discuss: Thread: Re: [discuss] No more spam!

Guys, with a small delay, the subscription process is now moderated,
by JDD and myself.

I have also un-subscribed Mr. Rahul Sundaram.

If you spotted any problems with spam, please do not hesitate to
contact me directly.

I have also made a maintenance of the web archive software, I have
updated it to the recent version, which treats UTF-8 properly.

Thanks,
Serge

Quoting Sergiusz Pawlowicz ####@####.####

> Guys, with a small delay, the subscription process is now moderated,
> by JDD and myself.

FWIW, I have yet to see any need on technical community discussion
mailing lists for new subscribers to initially have the moderated flag
just for spam-avoidance.  E.g., the people who recently asserted here
that a spammer subscribed impersonating Rahul Sundaram were in error
in so judging.  They did not understand the problem.

Please note that making new subscribers moderated _will not fix_ the 
problem we just saw:  Unfortunately, the problem of webmail subscribers'
credentials getting stolen (probably by MS-Windows malware on the user's
desktop computer) has recently been widespread and is statically more
likely to hit longtime subscribers than it is new ones (because they're
more likely to be on many mailing lists, mostly lurking).

Thus, the measure you just took is extremely well meant, and is very
generous with your and Jean-Daniel's time, but does not really address
the problem recently observed.

> 

Le 28/02/2012 19:29, Sergiusz Pawlowicz a écrit :
> Guys, with a small delay, the subscription process is now moderated,
> by JDD and myself.


ok, thanks
jdd


-- 
http://www.dodin.net

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 18:54, Rick Moen ####@####.#### wrote:
> Quoting Sergiusz Pawlowicz ####@####.####
>
>> Guys, with a small delay, the subscription process is now moderated,
>> by JDD and myself.
>
> FWIW, I have yet to see any need on technical community discussion
> mailing lists for new subscribers to initially have the moderated flag
> just for spam-avoidance.  E.g., the people who recently asserted here
> that a spammer subscribed impersonating Rahul Sundaram were in error
> in so judging.  They did not understand the problem.
>
> Please note that making new subscribers moderated _will not fix_ the
> problem we just saw:  Unfortunately, the problem of webmail subscribers'
> credentials getting stolen (probably by MS-Windows malware on the user's
> desktop computer) has recently been widespread and is statically more
> likely to hit longtime subscribers than it is new ones (because they're
> more likely to be on many mailing lists, mostly lurking).
>
> Thus, the measure you just took is extremely well meant, and is very
> generous with your and Jean-Daniel's time, but does not really address
> the problem recently observed.

In my opinion, it should work, as there are robots which subscribe to
the list, send one spam, and un-subscribe.

S.

Quoting Sergiusz Pawlowicz ####@####.####

> In my opinion, it should work, as there are robots which subscribe to
> the list, send one spam, and un-subscribe.

This scripting scenario has always been a theoretical possibility, and
yet, as a listadmin of many technical lists for a half-dozen domains
running several different mailing list manager programs, I have yet to
see a single instance of it occurring.  Not one.

That is my main point.  Separate from that observation (my main point,
one that is observation rather than opinion), I might also _speculate_
(opine) about why it is so:  Crafting a script to navigate through the
three-way confirmation process would make it much more easy than usual
to pinpoint the true origin and track down the operators, and spammers
prefer not to expose themselve to vengeful sysadmins armed with good
data, when there are a lot easier and more fruitful targets.  Also, the
process would be quite slow and not send much out, whereas spammers'
byword tends to be speed and volume.

Anyhow, it's your and Jean-Daniel's time and administrative effort to
spend.  

>Just to help those of you who are brand-new to the Internet and haven't
>yet figured out mailing lists, _that_ is the address to which you should
>address all administrivia, the place where you can reach the listadmins.
>You should no more send administrivia (inquiries/complaints about
>mailing list operation) _to_ the mailing list, bothering a large number
>of subscribers who cannot possibly help you, than you should stand up
>in the middle of a crowded movie theatre and start yelling 'Manager, I
>hate this movie and want a refund'.

