Ask HN: Is there a spam filtering web service?

#1

Post by sam_in_nyc » Wed, Oct 28, 2009, 1:26 AM UTC

After reading Resig's post about Google Groups, I was wondering if there exists a web service that specializes in filtering out spam.

I would imagine I could create a new filter, send training data to a filter, and send data to a filter and have it return the likelihood of it being spam.

Anybody have first hand experience using a web service like this? If so, has it met your expectations?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a spam filtering web service?

#2

Post by _pius » Wed, Oct 28, 2009, 1:34 AM UTC

Defensio?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a spam filtering web service?

#3

Post by sam_in_nyc » Wed, Oct 28, 2009, 1:35 AM UTC

_pius wrote: post #2

Defensio?

Ah, thanks. Any first hand experience using it?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a spam filtering web service?

#4

Post by RossP » Wed, Oct 28, 2009, 3:27 AM UTC

Akismet does just this for blog posts.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a spam filtering web service?

#5

Post by _pius » Wed, Oct 28, 2009, 4:51 AM UTC

sam_in_nyc wrote: post #3

_pius wrote: post #2

Defensio?

Ah, thanks. Any first hand experience using it?

Yup, I interface with it using this plugin: http://github.com/mattapayne/rdefensio

I've done the integration work, but haven't put it into production, so I can't speak to how well the actual service works.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a spam filtering web service?

#6

Post by kngspook » Wed, Oct 28, 2009, 9:07 AM UTC

Well, Google's own Postini does spam-filtering.

I could imagine a setup where you have people send mail to an alias on your domain, route it into Postini, and then into Google Groups. The big problem would be getting users _not_ to send directly to Google Groups. And I'm not sure you'd even be able to tell them (direct vs. filtered) apart in Google Groups...

Re: Ask HN: Is there a spam filtering web service?

#7

Post by kngspook » Wed, Oct 28, 2009, 9:08 AM UTC

Can someone outline for me the pros/cons of a mailing list vs. a forum?

Except for the registering-over-and-over-again issue, it seems like forums would be preferable generally... (Especially given that most will send you emails with new posts if you ask it to.)