Subject: Re: AD's

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 15:14:11 -0700 (MST)

> > d. drop all traffic that doesn't originate with a list member. Provide
> >    a second address for members on exploders to post through via
> >    forwards, that is itself a list member. Change this address if/when
> >    necessary. Discourage people from subscribing local exploders
> >    in an attempt to move towards a position where a. is reached.
>
> e. drop obviously forged messages

Worse than the spam is the nonsense that it triggers (doubtless including
mine):

  - Never mind that the last two IETF spams, the surfchina and Family
     Reunion offer not forged.  If such a criterion as "obviously forged"
     made sense, spam would not be the problem it is.  You cannot compare
     the envelope mail_from value with the source IP source address or
     the From: line, because of the many legitimate situations where they
     differ.  There is no useful criterion as forged unless you maintain
     a list of known/registered authors.

  - the main IETF list has a latency for me of about 6 hours during
     the week and >2 hours on weekends (e.g. juding from the spams's
     headers).  That implies the main IETF exploder is busy.  If you
     removed all of the exploders that are currently quietly subscribed
     to the list, you could only make that problem worse.

  - I find the many "calls for participation" in the IETF lists worse
     than the spam.  There are certainly more "calls" than spam, even if
     you excuse and don't count the repetitions.  I find the applogies
     for the calls as related to IETF activities just as compelling as
     the arguments from the spammers that their ads are interesting.  For
     example, there are probably more readers of the main IETF list
     interested in "thousands of China, Chinese related web sites" than
     readers who might participate in a Gigabit Networking Workshop.

  - then there is the traffic from such as Mr. Allisat.  I thought that
     Mr. Allisat promised to depart and leave "legacy programmers" to grow
     old and useless.  I didn't expect him to keep his promise without
     help from those running the mailinglist, but I did hope he would
     receive that help.  Could someone please help Mr. Allisat?

     Yes, I'm changing my tune to support "censorship" in situations such
     as Mr. Allisat's as well as situations like that of our departed
     friend, the magazine subscription vendor.  It is hopeless to expect
     the perptually many new subscribers to ignore Mr. Allisat's nonsense.
     That September has arrived on the main IETF list must be accepted.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

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From: "A. Wik" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 08:07:38 +0200 (EET)

>      a list of known/registered authors.

Forgeries are often "obvious" from the "Received"-lines and some bulk
mailers even insert really silly header fields and invalid IP addresses.

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From: "A. Wik" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 08:07:38 +0200 (EET)

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 10:57:03 +0000 (GMT)

> mailers even insert really silly header fields and invalid IP addresses.

invalid IP addresses are a job for tcp-wrappers, not for filtering.

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 10:57:03 +0000 (GMT)

L.

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From: "A. Wik" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 13:00:39 +0200 (EET)

> invalid IP addresses are a job for tcp-wrappers, not for filtering.

I mean really invalid IP addresses (like 194.351.281.12) inserted by
spammers into bogus Received-headers

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From: "A. Wik" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 13:00:39 +0200 (EET)