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Reading Anti Spam system headers



These headers, added by the anti spam system are a small "snap shot" of what happend when the message reached the central anti-spam system.

These headers can be used to diagnose problems and make suggested changes to the system for people faced with SPAM problems.

Viewing these headers depends on the client or method you are using to view e-mail. We have a variety of articles dedicated to viewing full e-mail headers

X-Bayes-Prob: _A_ (Score _B_ )
X-Spam-Score: _C_ (****) [Hold at _D_ ] _E_
X-CanItPRO-Stream:_F_
_A_ Probability of being Spam given based on voting (Bayes). If this value is listed as 0.9999 that value equals 99.99%, and if it reads 0.0001 that value equals 0.00% of probability that the message is spam.
_B_ Spam score given based on voting
_C_ Combined score based on voting and Standard Rules
_D_ Customer's Spam Threshold (S-300)
_E_ List of unique names of qualities of the message that increase the score
_F_ Customer's Stream Setting: name.#, 10_tagonly, 30_medium

Examples:

X-Bayes-Prob: .9999 (Score 0)
X-Spam-Score: 4.10(****) [Hold at 5.0]
X-CanItPRO-Stream:name.#
X-Canit-Stats-ID: 223114842 - 596481527a9f
X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 128.146.216.81

This message has a 99.99% probability that the message is spam according to the voting system, but no score was given to the message. After the standard rules are applied the Spam score stayed under the 5.0 threshold with a Spam Score of 4.10. Therefore, the message was allowed.

X-Bayes-Prob: .9999 (Score 3)
X-Spam-Score: 4.10(****) [Hold at 5.0]
X-CanItPRO-Stream:name.#
X-Canit-Stats-ID: 223114842 - 596481527a9f
X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 128.146.216.81

This message has a 99.99% probability that the message is spam according to the voting system, because of this the message receives a higher score by 3 points. After the standard rules are applied the message still gets through because the total Spam Score is under the 5.0 threshold.
X-Bayes-Prob: 0.0001 (Score 0)
X-Spam-Score: 4.10(****) [Hold at 5.0]
X-CanItPRO-Stream:name.#
X-Canit-Stats-ID: 223114842 - 596481527a9f
X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 128.146.216.81
This message has a probability of being Spam of 0.00% according to the voting system, but after the standard rules are applied the message receives a score of 4.10. The message goes through to the user's mail box.

The above three examples show that even though the voting system may think the message is spam the rules system may not think the message is spam, and vise versa. Because of this messages that are considered spam one system and not the other are getting through to the inbox even though in all likely-hood the messages are in fact spam. A way to help the two system to work together is to change the Voting system's Scoring Threshold:

Edit Voting (Bayes) Scoring Threshold:

  1. Login to the antispam system.
  2. Select the "Rules" tab.
  3. Under "Rules" select "Bayes Settings"
  4. Under "Bayes Scoring Threshold" enter 99 in the "Percentage" field and enter the value equal to the user's Spam Threshold in the "Score" field.
  5. Press "Submit Changes"

By performing this setting change every time a message receives a message that is scored with above a 99% probability the message's spam score will be raised by the amount located in the "Score" field under "Bayes Scoring Threshold"

Undefined Examples:
A Spam score will be listed as "undef -" are for messages that have specific rules attached to them, as seen below:

X-Spam-Score: undef - DOMAIN Whitelisted (Domain osu.edu is whitelisted)
X-CanItPRO-Stream: name.#
X-Canit-Stats-ID: 312950988 - b02d1f173d4c
The reason why this message was allowed is because the user has the domain "osu.edu" whitelisted so that any messages coming from a "osu.edu" address with go directly to their inbox.
X-Spam-Score undef - message too big (size: 639075, limit: 179200)
X-CanItPRO-Stream name.#
X-Canit-Stats-ID Bayes signature not available
X-Scanned-By CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 128.146.216.81

The reason why this message came threw is because the email was tool big to be scanned by the system.


Current Record: 3411

Create Date: 05-21-2007
Last Reviewed: 02-10-2009
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