pop3filter

I'm on a dial-up internet connection with little or no spam checking for my mail inbox. So, I wrote pop3filter, a small python script that filters the POP3 communication between "localhost" and your provider. Currently, it has these features:

• strip HTML mails to plaintext
• detect messages blocked by SPEWS and other DNSBL
• detect messages with spam-like subjects.
• can filter using brainfuck subprogramms (see below)
• Can be used as an Outlook DNSBL filter, without any additional add-in.

Planned features include

• more comfortable configuration, probably utilizing a wxPython GUI
• deleting spam rather than just tagging it.
• auto-LARTing (e.g. a mail like blablabla@nowhere.invalid will be mapped to "abuse@nowhere.invalid")

For more information, please read the manual.

Disclaimer

PLEASE NOTE: THIS PRODUCT TAGS EMAIL IT CONSIDERS SPAM. It might mark perfectly legal mails as spam. If pop3filter marks a mail as spam, that does not mean it is spam, it only means that pop3filter thinks so, and as we all know computers cannot think.

Download

For Windows NT/2000/XP, you can download an installer with compiled binary (ie you don't need to have python installed) that will run as a NT Service. Instructions:

• download the file and start it. The download includes the full sourcecode.
• During installation, you'll have to provide the name of your pop3 server
• Note: pop3filter will be installed as a NT service, so you need local administrative privileges to install
• Once the installation is finished, change your email client to get mail from localhost, rather than whatever pop3 account you're on. Do not change any login settings - the login settings are transparently sent by pop3filter

For Linux, there is a simple shell-script version that works, too. Instructions:

• download the file and extract it
• Rename the file pop3filter.cfg to /etc/pop3filter.cfg and edit it to suit your needs.
• change your email client to get mail from localhost, rather than whatever pop3 account you're on. Do not change any login settings - the login settings are transparently sent by pop3filter.py
• start pop3filter, start email client, query for new mail.
• If something goes terribly wrong, send me a bug report, stop pop3filter, reset the changes to the pop3 settings in your email client, and you should be fine again.

Requirements

• The tool is only usefull if you have just one POP3 provider, its not usefull for more providers (as of yet).
• It was tested on Windows 2000 using Microsoft Outlook as mail client. (Thats' why I was looking for a HTML-mail-stripper in the first place ;). It will run on Windows NT and Windows XP pro. Windows9x is not supported.

License and Copyright

Starting with version 0.3, this is BSD-licensed. It used to be freeware from the start, but now the license junkies have their say.

History

• Version 0.8 on Nov. 1, 2002: Thanks to Michael Sommerville for reporting a bug (and fixing it, too), that occurs if you use POP3 without passwords.
• Version 0.7 on Sept. 1, 2002: Caches DNSBL data. This means fewer DNSBL lookups if you are on a machine that is rebooted quite often (such as your home pc). logfile now defaults to install directory.
• Version 0.6 - first public release.