Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 02:49:49 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> To: "Philip J. Koenig" <pjklist@ekahuna.com> Cc: Questions@FreeBSD.ORG, Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> Subject: Re: hub.freebsd.org spam policy Message-ID: <20020405020241.B43078-100000@catalyst.sasknow.net> In-Reply-To: <20020405075914777.AAA405@empty1.ekahuna.com@pc02.ekahuna.com>
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Philip J. Koenig wrote:
> On 4 Apr 2002, at 23:25, Kris Kennaway boldly uttered:
>
> > hub.FreeBSD.org bounces a spam email about once per second (yes,
> > you read that right)..that's how "unnecessary" those "ineffective"
> > rules are.
That is a very interesting statistic. Thanks Kris.
> You're probably right
Of course he's right. At least, I've always known Kris to be right far
more often than he's wrong. :-)
This is the point where your reply should have stopped.
Instead, you choose to bring it nearly full circle.
The only new bit of garbage you bring to this thread is the following:
> > [I asserted that freebsd.org was using spam assassin based on some
> > list traffic I had seen]
> >
> > On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Philip J. Koenig wrote:
> >
> > > the specifics so I can take it up with the "anti-spam" utility
> > > authors. ("Spam-Assassin", if I'm not mistaken)
> > >
> >
> > we dont use "Spam-Assassin". never have.
> >
> > [end of message]
>
> A little curt I'd say, and not particularly chock full of helpful
> information.
A little curt? Did you stop to think at exactly how busy the FreeBSD
postmaster is? What volume of mail that person responds to per day?
How busy they are ACTIVELY WORKING on eliminating spam (as opposed to
bitching about it)? That the position is volunteer? That the person
you correspond with has a family to feed just like the rest of us?
The fact that you got a response AT ALL could be considered somewhat
of an amazement.
Honestly, Phil, something tells me that you are NOT very likely to be
taken seriously until you can stop annoying the hard working people in
(and in support of) the FreeBSD project. We are also a bright and kind
group of people who do not like to be insulted.
It would also help your argument a great deal if you could provide
something better than "IMHO" to back up your claims of something
better. Like maybe the results of statistically valid hypothesis
testing demonstrating the effectiveness of YOUR spam reduction method
over your chosen criteria:
1. Percentage of spam messages filtered
2. Percentage of false positives matched
To be statistically valid in any interesting way, of course, your
sample would have to represent a useful population, and show the
strong rejection of the null hypothesis.
I would *definitely* be willing to co-author research like this, given
your amazing spam filtering methods, should you need assistance.
I suggest we get started right away, as the spammers are already
cooking up new methods that will completely change the definition of
"useful population".
> Apparently (just like the first ISP I had a run-in with about "anti-
> spam" filters that blocked me from emailing friends and associates)
> they want their measures to remain a closely-guarded secret.
THAT is a very thin presumption indeed. :-)
- Ryan
--
Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com>
Network Administrator, Accounts
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