Re: [OT] Re: how do you protect from spammers in Debian lists?
Incoming from David Jardine:
> On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 04:43:43PM -0600, s. keeling wrote:
> > Incoming from David Jardine:
> > >
> > > What worries me is the spam that is sent out under my name. Just
> >
> > I get bounces from clueless mail admins all the time. If they'd spend
> > two seconds scanning the original's Received: headers, they'd know I
> > had nothing to do with it. Blast it back to those fools and tell them
>
> The messages I've been receiving (was receiving - I haven't had any
> today - perhaps they're using your address now) were polite
> (automated, I imagine) statements of inabilty to deliver the message
Those are the ones I was talking about. "no such user" or "account
not found" or some such.
> - no accusations of spamming. There must be masses of email flying
It was me assuming it was a spammer with an old address list. An
email sent to fifty bad email addresses at AOHell using my From:
doesn't sound like a legitimate, well maintained, opt-in mailing list.
It sounds like a spammer forging my From: address.
> around all the time with mis-typed addresses; isn't the appropriate
> response to return it to the apparent sender? That's a real question,
> not a rhetorical one.
Once, it was. Now, 65% - 80% of network traffic is spam or malware.
Now, it's smarter to assume that if you sent Joe an email and don't
hear back within a couple of days, either Joe's on holidays or his
spam filter is set too tight, so you should send him another one or
call him. Sending something that instead looks (to your average
Windows user) like a MTA error message is a waste of time, effort,
and bandwidth.
> The worry I had was about the reject messages I didn't get. If the
> Peoria Inter-Denominational College of Neo-Tibetan Goldfish Juggling
> received thirty of my dollops of spam, who else was getting them and
> was I being put on blacklists by, well, "clueless mail admins" and
> "fools" with "idiotic mail-bots"?
The clueless might report you, but those who actually manage said
lists aren't that dumb. There needs to be some pretty damning
evidence that's provably from you to hurt you. Alternatively, your
ISP could be so clueless as to let the situation get out of hand.
Generally, if your ISP is up front and responsible about killing
abuser's accounts from his IPs, he won't have any problem, and
consequently neither will you for using his services.
> I would gladly help to educate the people I do get reject messages
> from, but what exactly do I tell them?
Spamcop.net! When you report spam, they analyze it to death, and mail
you back a URL you can go to to see the result. That URL could be
mailed to them if they need convincing. btw, Spamcop reporter IDs are
free.
> > Spammers are forging From: addresses, have been for at least a year,
>
> This message comes to you with a forged From: address courtesy of the
> rewrite rules in /etc/exim/exim.conf. Excuse me, there was a knock
> on the door. Must be Spamcop...
Munging email addresses isn't illegal. It's just counter-productive.
How are you going to kill them if they can't find you?!? :-)
--
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(*) http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling Please don't Cc: me.
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