Subject: complex problem

From: kwhite <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 15:09:48 -0700 (PDT)

my university recently changed how mail is handled. before, each
machine ran its own mail process, but now one server handles all
incoming mail and users can access it through either a web interface
or through a pop/imap client.

since i have been using pine for years and want to continue (no
possible email viruses when used through unix session), i have set up
pine to connect and get my mail. i save any mail i keep locally, and
space in my account is not a problem.

unfortunately, the move to the new server either broadcasted our
account addresses or they've stopped some previous spam filtering, and
i've been bit with a wave of spam.

what i'd like to do is find some way to use something like
spamassassin with my current setup. the most direct rout, with me
needing to only type in one password each time i want to check mail,
would be to have pine auto save all the mail locally as it came in
from the mail server (as it gets checked), but have the mail filtered
externally as it gets saved locally. then all i have to do is keep
looking at one local file and the spam magically goes away.

once i have this set up, i've talked with others in my department and
they'd like to do the same.

caveats: i am not root. i use pine 4.33, but might be able to get
later version installed. i'd like to only have to type in my password
once each time i get mail.

what i envision is a filter that somehow pipes incoming mail to
spamassassin, which then applies its rules, possibly followed by
another filter on the local file that moves spam marked files to
another folder.

i'm asking this here because a search of the archives gave me a close
example but one that included fetchmail which isn't an option (no
local MTD access, password authentication insecure if auto). it also
seems like something that will be asked about more and more often as
mail servers aggregate all incoming mail at universities (where pine
is used mainly, as far as i know).

Thanks for any help,

Kevin White
USC Physics Dept.

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From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 19:59:51 +0100 (BST)

On 8 May 2003 kwhite ([email-masked]) wrote:
>  [...]

One possibility is to get your admin to install Pine 4.55 and
then you'll be able to use the new maildrop and #move features to
snarf the messages from the server using the POP protocol. Then
you can set up POPFile on your local system (the system on which
you run Pine) and have POPFile proxy all your POP activity. The
architecture will look like this:

 +---------------+
 |  POP Server   |
 +---------------+
        |
        |
 +---------------+
 | POPFile Proxy |
 +---------------+
        |
        |
 +---------------+
 |   Pine 4.55   |
 +---------------+

Then set up filters in Pine to process the messages based on the
headers that POPFile inserts in the messages.

POPFile and its original author John Graham-Cumming are getting a
lot of good press lately and from what I've read (and I read *a
lot* about mail-filtering tools), it seems that it's the best
tool around for doing the type of thing you'd like to do. You can
find out all about it, including links to all the media attention
here:

 <http://popfile.sourceforge.net/>

Hope this helps,
Nancy
 posted & cc'd

-- 
Nancy McGough
Infinite Ink
<http://www.ii.com>