From: Martin B. Jespersen
Date: March 16 1999 12:50pm
Subject: Re: Do something about the spam, or this list is useless :(
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/321
Message-Id: <36EE5381.FEF26A37@IconMedialab.dk>
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Ed Carp wrote:
> 
> >I am being spammed from aol daily through this list, it simply can't be the
> idea
> >here!
> 
> Maybe it's your AOL account, rather than the list - I don't see that much
> spam.
>

I don't have an aol account, i'm from denmark, and even if i was from USA i
would never even consider using aol.
 
> >There is alot of good input here but if i'll have to take all the spam as
> well
> >i'll rather do without the list. It's really too bad how many mailing lists
> get
> >screwed up by spammers, while the listsadmins sit flat on their butt doing
> squat
> >about it.
> 
> It's really too bad how many people will complain about list admins not
> filtering spam instead of using their delete key.  Do you have any clue as
> to how difficult it is to filter spam?  Folks who send this stuff have
> software that is deliberately designed to not be easily detectable by
> automated software.  Try it yourself sometime, instead of insulting the list
> admins.

I have been working as sysadmin for several years, and have been maintaining a
bunch of mailing lists.
If you knew a little about the subject you would know how easy it is to filter
spam. The consequences of the filtering are however not always desirable, and
thus people don't filter. Filtering spam is not only about detecting wether or
not a mail is containging spam (actually this is the elast effective way). 
1st of all you should never have a plaintext printout or link to the list on
your public page without noise in the address like
mysql@stripped -The address collecter bots are still
too stupid to figure that one out. 
2nd of all you should always check wether or not the adress is cc or to, never
allow bcc to the list. 
3rd you should never allow send and receiver to be the same.
4th you should consider restricting the list so only subscribers can post to it.
(This is where the consequences might get the better of the solution, but this
is exactly the place where i complain over some listadmins: Why should some guy
who doesn't bother subscribing to the list have access to post to it? If he
really need the input from the lists it is not to much to ask for him to atleast
subscribe, post his question, wait for reply and then unsubscribe.)

Now I could go on but it would probably bore you more than it would teach you.
The reason why people complain about spamfiltering isntead of just using their
deletekey might be that they get a weebit to much mail for that. I myself get
around 800 mails a day and if i count out spam, so using time on deleting 500
additional spam messages would actually slow me down quite a bit. It might not
be a problem for you, but don't presume that others are in the same situation as
you. I was not insulting the admins but making a shark remark about the hits i
got from aol through the list. AS it turned out it has all been fixed and most
people seemed to agree with me, so i really don't see your problem.

> 
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-- 
Martin B. Jespersen
Technical Project Leader
Icon Medialab A/S (http://www.IconMedialab.dk)

E-Mail: Martin@stripped
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