SPAM on List...

[John Morgan Salomon]

While on the subject of spam, wouldn't it be an idea to maybe strip 
senders' email
addresses from the mail archives, or just making a version with email 
addresses
available to subscribers?

Sorry if this has been brought up before, but it occurred to me that 
keeping them
publicly visible might not be such a clever idea...

Cheers,

-John



Martin Pool wrote:

>On  9 Dec 2002, "John E. Malmberg" <wb8tyw at qsl.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>If it was on any of the reputable blocking lists, I would not be able to
>>receive any of the SAMBA lists, and you would be getting the
>>bounces.
>>    
>>
>
>It has since been removed from some of them.
>
>  
>
>>I.P. based blocking has shown to be the only thing that motivates some
>>domains to act on abuse reports.
>>    
>>
>
>I really don't care about abuse reports anymore.  There is an
>inexhaustible supply of other spam sources.  Desirable as it may be to
>have ISPs behave properly, it will not reduce the amount of spam.
>
>  
>
>>And the bounce message can contain an alternate contact means such
>>as a web form if someone needs a white-listing.
>>    
>>
>
>A major goal of this exercise is to reduce or eliminate the number of
>messages that require manual handling because they waste admin time,
>and they are often dropped.  Our previous experience was that IP
>blacklists have significant false-positive and false-negative rates.
>
>In addition, IP blacklists seem to often "go mad" when the admins
>start pursuing a campagin against some ISP in a way that does not
>agree with our goals.  For example, the previously-reputable ORBS
>server blacklisted most of Australia a few years ago.
>
>Basically I want the decisions to be made by samba team admins, not by
>other people.
>
>  
>
>>Some time last fall apparently Korea passed an OPT-OUT with the 
>>equivalent of "ADV" in the headers law.  Right after that, list that I 
>>subscribe to at a major university went from 2 spams a week to over 8 
>>spams a day.  99% from Korea.
>>    
>>
>
>We no longer accept any mail from Korea. :-(
>
>  
>
>>Now the other thing to consider is that when the filter makes a mistake 
>>and deletes a legitimate message, it is quite a while before the sender 
>>figures out, if at all that the message did not get through.
>>    
>>
>
>Our filter sends intelligible, actionable bounce messages.  This is an
>enormous improvement of the previous system, which said something like
>"error 10". 
>
>  
>
>>If the message is bounced, the sender knows immediately, and can use the 
>>alternate contact information, such as a web form to request a 
>>whitelisting.
>>    
>>
>
>As RFC 2822 requires, mail to postmaster is not filtered, and is read
>by a human.  People can report problems there.
>
>  
>
>>They also know that there is probably a problem with their ISP or
>>with the particular block list, and they have the information needed
>>to fix it.
>>    
>>
>
>That's bogus.  If my ISP is blocked it is very difficult for me to
>change -- at home I am on a 12 month contract with my DSL provider,
>for example.  Even if I did move, it's very unlikely that my leaving
>would persuade them to change/enforce their AUP.  People with business
>hosting are in a even more difficult situation.
>
>  
>
>>Filtering makes spam your problem.  Using a blocking list makes spam the 
>>problem of the ISP sending the spam.  Eventually almost noone will 
>>accept e-mail from them, either from local blocking lists, or public
>>ones.
>>    
>>
>
>You describe a long-term solution in which spam-friendly ISPs are
>gradually ostracised.  I'm not quite sure I believe you that there is
>a clear distinction, that bonafide ISPs are really able to stop spam,
>and that being ostracised will ever really cut them off.  But
>regardless, these are long-term, global measures.    What I care about
>is reducing admin load and spam transmission on samba.org right now.
>
>Our bogofilter setup seems to be doing *extremely well* at just that;
>I can see it catching many more messages and getting far fewer false
>positives before, and it is no longer necessary to clear queues by
>hand.  I looked through the queue when I installed it and there were
>many posters who just happened e.g. to be from China and whose
>messages were basically dropped.  
>
>Unless people have specific complaints about the new setup I intend to
>keep going along this path.
>
>  
>