I certainly understand Paul's frustrations, and his admission that it's an emotional issue is probably the epitome of understatement. I don't run an ISP - I'm basically an end-user, and it's just incredible how bad it is.
In fact, it's an amusing irony that I am now running exmh 2.5 (thanks to Paul Lussier's excellent talk in Nashua a couple of months ago). Here at work, I'm one of the few holdouts still getting e-mail using the 'mh' system, as opposed to IMAP or *gasp*, Microsoft Exchange. One of the nice parts about exmh, from an end-user perspective, is the ability to have the abstracts of the new mail listed on the screen before I actually open an individual e-mail. This morning, I had 54 new mail messages, 8 of which were spam. I was able to use a separate xterm window to cd into my 'inbox' directory, do an 'rm' of the offending messages, and then tell exmh to 'rescan folder'. One of the bad things about much of the spam is that the message is in HTML, which exmh will readily display inline for me, BUT all too often, there are references to .gif or other decorations from an external site that I have to wait forever for. Or, worse yet, there's an inline URL that calls up a web page using a specific serial number as an argument, which in effect tells the server/spammer that I opened the message. I don't know what our corporate system management philosophies are with respect to spam screening, but I've seen various references on the web to sites listing the top 10 or 20 spamming ISPs around the world. I would think that filtering them (perhaps by taking a sample message and then seeing if it's repeated more than 'n' times?) might be a technique, but I know there are others with far more experience than I who can offer better suggestions. One point, though - Paul mentioned that he'd just revived a dormant domain. I've heard that the spammers lurk on the various domain registrations and pounce on all/any newly (re-)registered domains. Just a few thoughts, the sum of which is well under my allotted 2 cents :-) As always, but especially for this message, my thoughts do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. Bayard ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Bayard R. Coolidge N1HO DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed are Compaq Computer Corp. solely those of the author, and not Nashua, New Hampshire, USA those of Compaq Computer Corporation [EMAIL PROTECTED] (DEC '77-'98) or any other entity. "Brake for Moose - It could save your life" - N.H. Fish & Game Dept. -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS/CC d+ s:+ a++ C+++$ UO++$L++>$ P L++>$ E-@ W+ N++ o- K? w--- O? M? V-- PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP- t++ 5? X? R* tv b++ DI+++ D? G e++ h-- r++ y? UF++ -----END GEEK CODE BLOCK----- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
