Print Page | Close Window

Blocking the "." between letters in words

Printed From: LogSat Software
Category: Spam Filter ISP
Forum Name: Spam Filter ISP Support
Forum Description: General support for Spam Filter ISP
URL: https://www.logsat.com/spamfilter/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=5015
Printed Date: 02 April 2025 at 12:43am


Topic: Blocking the "." between letters in words
Posted By: CyberBob
Subject: Blocking the "." between letters in words
Date Posted: 24 January 2005 at 2:52pm

I've posted this before and never got an answer that I found to work.

Maybe it's not possible but I cannot come up with a way to block the random use of "." between letters.

Example: Say we wanted to block:

l.o.g.s.a.t

There's a couple ways to do this but here's a simple rule:

l(\.)o(\.)g(\.)s(\.)a(\.)t

BUT if one "." is left out it clears the filter or any combination like:

logs.at

l.o.g.sat

logs.a.t

The rule MUST see a "." between each letter.

So you think let's add the * to the rule like this:

l(\.*)o(\.*)g(\.*)s(\.*)a(\.*)t

The * will pick up zero or more "." between letters but now I've gone too far and any variation of "logsat" get's blocked.

This rule works great for obvious words like viagra, f**k, p***sy etc. but I'd like to use this for variations of "prescription" when "." are used but we cannot block every email with the word "prescription" in it. We want to block ONLY the ones with the "."

Also using the + instead of * won't work because we are back to only finding the "." between every letter.

I could accomplish this by adding these entries for every word:

l(\.)ogsat

lo(\.)gsat

log(\.)sat

logs(\.)at

logsa(\.)t

But this is a little extreme especially if we are blocking the Subject also.

Any ideas would be appreciated. As I write this out and think it through I've got an idea to start testing a rule like:

[a-z]\.+[a-z]

This should block any letter then a "." then another letter? Anyone tried this or am I getting to agressive?

I'll stop here sorry for the long post but this one is bugging me and the answer is on the tip of my keyboard but I cannot see it!

Bob




Replies:
Posted By: Desperado
Date Posted: 24 January 2005 at 7:19pm

Bob,

The simple answer is that I, too tried, with zero sucess, to do the same thing.  Perhaps I need to spend some more time on it.

Dan S



Posted By: CyberBob
Date Posted: 25 January 2005 at 10:23am

Send me any ideas you have. I'm working on a new rule but I won't be able to test it till later this week so I will let you know if I find anything.

Bob




Print Page | Close Window