Classifying bounced messages

[David Relson]

On Mon, 08 Sep 2003 14:45:26 -0700
Bill Wohler <wohler at newt.com> wrote:

> I was just wondering, is it a good idea to classify bounced messages
> that are in your "unsure" category as spam?
> 
> With the recent sobig virus, lots of crap is mailed with my address
> used as the sender so I'm getting a lot of messages that are from
> Mailer-Daemon that include the virus.
> 
> Should I be classifying these messages as spam as I would if I
> received the virus directly, or by doing so, do I increase the chance
> that I might miss a legitimate Mailer-Daemon message?

Bill,

My vote is "classify as spam".  Remember that bogofilter looks for
"strong indicators of spam and ham".  The language of the bounce
messages is probably enough different from your ham that it makes for
good non-ham indicators.

David