Re: Spam

[davidw@dedasys.com (David N. Welton)]

Jeroen Dekkers <jeroen@dekkers.cx> writes:

> On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 01:23:12AM +0100, David N. Welton wrote:
> > Matthew Wilcox <willy@debian.org> writes:

> > > No.  I _hate_ it when somebody cross-posts to a moderated list
> > > I'm not a member of.  I have flamed everybody involved in the
> > > past for doing this stupid shit.  If debian moderates its lists,
> > > I _will_ leave the project.

> > Why?  The first time you send an email, it gets delayed a bit
> > while waiting for a moderator to approve your address.  It's just
> > not really that inconvenient.  I could see it being annoying if
> > you got automated messages, your mail didn't get through, and so
> > forth, but that doesn't happen.

> Delaying a message unnecessary is invoncenient IMHO. But the most
> inconvenient thing is that a moderator should approve the mail. That
> costs time people could spend hacking or doing other nice things and
> it doesn't solve a problem at all. Just wait until spammers get
> smarter and start faking From: addresses.

It doesn't matter if they fake addresses.  It's easy to see from the
content of a mail whether it's real or not.  Yes, it costs a few
people a few minutes, but it's not that hard.  No action is necessary
if it is spam.  And once they approve it, the address is added to a
'whitelist', so there aren't problems in the future.

This is something that is currently in place, and *works* for the ASF.

In any case, I think AJ's solution is pretty good and is worth
pursuing.

> How do we solve the problem then? I think the answer is easy, just
> make some good law against spam. Punish the people who send
> spam. That would *solve* the problem, not work around it. So instead
> of just the next message discussing about spam, talk to the
> political persons in your country.

> And although the answer is easy, I'm aware that getting such a law
> isn't that easy. But that doesn't make impossible.

Uh, let me know how it's going 10 years from now.  Until then, I'll
take a more practical solution.

-- 
David N. Welton
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