Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 11:33:18 -0600 From: "Mike Meyer" <mwm-dated-1011288798.1e2203@mired.org> To: Ken McGlothlen <mcglk@artlogix.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Spamming FreeBSD lists. Message-ID: <15424.29534.66167.944213@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <66856784@toto.iv>
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Ken McGlothlen <mcglk@artlogix.com> types: > Just tossing this out there for comment. > > I'm not suggesting in the slightest that the freebsd.org lists should only be > open to subscribers. But is there a way that non-subscribers can be > challenged? In other words, when a non-subscriber sends a message to > questions@freebsd.org, the message goes into a queue, and an automated response > is sent to them saying, "Your message has been received; in order to pass it > along to the all-volunteer subscribers behind questions@freebsd.org, please > reply to this message. Note that if your message is an unsolicited > advertisement, freebsd.org will bill you or your company $100 per subscriber, > payable net-30. Currently, there are 1500 [or whatever] subscribers." I think it's a good idea. However, you missed a critical bit about most spam - it doesn't have a valid return/reply address! Then again, that's what makes this kind of thing work: spammers never see the request for confirmation, so the spam doesn't get through. > Okay, maybe not the last sentence (though I wish...). Once a reply was > received, the message would be passed on to the list normally. Since most spammers never see that last sentence, it's sort of pointless. > It seems to me that this might be one extra hoop for nonsubscribers, but > nothing too incomprehensible or onerous, and it would profoundly reduce the > amount of spam. True. Especially if you once they've confirmed a message, mail from them is accepted without confirmation in the future. There's a tool in the ports tree - tmda - that uses this strategy for spam reduction. I've switched over to it, and it works like a charm. I recommend it to anyone who wants a spam filter that has no false positives. TMDA can be configured so that incoming mail from any subscriber address is accepted without question, and to add the address of anyone who confirms mail to a file that can also be checked. It includes a tool for cleaning out old messages that haven't been confirmed. You probably want some tool for removing old non-subscriber addresses from the confirmed list. That's a more interesting problem. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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