I recommend against the above suggestion for a number of reasons:

- /usr/share/spamassassin is not the place to edit your rules. Edit your local.cf file.

- We will be dropping this rule or changing it to a non-regex rule that actually takes the current date into account. We'll do whichever our statistical data suggests would be most beneficial. Once we've done this, we'll push another update via sa-update. I wouldn't risk forgetting that you've modified a rule that's going to hit you again down the road.

BTW, the suggested rule is only going to hit on years 2014-2019, 2024-2029, etc...

If you can't get the rule to stop firing (by changing the rule or zeroing the score) you could increase your spam threshold by the amount of the rule's score (anywhere from 2 to 3.6 or more depending on your config). This would essentially cancel out the rule.

We're likely going to drop the rule all-together in the future. In the interest of getting the fix out fast, with the least confusion of users, we decided to just make the change to 2020 for now.

Although... maybe a little visibility for the project every 10 years wouldn't hurt. :)

It was an oversight. The rule fix got committed but never added to the update channel. Nobody noticed before it was too late.

Clearly we dropped the ball on this one. As far as I know it's our first big rule screw up in the project's 10 years. If you're going to screw up you might as well do it well.

I posted the following note to the Apache SpamAssassin website (http://spamassassin.apache.org/). Updates are available via sa-update, please run sa-update immediately. It's included in all versions of 3.2.x (the affected version of SpamAssassin). Alternatively zero the rule's score in your local.cf file if you have access to it. If you don't, increase your spam threshold by 3.6 points if your mail provider allows you to do that.

Y2K10 Rule Bug - Update Your Rules Now!

2010-01-01:

Versions of the FH_DATE_PAST_20XX rule released with versions of Apache SpamAssassin 3.2.0 thru 3.2.5 will trigger on most mail with a Date header that includes the year 2010 or later. The rule will add a score of up to 3.6 towards the spam classification of all email. You should take corrective action immediately; there are two easy ways to correct the problem:

* If your system is configured to use sa-update run sa-update now. An update is available that will correct the rule. No further action is necessary (other than restarting spamd or any service that uses SpamAssassin directly).

* Add "score FH_DATE_PAST_20XX 0" without the quotes to the end of your local.cf file to disable the rule.

If you require help updating your rules to correct this issue you are encouraged to ask for assistance on the Apache SpamAssassin Users' list. Users' mailing list info is here.

On behalf of the Apache SpamAssassin project I apologize for this error and the grief it may have caused you.

Regards,

Daryl C. W. O'Shea

VP, Apache SpamAssassin