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(unknown charset) Re: JVF spam issues

From: (unknown charset) Nadav Har'El <nyh~at~math.technion.ac.il>
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:22:44 +0300
To: (unknown charset) Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

On Wed, Jul 08, 2009, Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd wrote about "Re: JVF spam issues":
> 2009/7/8 <ayn9312~at~lavabit.com>:
>
> > Right after I joined the forum spam a few months ago, spam immeadiately
> > inundated in my inbox. Curious to know if the listing is contaminated,
> > whether others are affected, if administator is aware and any suggestions on
> > how to combat. Especially how to add header info to a greylist  / filter
> > string.
>
> I couldn't find any messages to the JVF in the last 30 days' worth of
> spam in my filter. I believe Zvi implemented a good spam filter.

Hi,

My father indeed took great care not allow spam on the list. A spam filter
filters-out obvious spam that is sent to the list, and mails from unknown
people (non-subscribers and recent subscribers) are sent through the moderator
(which is now me). All this adds up to zero spam on the list. You can also
see this on the list archive http://jv.gilead.org.il/forum/archive.cgi
which saves all messages that went through the list (with no further filtering)
and you can see - no spams there. I don't recall even one spam passing through
this dense sieve in the last year!

So if the original poster is seeing more spam, it is not coming *through*
the list. The spammers are sending these spams *directly* to you. If you
are convinced that the spams are coming just because you subscribed to JVF
(e.g., because you subscribed with a dedicated address just for this list),
there is still a possibility... Spammers might be *harvesting* the list.
By this I mean that a spammer is either subscribed to JVF himself, or crawling
the forum's archive and/or membership list from the web, and from there he got
your email address which he then started to send spams to, directly.
I've seen both email-address culling "techniques" happen on other lists,
so I wouldn't be too surprised if they are also happening in JVF.

If this is indeed the problem, I'm not sure what, if anything, we can do
about it. If you can spot a spammer in the membership listing
(http://jv.gilead.org.il/forum/members.html) let me know, but I don't think
it will be practical to prevent spammers from subcribing, unless I start
sending out a Jules Verne quiz to prospective subscribers :-) Also, email
address in both membership list and archive are "protected" by some HTML
tricks, which it would appear spammers know how to "fix" and get your email
address anyway. One possible countermeasure is to completely hide all email
addresses from these Web pages, but I think these email addresses are useful
to the community, so I'd hate to hide them. Just yesterday somebody asked me
about how to contact directly some Jules Verne expert, and I told him - just
look at the JVF membership list! Of course, if the list members want me
to change this aspect (or any other aspect) of the way the mailing list is
run, please let me know.

Finally, I want to comment that I've been using the same email address
(nyh~at~math.technion.ac.il) for 18 years now, so I've learnt many years ago
that trying to "hide" your email address is a losing battle.
Because after one mistake, one leak, suddenly all spammers have your email
address and all the hiding in the world cannot make them forget about it.
Moreover, trying to hide your address contradicts the whole point of the
email address - which is to let people know it, so they will mail you!
"half-hiding" your address (hiding it sometimes, making it public other
times) doesn't work because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
So in my experience, hiding my email address is an exercise in futility,
and so I publish my email address openly everywhere, and just need to be
prepared to handle the barrage of spam that comes in. An I do handle it, and
these days, when every email provider (including free ones like gmail.com)
has a spam filter, this is very easy to do.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |    Saturday, Jul 11 2009, 19 Tammuz 5769
nyh~at~math.technion.ac.il             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |The fact that no one understands you
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |doesn't mean you're an artist.

Received on Sat 11 Jul 2009 - 11:22:48 IDT

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