> It doesn't need to do 100% filtering - it certainly does well enough,
> though.  But you've decided it's "intractably difficult" so it's not
> worth bothering with, even though it's very popular and lots of people
> have great success with it.
>
> Which planet are you on again? ;)

Ah yes, the argumentum ad populum. You realise that *millions* of people 
use Internet Explorer, right? So that *must* mean it's the best web 
browser. :-P

>> In other news, I have yet to see a spam filter which actually filters
>> out spam and nothing else. (Then again, I haven't searched extensively
>> for one...)
>
> None of them make that claim.

And now I must ask which planet *you* are on. This is /the definition/ 
of what a spam filter is. And, just like moisturising creams that are 
"guaranteed" to make you look 20 years younger, people make all sorts of 
completely unsubstantiated claims about spam filters.

> But by and large, spam filters do a pretty decent job.

By this I can only assume that you mean "the spam filters /which I have 
used/ do a pretty decent job". Because the spam filters that *I* have 
used all do a pitifully awful job.

For example, my ISP filters all my incoming email. After 5 years, it has 
/still/ failed to realise that anything containing the words "free meds" 
or "PayPal" is spam. And it has also failed to realise that anything 
containing the word "Haskell" is ham. This, after my repeatedly marking 
the spam and ham for its "learning algorithm". Unfortunately, this 
program's idea of "learning" is to blacklist or whitelist each 
individual sender, each time I press a button. How pathetic.

My employer used a system called "barracuda" I believe, and that was 
similarly hopeless. In fairness, the genuine email we receive has 
several fairly unusual characteristics. Even so, people really shouldn't 
be receiving emails with viral attachments, or links to exploit sites, 
or those fake "delivery failure notification" emails, or...

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