Re: Proposal for despamming the list
> "Daniel" == Daniel Stenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Daniel> On 14 Apr 2002, Karsten Thygesen wrote: >> Anyway - spamassassin is now in place - let's give it a chance >> before doing radical movements - and I can assure, that ezmlm is >> far more mature and stable than Mailman - we (sunsite) have been >> running both systems for years, and there is no doubt about, which >> type we recommends! Daniel> As was very quickly proven, that just isn't enough. Or you Daniel> need to add much stricter rules or whatever. Daniel> I found it very ironic that the first mail after your Daniel> previous post here, was a... spam! Yes - I have hardened the rules afterwards. But please bear in mind, that there is no 100% effective spam tool, which does not require a human interaction. During the next weeks, I'm sure that you will find, that the level of spam will be reduced to only a few percentage. Karsten
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
On 14 Apr 2002, Karsten Thygesen wrote: > Anyway - spamassassin is now in place - let's give it a chance before doing > radical movements - and I can assure, that ezmlm is far more mature and > stable than Mailman - we (sunsite) have been running both systems for > years, and there is no doubt about, which type we recommends! As was very quickly proven, that just isn't enough. Or you need to add much stricter rules or whatever. I found it very ironic that the first mail after your previous post here, was a... spam! -- Daniel Stenberg - http://daniel.haxx.se - +46-705-44 31 77 ech`echo xiun|tr nu oc|sed 'sx\([sx]\)\([xoi]\)xo un\2\1 is xg'`ol
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
> "Daniel" == Daniel Stenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Daniel> On Sun, 14 Apr 2002, Andre Majorel wrote: >> > The moderators are informed about each message that awaits > >> moderation; that alert would contain a URL they can visit and > >> approve or reject the mail, at their discretion. >> >> The web interface is not necessary. Listar, for instance, just >> forwards the dubious mails to the moderator. Approving the message >> is done by replying to listar (actually forwarding to >> somelist-repost@somedomain, but you get the idea). Daniel> The benefit from using a web interface would be to have one Daniel> single queue that multiple admins can work on. ezmlm supports that out-of-the-box, but with a mail interface. There will not be sent a duplicate, if a message is approved several times. Anyway - spamassassin is now in place - let's give it a chance before doing radical movements - and I can assure, that ezmlm is far more mature and stable than Mailman - we (sunsite) have been running both systems for years, and there is no doubt about, which type we recommends! Karsten
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
> "Alan" == Alan E <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Alan> On Saturday 13 April 2002 23:00, Hrvoje Niksic wrote: >> 2. Plug the "filter" script between the local mail delivery agent >> and Mailman. The filter can add an `X-Moderate-Me-Please' header >> to the mails that fail the filtering rules. I can implement the >> filter. Alan> I'm using Mail::Spam-Assassin here on my own mail via procmail Alan> and it seems to do a pretty good job. Subscriber's addresses Alan> could be automatically put on the "whitelist" to pass w/o Alan> question, and then moderation / junking could be chosen based Alan> on the value of the spam score. At SunSITE, we have been evaluating spamassassin the last week, and we find it very nice. It is now enabled on the wget list - it will not catch all spam, but hopefully the majority... Karsten
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
Daniel Stenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> The web interface is not necessary. Listar, for instance, just >> forwards the dubious mails to the moderator. Approving the message >> is done by replying to listar (actually forwarding to >> somelist-repost@somedomain, but you get the idea). > > The benefit from using a web interface would be to have one single > queue that multiple admins can work on. Exactly. Note, however, that the web interface does not preclude the *alerts* being sent to (multiple) admins.