Personal opinion there.

I'm subscribed to a number of (gnu.org, etc) mailing lists and never (or 
rarely) see any spam on others.  When I do see repetative ignored spam and 
nobody complains or fixes it, it makes me wonder as to whether the list is even 
maintained.  It's also a sign the list isn't active or is no longer utilized.

If the movie is bad enough and complaints go apparently unheeded, the next 
logical step seems to be to make a public statement if it bothers one enough.  
Question is then, is anybody left in the movie theater to hear it. ;-)

--
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/

n Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 20:48, Roger ####@####.#### wrote:
>>Just to help those of you who are brand-new to the Internet and haven't
>>yet figured out mailing lists, _that_ is the address to which you should
>>address all administrivia, the place where you can reach the listadmins.
>>You should no more send administrivia (inquiries/complaints about
>>mailing list operation) _to_ the mailing list, bothering a large number
>>of subscribers who cannot possibly help you, than you should stand up
>>in the middle of a crowded movie theatre and start yelling 'Manager, I
>>hate this movie and want a refund'.
>
> Personal opinion there.
>
> I'm subscribed to a number of (gnu.org, etc) mailing lists and never (or
> rarely) see any spam on others.  When I do see repetative ignored spam and
> nobody complains or fixes it, it makes me wonder as to whether the list is even
> maintained.  It's also a sign the list isn't active or is no longer utilized.
>
> If the movie is bad enough and complaints go apparently unheeded, the next
> logical step seems to be to make a public statement if it bothers one enough.
> Question is then, is anybody left in the movie theater to hear it. ;-)

I am subscribed to many other mailinglists, and there is spam on each.

I do not see it usually, as google spam filters are better then any we
are able to deploy using LDP resources.

S.

Quoting Roger ####@####.####

> Personal opinion there.
> 
> I'm subscribed to a number of (gnu.org, etc) mailing lists and never (or 
> rarely) see any spam on others.

If you've never seen the results of stolen webmail credentials before,
you've been lucky.  Welcome to the 2010s.

In November, we had an instance of that happening from the subscribed
account of a longtime member of Silicon Valley Linux User Group's main
discussion mailing list (Jim McKelvey, a user of netscape.net's webmail
service), whose credentials had been stolen by pharma spammers.  The
spam itself is no longer in the archives (because I as listadmin
expunged it), but my commentary's still there:
http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug/2011-November/057390.html


> When I do see repetative ignored spam and nobody complains or fixes
> it, it makes me wonder as to whether the list is even maintained.
> It's also a sign the list isn't active or is no longer utilized.

Of the several people who stood up in the theatre and started yelling in
this case (sent 'No more spam!' complaints pointlessly to their fellow
subscribers), it appeared that exactly zero correctly understood what
had happened, and definitely exactly zero mentioned having attempted to
contact the listadmins before resorting to bothering their fellow
subscribers.

Some would speculate that all of these diligent souls _had_ previously
written to the listadmin address about the problem and gotten no result,
but just forgot to mention that fact.

I would call that an extremely optimistic guess.  

> If the movie is bad enough and complaints go apparently unheeded, the
> next logical step seems to be to make a public statement if it bothers
> one enough.  Question is then, is anybody left in the movie theater to
> hear it. ;-)

Question actually is, how far out on a limb are you willing to go to
make excuses for clueless and inconsiderate behaviour?

Quoting Sergiusz Pawlowicz ####@####.####

> I am subscribed to many other mailinglists, and there is spam on each.

I'd bet good money that almost all of those are mailing lists that
permit posting from non-subscribed addresses[1], and that the rare
exceptions involve postings from legitimate subscribers' webmail accounts
(usually Yahoo or GMail) whose credentials have been stolen via
MS-Windows malware.

[1] An obsolete and unwise policy for at least a decade, but some
listadmins still insist on doing it.

Le 28/02/2012 20:34, Rick Moen a écrit :

> Anyhow, it's your and Jean-Daniel's time and administrative effort to
> spend.

I already moderate much more spam recipient lists, we will see the result

jdd


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