Tagspam 0.4

Tagspam is a program which adds the word: SPAM into the subject line of a mail message which it identifies as spam. Identification is done by tracing Received: mail headers to identify the origin. The origin is then looked up in DNS black and whitelists.

With version 0.4 CSV processing based on CSV/CSA v.1 (draft-ietf-marid-csv-csa-02) is also included ( using pyCSV.py # csv-0.3x.py David MacQuigg (c) 8/19/05 ), enabling domain owners to publish records enabling forgeries claiming mail HELO greetings misusing their domain to be rejected.

Tagspam is useful for situations where you need to filter spam to individual users and where you dont have the ability to tag the spam at the MTA (Message Transport Agent) e.g. due to virtual hosting arrangements, or because you need to use a backup MX mail relay for when your own server is down which you dont administrate yourself, to improve mail delivery.

Other situations where tagspam is useful include where you wish to test a DNS blacklist to see if it tags spam accurately, but are not willing to risk message rejection based on this blacklist.

Alternatively, if like me you receive very many spams each day, you might decide to use very low false-positive probability DNSBLs at the MTA rejection level, and more agressive DNSBLs at the tagging and filtering level in order to achieve an acceptable level of mail filtering.

You should do this only if you are willing to risk delayed viewing of occasional false positives in filtered mail directed to a spam folder which you check manually, but more occasionally and faster than messages in your normal inbox.

Tagspam is written in Python, and can be run on the Unix/Linux computer running the MTA or a machine using a mail alias or on similar machine which uses fetchmail to obtain mail from a POP server, and sendmail to distribute the mail locally.