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
On Sun, 14 Apr 2002, Andre Majorel wrote: > >The moderators are informed about each message that awaits > >moderation; that alert would contain a URL they can visit and > >approve or reject the mail, at their discretion. > > The web interface is not necessary. Listar, for instance, just forwards the > dubious mails to the moderator. Approving the message is done by replying > to listar (actually forwarding to somelist-repost@somedomain, but you get > the idea). The benefit from using a web interface would be to have one single queue that multiple admins can work on. Having the offending mails mailed to N different admins for approval, will definitely risk them getting "approved" by multiple admins and thus the system would need to discover and discard the duplicates caused by this. -- Daniel Stenberg - http://daniel.haxx.se - +46-705-44 31 77 ech`echo xiun|tr nu oc|sed 'sx\([sx]\)\([xoi]\)xo un\2\1 is xg'`ol
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
On Sun, 2002-04-14 at 10:49, Andre Majorel wrote: > The web interface is not necessary. Listar, for instance, just > forwards the dubious mails to the moderator. Approving the > message is done by replying to listar (actually forwarding to > somelist-repost@somedomain, but you get the idea). According to http://comnet.org/lists/ezmanadmin.html#ss2.2 , ezmlm also has the "message moderation" feature. If one of the moderators replies to the message, it will get accepted and sent to the list subscribers. If none of the moderators reply within 5 days, the message will be rejected.(So no need to reject, it's enough to ignore, though it's possible to explicitly reject a message.) On 2002-04-14 05:00 +0200, Hrvoje Niksic wrote: > Writing a filter script is not hard; I can do that. But the real > problem is how how to integrate such a script with the mailing list > software. Also, it would be nice not to have to write the web > interface from scratch. > > Here is a suggestion how to go about it: > > 1. Switch from ezmlm to Mailman. Karsten has convinced me to resist >the switch so far, but I simply don't see how to avoid it. The big >win for Mailman is that it already have a web interface for >moderation. If there is a similar thing for ezmlm, we can >reconsider this step. According to http://www.ezmlm.org/faq-0.40/FAQ-8.html#ss8.3 there exists a possibility in ezmlm to restrict posts based on the Subject line. But it is just a script - two pipes and grep commands.(The input seems to be the whole message - including the headers.) So perhaps the script should check the message, whether it contains the string "wget" (case insensitive), but not string "wget@" and if it detects a suspicious message, it should "somehow" pipe it(send the mail) to the "wget-moderators" list. The "wget-moderators" list can of course run any mailing list manager(EZMLM, Mailman, ..), the only allowed poster should be that script, and all approved messages should be forwarded to the wget@sunsite list. Jan Hnila
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
On 2002-04-14 05:00 +0200, Hrvoje Niksic wrote: >The moderators are informed about each message that awaits >moderation; that alert would contain a URL they can visit and >approve or reject the mail, at their discretion. The web interface is not necessary. Listar, for instance, just forwards the dubious mails to the moderator. Approving the message is done by replying to listar (actually forwarding to somelist-repost@somedomain, but you get the idea). -- André Majorel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
On Sunday 14 April 2002 01:23, you wrote: > Alan E <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Does it allow custom rules, such as bonus points for mails that > mention "wget" or "debug log" in the body? AFAIK, yes. you can put your rules in the local configuration file. -- AlanE
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
Alan E <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Saturday 13 April 2002 23:00, Hrvoje Niksic wrote: >> >> 2. Plug the "filter" script between the local mail delivery agent and >>Mailman. The filter can add an `X-Moderate-Me-Please' header to >>the mails that fail the filtering rules. I can implement the >>filter. > > I'm using Mail::Spam-Assassin here on my own mail via procmail and > it seems to do a pretty good job. Very cool. Certainly much better than whatever I'd hack in an hour or two. > Subscriber's addresses could be automatically put on the "whitelist" > to pass w/o question Sure, that was point #1. > It adds headers like this (from a SPAM message): > > SPAM: Start SpamAssassin results > SPAM: 9.8 hits, 5 required; > SPAM: * 1.3 -- From: ends in numbers > SPAM: * 1.0 -- Subject has an exclamation mark > SPAM: * 5.0 -- BODY: Broken CGI script message > SPAM: * 0.9 -- BODY: Asks you to click below > SPAM: * 1.6 -- BODY: Tells you to click on a URL > SPAM: > SPAM: End of SpamAssassin results Does it allow custom rules, such as bonus points for mails that mention "wget" or "debug log" in the body?
