Re: test of non-subscribed user
On Monday 02 December 2002 18:25, Raymond Wood wrote:
> OK, so the problem is not with reporting genuine Spam to Razor;
> rather the problem is with incorrectly reporting legitimate
> email as Spam to Razor?
Right! And, if they are not spammers who do this (see my other mail),
then it might well be somebody who is sending legitimate e-mail to
Razor, automatically, which is Really Bad[tm].
They probably do this on the basis of some spamfilter, and do it only
for high scores. However, the problem is every spamfilter necessarily
has false positives. For higher scores, they are fewer than for lower,
but they're still there. Razor addresses this, but only if one can be
positive there is _only_ spam that goes there. If razor gets legitimate
mail from filters, then Razor will be no better than the worst filter
that does this. So, those who forward mail to Razor by automatic means
are really defeating the purpose of Razor. Of course, you may set up
"troll-boxes" that never will get legitimate e-mail, and forward the
stuff you get there to Razor. I have planned to do that.
(Aside: I do that by having a line
<link rel="NeverEMail" href="mailto:james.w.smith@kjernsmo.net";>
in many web pages, and that works excellently, this address is harvested
and spammed, and when that happens, the intention is that subsequent
mail is stopped. This markup may not work in the future, though, as
more User Agents start to support the link element).
This is why I think it may be spammers who actually do this, it is easy
to see that spammers can drastically reduce the value of Razor by
sending it large amounts of legitimate e-mail from the lists that
Razor-users would normally use.
I hear that the new Razor has some trust-model, that may be able to
address this. Actually, I think we're in a arms-race with the spammers
that requires the spam-tools to updated more frequently than the normal
release-cycle would accomodate for, but that's another story.
Cheers,
Kjetil
--
Kjetil Kjernsmo
Astrophysicist/IT Consultant/Skeptic/Ski-orienteer/Orienteer/Mountaineer
kjetil@kjernsmo.net webmaster@skepsis.no editor@learn-orienteering.org
Homepage: http://www.kjetil.kjernsmo.net/
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