FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions
Updated June 28, 2005

Q: Razor has blacklisted my email address. I am not a Spammer,
   please help!

   Razor DOES NOT whitelist email addresses or host names. It
   works by computing signatures on the body of the content and
   checking these signatures against a database of known spam.
   If you believe mail is being incorrectly blocked, most likely
   you have misconfigured your mail system.

Q: I have an Header Analysis/Keyword Based/AI/Categorization
   application that detects spam. Can I automatically report
   spam detected by my application?

   In general, you should NOT do this.

   Only spam detected by humans should be reported to Razor.
   Automata, however good it is at detecting spam, isn't human,
   and should not be allowed to make a report or revoke
   decision.

   The only exception to this rule is troll addresses that have
   been seeded for the purpose of gathering spam.

Q: Can I forward mail to an address instead of reporting it?

   No. Most mail applications modify the body content to add
   quotes and/or other characters. These will lead to generation
   of different signatures from that of the original mail. Some
   mail applications (like mutt) provide a "bounce" option, that
   can be safely used for bouncing mail to a troll address that
   automatically reports to Razor.

Q: I have a colleague/relative/friend who uses Windows and gets
   a lot of Spam. How can they report/check spam using Razor?

   Ask them to download Cloudmark's SpamNet available from
   http://cloudmark.com. SpamNet is an Outlook plugin, whose
   functionality is equivalent to Razor2 and talks to the
   same network.

Q: How does razor decide which submissions to trust when
   declaring email to be spam?

   Razor uses a Truth Evaluation System (TeS) to assign a trust
   level, or rating, to those who make reports. In general
   reporting spam and issuing revokes for nonspam help your
   rating. Conversely reporting things such as mailing lists
   that a large number of users will have to revoke will hurt
   your rating.

Q: Can I find out what my TeS rating is?

   TeS ratings are not published yet. We might decide to publish
   them in future.

Q: I have a firewall. What ports do I need to open in order for
   Razor2 to work?

   Outgoing TCP port 2703 (Razor2), only.  Previous versions used
   TCP port 7 (echo), but this is no longer used.

Q: I think I found a bug, or there appears to be an error in the code.
   What should i do?

   First, please log a bug on SourceForge, at:

        http://sourceforge.net/projects/razor

   Include the debug output and mail causing it (if you can) as
   well as a brief description (ex: its not spam, but razor
   thinks it is). Capture the debug output like so:

        razor-check  -d mail  > mail.debug
        razor-revoke -d legit > legit.debug

   Additionally, you can send mail to mail@vipul.net and
   razor-testers@lists.sourceforge.net with the same information.

   Also, feel free to look at the source and send in a patch with a
   description of what the patch solves.  Patches submitted
   through the SourceForge patch manager are preferred.

Q: I'm not root, can I install Razor Agents?

   Yes.  You need to specify PREFIX dir during install.

   perl Makefile.pl PREFIX=/home/me/perl5

   then, edit your .cshrc or .tcshrc

   setenv PATH /home/me/perl5/bin:${PATH}
   setenv PERL5LIB /home/me/perl5/lib
   setenv MANPATH /home/me/perl5/man:${MANPATH}

Q: I installed Razor2, it blocks a lot of spam, but spam still gets
   through. What gives?

   Razor2 blocks anywhere between 75-90% of spam for people. It's still
   work in progress and will improve as new signature algorithms are
   introduced and more people join the network.