From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Feb 16 17:40:21 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-26-235-186.mmcable.com [65.26.235.186]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B8C8D37B684 for ; Fri, 16 Feb 2001 17:40:18 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 72223 invoked by uid 100); 17 Feb 2001 01:40:17 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14989.54913.863311.695847@guru.mired.org> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 19:40:17 -0600 To: ken@mui.net Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: simple idea to rid the world of most spam In-Reply-To: <73823705@toto.iv> X-Mailer: VM 6.89 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG ken@mui.net types: > Ok all, here's something that has been bugging me for months. It's > a very very simple idea, but I don't have the knowledge to do this: > > Have you ever noticed how spam seems to come in the same > order and how there's a ton of incorrect email addresses that is > sent? > > Why can't some kind of email filter be set up that works like this? > > incorrect email sent to account A-----> turn flag on > 2nd incorrect email sent to account B ---------> turn 2nd flag on > if 2 flags, then refuse ALL email sent from that account, place that > name in the ban list. Actually, at least one ISP is doing something like this. After noticing a small number of bounces from the same IP address, they start refusing SMTP connections from it, and shut down any that are running. > I've already talked to some people till I'm blue in the face. I'm > certainly not smart enough to code it, but I'm hoping someone smart > out there does this ... It's been done. It helps. But these things won't stop spam - they're just another step in the spam arms race. This particular one is relatively benign to legit users with abnormal behavior patterns, unlike some of the more popular ones. It should also result in less network load than typical behavior, as it doesn't result in the ISP sending back bounces which will bounce back to them, etc. Speaking of which, I've verified that -questions accepts mail when freebsd-questions isn't in the To: or Cc: lists. Has anyone considered adding a filter that bounces anything like that with an explanation? I can't think of any legit reason to Bcc: -questions. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message