Email filtering to detect probable spam using headers

[stduc]

This is more than likely not the best forum to post this. I am happy to be pointed in the right direction.

I have been surfing the net to try to find some definitive explanations of email headers and getting nowhere fast. Can anyone help out? For example.

The header X-AI-MailScanner-SpamScore seems to contain a variable number of "s"'s - what do these imply?

What headers shold I look for in incoming mail and what action should I take based on the header content? i.e. - drop, send to a spam inbox etc.

 

[linney]

Not sure if you haven't already been along this track but have a look through these.

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=X-MailScanner-SpamScore&qt_s=Search&sa=N&tab=gw

 

[stduc]

Yes I did an identical search for X-AI-MailScanner-SpamScore and I have come to believe that 4 s's signifies spam.

Am I right?

What other headers and conditions are useful?

 

[linney]

Your knowledge of the matter is more than most and certainly more than mine so I can't say whether your right or wrong on the matter.

I don't get that many E-mails, so it is easy from a Spam control point of view to catch the Spam on the Server before it hits my machines and delete them there via visual selection.

To that purpose I use third party programs like

http://mmm3.sourceforge.net/

http://www.poptray.org/index.php