is whitelist useless?

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orracle51
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:40 am

is whitelist useless?

Post by orracle51 »

I have whitelisted a number of web sites and addresses but they still come up as "watch" or not legit. What do I have to do so that I don't have to continually mark them okay?
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Jeff
Admin / Developer
Posts: 9226
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2001 9:46 pm

Re: is whitelist useless?

Post by Jeff »

There are multiple filters involved, so if the whitelist isn't fully acknowledged as legit, then you may need to make some tweaks. AntiJunk uses a weighting system, so the most straight-forward solution would be to weigh the white list a little more; but another, more universally beneficial method would be to make sure that you appropriately mark messages as Legit or Junk. Marking messages as Legit will also add the sender to the white list, so it's actually easier to mark a message as Legit than to just add it to the whitelist.

If you want to change the weight of the white list:
1) From POP Peeper's main menu, select Tools / AntiJunk -> Settings
2) If "Advanced Settings" isn't enabled, enable it (bottom-left of the "basic" page)
3) On the "General" page, you will see the default weights for the filters. The default weight for the white list is -1.5 (negative values are legit, positive values are junk), so you can change that as you want; nudging it to -2 or -3 should have the effect you're looking for, but you could change it to -10 or higher (lower?) if you want to make sure.

Also, you mentioned adding "web sites" to the white list; but the white list is only for email addresses. You can add domains (e.g. whitelist everything from @esumsoft.com), but I'm not sure if that's what you meant or not, so I just wanted to make sure you're using the white list correctly.


There are ways to see which filters hit, so if you're interested in learning *why* your messages aren't being evaluated correctly, I can provide more details.
orracle51
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:40 am

Re: is whitelist useless?

Post by orracle51 »

I am still quite frustrated with the whitelist. Addresses that are on it still get flagged. I tried changing the weights but it didn't help. Why doesn't the program just follow what has been deemed to be safe?
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Jeff
Admin / Developer
Posts: 9226
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2001 9:46 pm

Re: is whitelist useless?

Post by Jeff »

Can you provide some sample data? If you can do this for 3-5 messages, that may be enough to see a pattern. Here's what you need to do:

1) Find a message that was incorrectly evaluated in the Message List
2) Right-click on it and select:
AntiJunk -> Show Evaluation
3) Select and copy the text in the window and paste it. Be sure to censor any sensitive information -- email addresses in particular.
Putting the text into a code block helps format (ie. it's the 5th button above where you type your reply in the forum -- bold, italics, underline, quote, code, ...)


Here's an example of what you may expect:

Code: Select all

Score: -2.5

White List:	score: -1.5	
   xx@email.informeddelivery.usps.com:	(-1.5)	

Rules:	score: 0	
   USPS - retrieve entire:	(-)	

Bayesian:	score: -1	0% (conf: 460 / 547 = 84.10%)
Explanation:
- The overall score was -2.5.
- The email address is in the whitelist, which uses the default score of -1.5
- I've created a custom rule to "retrieve entire" (I retrieve preview by default, but these usps messages always have attachments that I want to see); this rule does not affect the overall score; the weight is 0
- Bayesian calculated as legit with a score of -1
So the 3 things that hit: -1.5 + 0 + -1 = -2.5

I do wish that this window also displayed whether the -2.5 was legit/junk/unknown, but -- for now -- it does not.


P.S. Don't take a year to reply back; we'll get it figured out :)
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