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Tony Hoyle wrote: > Yesterday this mailserver processed 8,050 emails, and rejected 7,289 as > obvious spam before filtering (bogus sender/recipient, known spam source, > etc.). Of those that passed the sanity checks, 223 were found to be > spam.. so over 93% of the email the server gets is spam. Crazy. That is a lot of crap coming through the net. > Even with the multiple layers of filtering on the server too much is > getting through, and I don't want to be responsible for redistributing > this over the mailing list, so something is going to have to change. The current e-mail system is broken, and nobody is willing to fix it; or if they are, there is great resistance to changing it. Endpoint authentication would be idea, but how many people can cope with getting a certificate so they can either sign a message or transfer it over an authenticated link. (In the later case there is still the problem that the sending host could be compromised, but at least you know where it came from.) > So my options are, as I see it: > > 1. Go to member only posting, but approve nonmember posts... not keen on > that one as I don't want a manual solution. That's probably the most effective way of keeping spam out; its a killer is there is only you who can approve/bounce messages though. > 2. Go to member only posting, and bounce nonmember posts... this will stop > people posting and defeats the point of a support list IMO. True. But, if somebody wants help and they can't be bothered to subscribe to the list, then that is a bit silly of them isn't it? A few sites that I've seen put up a web form for such people, so they can submit a message to a list, and when it is sent to the list it is prefixed with something like "the sender can't be bother to subscribe to the list, so if you want to help them out, mailto directly". > 3. Kill the email list entirely and rely on the newsgroups - currently my > preferred solution. This assumes that spam isn't sent to the list server... do you have any idea if there is any SPAM going direct to the NNTP server? > Any others that anyone can think of? Do support via a forum. But, this is a pain, since reading messages via mail/nntp is, IMHO, much easier. And, you also also back to the SPAM problem unless the forum is locked down to members only. (Of couse, the problem with forum spam is that people are just soooo keen to put links to their sites because search engines associate[d] links with popularity). Move to list to yahoo/msn groups. (Only Joking!!!!) > Shooting spammers in the head is an > attractive option but illegal in most countries... Pity. Its what they deserve. (Perhaps is being a spammer could be classified as an act of terrorism... evil grin). Or, how about giving them a massive dose of LSD and sitting them in front of the TV to watch a loop of the Jerry Springer show. Now that, my friend, would be punishment indeed. I also say that anybody who buys/clicks based on receiving spam should be shot too... if spammers didn't make money because people are so dumb* as to believe the crap they get, then they wouldn't have the incentive to spam. [* I wonder if anybody has done a study to see which country's recipients follow through on spam the most... ] At the moment its interesting to note that spamming seems to be moving away from selling those ever-so-userful little blue pills and is into identity/fiscal fraud. -- David Somers typographer/programmer/whatever