Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 22:19:20 -0800 From: "Philip J. Koenig" <pjklist@ekahuna.com> To: Questions@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org>, <benjamin@macguire.net> Subject: Re: hub.freebsd.org spam policy Message-ID: <20020405061920611.AAA347@empty1.ekahuna.com@pc02.ekahuna.com> In-Reply-To: <20020405151728.H68310@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <20020405052942787.AAA368@empty1.ekahuna.com@pc02.ekahuna.com>
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On 5 Apr 2002, at 15:17, Greg 'groggy' Lehey boldly uttered: > On Thursday, 4 April 2002 at 21:29:42 -0800, Philip J. Koenig wrote: > > On 5 Apr 2002, at 13:45, Greg 'groggy' Lehey boldly uttered: > > > >> On Thursday, 4 April 2002 at 16:46:08 -0800, Philip J. Koenig wrote: > >>> On 4 Apr 2002, at 15:26, Benjamin Krueger boldly uttered: > >>> > >>>>> BTW, will somebody realy take care on this?? > >>>> > >>>> If the spam filtering that the lists implement are not to your > >>>> liking, perhaps you can volunteer to help maintain better ones? > >>>> Filtering is not a perfect science. It isn't even close. > >>> > >>> Well yanno, I'd be glad to contribute, but the attitude of whoever > >>> answers "postmaster@freebsd.org" has been consistently uninterested > >>> in my POV on the matter so far. > >> > >> There are many possible reasons for that. In general, we don't have > >> too much sympathy for people who have configuration problems and then > >> blame us for rejecting their mail. > > > > I do not have a "configuration problem". > > You carry on to say that you do. > > > If you read what I wrote, you would have seen that I have been using > > variations of the same email client for around 7 years and have > > NEVER had this problem before freebsd.org decided to implement this > > filtering. > > The problem was there, it just went unnoticed. > > >> Still, as others have said, the method we're using isn't ideal, and > >> if you can come up with a better one, we're all ears. > > > > With all due respect, that remains to be seen. If you'd like copies > > of my correspondence with the freebsd.org postmaster as an example of > > this alleged 'all ears' policy (and with their approval), I'd be glad > > to provide them. > > No, I told you what I'd like to see: actions, not words. > > >> But you need to come up with the better one first before you'll get > >> too much attention. > > > > There are a plethora of methods in use today for blocking spam. The > > problem in my view are the methods which PURPORT to be "spam > > blockers", but which are actually "wing and a prayer" things based on > > faulty and over-generalized assumptions. > > Ah, yes, but that's your view. You haven't come up with a good > alternative. > > > (it now appears that the lists require subscription confirmation, > > which has been standard practice elsewhere around the net for years) > > Ah, you've noticed, have you? That's been in place for years. > > >> If this is a DNS problem, it has nothing to do with the client. But > >> is it DNS? What message do you get with the bounce? > > > > I'll tell you exactly what the problem was. > > Thank you. > > > The filters at hub.freebsd.org are designed to block *anything* that > > has a message- ID that ends in "localhost". EVEN TO > > POSTMASTER.. which is a very rude practice. > > OK, and possibly agreed. I suspect that's an accident. Are you > volunteering to fix it? > > > I have been using various versions of this email client (Pegasus > > Mail) since around 1995, and as far as I know, my messages have been > > formatted that way for the last seven years and I have never *once* > > gotten a complaint or a bounceback due to that reason... until now. > > Yes, that's about the fourth time you've said that. > > > Now the guy who answers postmaster@freebsd.org says the reasoning > > behind this is that various spammers supposedly use "@localhost" in > > their Message-ID headers. But THE PROBLEM with this is that lots of > > us who have *nothing to do with spam* also do this.. and have for > > years. > > Yup. But you can reconfigure. It seems that you have done. > > > As far as I'm concerned, "spam filters" should do just that: FILTER > > SPAM. Not stuff which just "kinda looks like spam, sorta". I > > consider such practices net abuse. > > OK, come up with a reliable spam recognizer and the world will beat a > path to your door. > > > There are a variety of less arbitrary methods. Nothing is perfect. > > But such filters as described above are GUARANTEED to block innocent > > messages. > > I believe this is the case of every method. You still haven't come up > with any suggestions. > > > Perhaps it will anger someone who just doesn't like to hear opinions > > of those who happen to disagree with their practices.. but the > > practices I am talking about are commonly accepted these days. > > Bad mail configurations are commonly accepted these days. Massive > text mutilation in mail message is commonly accepted these days. > Microsoft is commonly accepted these days. That doesn't mean that > we're going to accept any of them. > > > I cannot think of any other large email list that is so naive to > > think that they can operate without any sort of subscriber > > verification and still have a handle on spamming and abuse. > > Well, I obviously can't influence your thought processes. > > > And about this "bad DNS", I assume you are assuming something must > > match forward/reverse? What are you testing DNS on, the last-hop > > host? What happens if it has several A records or CNAME records? > > No, we just require reverse mapping. In any case, multiple A records > are not an issue. > > > That's all I'm going to go into for now. > > OK, since you haven't come up with any concrete suggestions, we might > as well terminate the thread. > > Greg I gave you examples, I provided the reasons, showed you the RFCs, talked about specific alternatives - you snipped *everything* that supported my position. Sounds to me like your mind was made up before you wrote the first word. I don't know about "terminating the thread", but it does seem prudent for you to just stop bothering to contribute to it, because clearly your ears and eyes are welded shut. It's a better corroboration of my original observations than I could have written myself. Phil PS: note that I didn't snip and mangle your post to death. -- Philip J. Koenig pjklist@ekahuna.com Electric Kahuna Systems -- Computers & Communications for the New Millenium To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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