Rule-based Spam E-mail Annotation

A new system for spam e-mail annotation by end-users is presented. It is based on the recursive application of hand-written annotation rules by means of an inferential engine based on Logic Programming. Annotation rules allow the user to express nuanced considerations that depend on deobfuscation, word (non-)occurrence and structure of the message in a straightforward, human-readable syntax. We show that a sample collection of annotation rules are effective on a relevant corpus that we have assembled by collecting e-mails that have escaped detection by the industry-standard SpamAssassin filter. The system presented here is intended as a personal tool enforcing personalized annotation rules that would not be suitable for the general e-mail traffic.