From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 2 09:12:46 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F254316A404 for ; Wed, 2 May 2007 09:12:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.web-strider.com [65.75.192.90]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A676D13C484 for ; Wed, 2 May 2007 09:12:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from TEDSDESK (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.197.130]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with SMTP id l429CYPJ095506; Wed, 2 May 2007 02:12:35 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Bart Silverstrim" Date: Wed, 2 May 2007 02:14:05 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <56E5302B-5E4D-4A80-A7CF-289FF07ABA05@chrononomicon.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1896 X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]); Wed, 02 May 2007 02:12:36 -0700 (PDT) Cc: John Levine , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Greylisting -- Was: Anti Spam X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 09:12:47 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > From: Bart Silverstrim [mailto:bsilver@chrononomicon.com] > Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 12:08 PM > To: Ted Mittelstaedt > Cc: John Levine; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: Greylisting -- Was: Anti Spam > > > You're making it sound as if greylisting is a terrible idea NO. I'm making it sound like greylisting is NOT the world's answer to stopping spam. It's NOT a miracle cure, it is NOT the last, best hope for peace. I'm making it sound like greylisting is just one more tool in the box to stop spam - not espically better than many other tools, it has it's good points and it's bad points, as do all the other tools. Obviously you have a severe problem with this. All I can say to that is if you put all your spamfighting eggs in one basket, your foolish. > because > once your failure system won't notify you for some unspecified period > of time. Give it a rest. That is one wart on greylisting. There are others. Just as there are warts on all other spamfighting tools. I, and others most likely, are saying that it wouldn't take > much for you to get it working just fine whether the cell carrier > used it or not. And even then, you haven't made a case that ISPs or > businesses still couldn't use it Right, because it was never my intention to make a case for NOT using it. It was my original intention to show that greylisting worked because it allows the blacklists time to get the submitter in their lists, not because all spammers cannot tolerate greylisting delays because they are sending spam so fast. Which is what one of the OP's claimed was how greylisting worked. I then added to this later on the intention to show that depending on greylisting alone will not work in the long haul, because it is easy to program around it. Which the spammers will do once a majority of sites use greylisting, and indeed, many spammers are already starting to do right now. ...the inconvenience you point out > still could be worked around simply by doing what I suggested before, > registering legit by periodically sending a quick message, and if you > get "charged" for a short short message like that, then you probably > need a new cell plan if that is pushing you over your free time, or > start having your employer compensate you for using your personal > equipment for business use. > yah yah yah whatever. As I said before, you are so lost and hung up on the monitoring example that you have completely misinterpreted everything that I've said. The point was not to get sidetracked into this stupid monitoring example discussion. The point was to discuss the merits and problems of greylisting. I frankly think that you are so in love with greylisting that you are deliberately trying to AVOID a discussion of it's merits - because you cannot bear to hear anything bad about it. In summary, I run several busy mailservers, all that use greylisting. I have used greylisting for quite a while. You can believe that or not. I am stating that categorically, greylisting at the current time is a quick hack, that in the majority of cases works, but it's effectiveness has already started down the road to rapid decline, and every month I am seeing more and more spam go right past it and get tagged by spamassassin as being from a blacklisted spam emitter. That DOES NOT MEAN that you should NOT use it - no more than it means you should not use things like SPF records as counters in a point-based spamfiltering system - it merely means that it's getting less effective every day. Ted