On Friday, May 18, 2001, at 07:37 AM, William Silvert wrote:
> I recently rejoined this list after an absence of several years because
> of
> my growing frustration with the problems caused by spam filters. I run
> about
> a dozen mailing lists in different sites, based on Majordomo, Listserv
> and
> Listproc, and find that I am wasting more and more time dealing with
> message
> rejection by automatic spam filters set up by hyperactive system
> administrators. I would like to initiate a discussion to see how
> widespread
> the problem is and if there is any way to deal with it.
Fairly widespread. Right now, for instance, I'm seeing a lot of stuff
bounced if it has the word "homepage" in it, which is (IMHO) ludicrous.
I realize that virus is nasty, but simplistic 'fixes' like that don't
fix the problem.
To be blunt about it, there's not a lot you can do. Writing admins to
poke at them is usually fruitless. When a given site gets too annoying,
I simply unsubscribe the user, send them a private note explaining why,
suggesting THEY poke at their admin to get their act together, and ask
them not to resubscribe until their site's fixed.
Not a great answer, but I don't think there are great answers here.
(putting on my other hat for a second, though, since I run mail lists
that are fairly widely subscribed to, I can usually tell when a virus
hits the net, and right now, there are at least three running pretty
rampant out there. For most of the last ten days or so, when I check the
postmaster mail on my big server machine, about 40% of the mail sent to
that machine has been sent by one of those three viruses attempting to
propogate. I've *never* seen the net with such agressive and virulent
beasts that have this level of penetration. When I'm seeing 50 or more
of these a day, I can understand why network admins are getting a little
freaky about trying to shut them down -- I just think many of them are
going about it sideways, but then, not all network admins have the
experience some of us have; worse, many are stuck with things like
Exchange or NOtes or other badly written mail systems, and have their
hands tied up front...)
--
Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome <http://www.chuqui.com>
[<chuqui@plaidworks.com> = <me@chuqui.com> = <chuq@apple.com>]
Yes, yes, I've finally finished my home page. Lucky you.
"When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell."
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