I've been seeing this again the past week; it's a variant on classic joe-jobbing spam. I assume Mailman3 instances are being targeted because Postorius has no built-in defenses, so you can generate ~unlimited unsolicited messages once you index all public instances, and flood a victim's gmail (etc) account.
I looked into the debian patches for recaptcha, got frustrated, and deployed Anubis in a container in front of my Mailman instances. It took under an hour to learn, install, and test... as long as you're not allergic to catgirls it's the easiest solution. --Jered ----- On Aug 4, 2026, at 10:42 AM, Washington Odhiambo via Mailman-users [email protected] wrote: > On Tue, Aug 4, 2026 at 5:17 PM Paul Tomblin via Mailman-users < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Judging by the bounce messages I’m seeing, somebody or somebodies are >> trying to sign up for accounts on my Mailman instance using fake email >> addresses. Can’t imagine what the end game is, other than annoying people >> with “please confirm your email address” emails when they use a real >> address. >> > > > There are ways to play their game that was discussed here: > 1. Anubis - > https://cloud.uferwerk.org/s/a7nWGAjasrQpfSM?dir=/&editing=false&openfile=true > > On my site, I use reCaptcha, but this solution is not portable without > pain, so go with Anubis. > If you aren't averse to pain then: > 2. https://eu.kictanet.or.ke/~wash/mailman3-captcha-guide.html > > -- > Best regards, > Odhiambo WASHINGTON, > Nairobi,KE > +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 > In an Internet failure case, the #1 suspect is a constant: DNS. > "Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :-) > [How to ask smart questions: > http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html] > _______________________________________________ > Mailman-users mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > https://lists.mailman3.org/mailman3/lists/mailman-users.mailman3.org/ > Archived at: > https://lists.mailman3.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/KGQNHB3DYDD7LIN5DHNIOAHXPRC5QYCI/ > > This message sent to [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mailman-users mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] https://lists.mailman3.org/mailman3/lists/mailman-users.mailman3.org/ Archived at: https://lists.mailman3.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/22RFK2ACDIA7WO5GQXVJ6QBIA3HXYQGL/ This message sent to [email protected]
