Subject: various spam

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 10:33:39 -0400

Hi,

I sent a different message to this list, but foolishly included the
message I was trying to target.  It's the emm-eye-five nonsense
originating from Usenet.  Is there some way for us to block that
completely, so it doesn't all have to be moderated?

A
-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | [email-masked]
I remember when computers were frustrating because they *did* exactly what 
you told them to.  That actually seems sort of quaint now.
		--J.D. Baldwin

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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:27:34 -0300

Yes, its doable, but not very pretty ... unless Alvarre knows another way, bu t 
you can modify the access_rules file to add in a rule that says to just reject 
the message ... you can do it based on sender, subject, and can even set things 
up to do it based on other headers ...

- --On Friday, June 08, 2007 10:33:39 -0400 Andrew Sullivan
<[email-masked]> 
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From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 08:44:12 -0700

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
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Why not block it before it ever hits the lists?

Joshua D. Drake

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 11:50:36 -0400

> Why not block it before it ever hits the lists?

I guess the problem is that it's not exactly spam, so you'd need an
AI engine to figure out what it was and block it.  

It actually is, as near as I can tell, a bunch of people who are
convinced that emm-eye-five are out to get them.  The reason Usenet
became worthless is not just that October never came, but that the
metal hospitals all got hooked up to it.  Every nutbar freak in the
world thinks it's their holy duty to cross post to all of creation.

To add insult to injury, those who are opposed to this sort of
nonsense forge posts from the above people and cross-post _those_ all
over hell and creation.  This was a favourite tactic some years ago
by self-appointed guardians of Usenet.  The idea was that if you
pissed off the cabal enough, they'd take action of some unspecified
type which would solve the problem in a way that nobody was ever able
to quite explain.  It was never anything better than vigilantism, but
now it's just vandalism.

Anyway, I guess we'll just keep moderating and hope the failure to
get past moderation will cause the paranoid nutbars and their
antagonists to go somewhere else.  Some days I hate the Internet :)

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | [email-masked]
The fact that technology doesn't work is no bar to success in the marketplace.
		--Philip Greenspun

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From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 08:55:49 -0700

> AI engine to figure out what it was and block it.  

Is there not some standard keywords within the post that we can block?
Or even a specific phrase? Or block the email addresses?

Joshua D. Drake

--

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From: "Greg Sabino Mullane" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 16:01:40 -0000

> antagonists to go somewhere else.  Some days I hate the Internet :)

Nope: I've been filtering out the em-eye-five stuff for years from the 
PG lists. It tends to come in waves.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane [email-masked]
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200706081201
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 12:04:04 -0400

> Is there not some standard keywords within the post that we can block?

We're already getting sort of bitten by this; so I'd sort of prefer
not.  If these messages don't set off whatever antispam system we've
in place (and we must have one, because I don't see _that_ much spam
in the stuff I have to moderate), then I think the processing will be
too costly.

> Or even a specific phrase? Or block the email addresses?

I'll have a look at the email addresses and see if they're
consistent.  They're often forged, though.

A

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From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 12:15:51 -0400

> in the stuff I have to moderate), then I think the processing will be

I don't think this is worth the trouble.  It took me 20 seconds to
reject the first 5 messages, and another 10 seconds to reject the
following 5.  And I didn't even care to check whether some of these were
already rejected by someone else (the replies from Majordomo told me
that some were), because it was pretty obvious that they were not valid
for these lists.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                 http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/CTMLCN8V17R4
Management by consensus: I have decided; you concede.
(Leonard Liu)

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 13:59:22 -0400

On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 12:15:51PM -0400, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> following 5. 

Right, I don't think it's that it's so much work now.  When I've been
in newsgroups where this started to happen, though, in short order
there were hundreds of these things.  They seem to be a DoS on
Usenet, because clueless people cross-post from all the other listed
groups.  That's mostly what I was worried about.  Anyway, we've
probably already spent more time discussing it than just dealing with
it will take :-/

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | [email-masked]
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.  What do you do sir?
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