpamCopURI and SpamAssassin probably are
doing the right thing.  Their URI behavior is the result of
a lot of discussion, thought and careful design.

Jeff C.
--
"If it appears in hams, then don't list it."



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