Re: Proposal for despamming the list
On Saturday 13 April 2002 23:00, Hrvoje Niksic wrote: > > 2. Plug the "filter" script between the local mail delivery agent and >Mailman. The filter can add an `X-Moderate-Me-Please' header to >the mails that fail the filtering rules. I can implement the >filter. I'm using Mail::Spam-Assassin here on my own mail via procmail and it seems to do a pretty good job. Subscriber's addresses could be automatically put on the "whitelist" to pass w/o question, and then moderation / junking could be chosen based on the value of the spam score. It adds headers like this (from a SPAM message): SPAM: Start SpamAssassin results SPAM: 9.8 hits, 5 required; SPAM: * 1.3 -- From: ends in numbers SPAM: * 1.0 -- Subject has an exclamation mark SPAM: * 5.0 -- BODY: Broken CGI script message SPAM: * 0.9 -- BODY: Asks you to click below SPAM: * 1.6 -- BODY: Tells you to click on a URL SPAM: SPAM: End of SpamAssassin results See your local CPAN outlet if you're interested. -- AlanE
Proposal for despamming the list
This is the proposal I sent to the administrators at sunsite.dk yesterday. I haven't received a response from the admins yet. The mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> has been receiving inordinate amounts of spam. Even I, who am used to receiving (and dismissing) a lot of spam, am dismayed at and annoyed by its sheer quantity. Some subscribers of the mailing list are ready to lynch me, and many are leaving for this reason. I would like to implement a solution to the spam problem as soon as possible, preferrably during the weekend. I will need your help to make it work, though. The "standard" solution for the spam problem is to make the mailing list accept only postings from subscribers, but I do not want to choose that option for several different reasons: * The address <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is redirected to the list. * I would like people to be able to post to the list and ask for help without having to subscribe first. I know I hate when a list requires subscription just so I can post. * It allows external people to be Cc'ed in a list discussion; they can join the thread without having to subscribe. * It allows one not to worry about posting from a different mail address. I know several lists that implement the open-posting policy without having much spam, so I know it can be made to work. Here is how I envision it: 1. Postings from list members are automatically forwarded to the list; 2. All other postings are run through a filter that determines whether they are likely to be spam. If the posting passes the filter, it is forwarded without delay. Otherwise, it is kept for moderation. The moderators are informed about each message that awaits moderation; that alert would contain a URL they can visit and approve or reject the mail, at their discretion. Rejected mails are silently discarded; there is no reason to inform the spammer about anything. NOTE: the filter could, for example, check whether the body contains the word `wget'. It could also check whether the subject contains keywords such as "money", etc. This would catch 90% of the spam, and the rare false positives would be caught by the moderators. 3. (optional) The addresses of the users whose postings have successfully made it to the mailing list should make it to a whitelist. Postings from people on the whitelist are treated like those of the subscribers. Writing a filter script is not hard; I can do that. But the real problem is how how to integrate such a script with the mailing list software. Also, it would be nice not to have to write the web interface from scratch. Here is a suggestion how to go about it: 1. Switch from ezmlm to Mailman. Karsten has convinced me to resist the switch so far, but I simply don't see how to avoid it. The big win for Mailman is that it already have a web interface for moderation. If there is a similar thing for ezmlm, we can reconsider this step. 2. Plug the "filter" script between the local mail delivery agent and Mailman. The filter can add an `X-Moderate-Me-Please' header to the mails that fail the filtering rules. I can implement the filter. 3. Modify Mailman so that it treats messages marked with `X-Moderate-Me-Please' as those that need moderation. I am not familiar with Mailman's internals, but I cannot imagine this to be hard. I can implement that part. 4. (optional) Add the "whitelist" feature to Mailman's moderation interface. Have the filter check the whitelist before doing anything else. I will need all the help I can get. Please review this plan and let me know what you think are the flaws. Sunsite people, please let me know if it is feasible for you to make the required modifications, such as plugging in a "filter" before Mailman. If someone wishes to help me implement parts of this, I'd be grateful for that too. Help stamp out spam. Thank you.
