From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Jul 16 19:36:45 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F94C37B406 for ; Mon, 16 Jul 2001 19:34:00 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f6H2VY815117; Mon, 16 Jul 2001 19:31:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Morsal Roudbay" Cc: "J S" , "Giorgos Keramidas" , Subject: RE: [Re: spammers] Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 19:31:34 -0700 Message-ID: <000901c10e68$98d88980$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <20010716130347.A27119@zigman.2y.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Morsal Roudbay >Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 4:04 AM >Ted, >As u say, the ISPs dont bother if they get a single complaint.. that's what >I have experienced... I really dont see why this list cant be closed, feel >free to explain why it would work better open as it is now.. I frankly don't have a preference myself - however I don't run this list. While I could concoct reasons why it is open I really don't know why the list maintainer has chosen it to be open. I do know that managing the servers and this list does create work for somebody, and I wouldn't presume to tell that person how to do their job unless I was prepared to take it over. ;-) Let me point out one thing though - since the list is publically searchable there's nothing preventing a spammer from harvesting lots of juicy e-mail addresses from the archives. While blocking spam from the list does have a certain attraction, it's like sticking a finger in a dike made of Swiss cheese. Just a FYI - I've written plenty of material on various sites on how to block spam, if you want to pursue some of it I can give you the links offline. One thing I've come to the conclusion is that nothing works as well as content filtering. After all, how many legitimate piece of mail do you get that contain the string "This message sent in accordance with the federal regulations (insert ficticious house bill number here)" or containing the word "cum" (is that even a word?) However content filtering is very political to a number of people who don't like the Big Brotherish aspect or are afraid that even the most carefully constructed filtration database will block legitimate mail. When given a choice between constructing a system where the onus is on the users to do something, or the onus is on the administrator to do something, the BSD folks have generally opted for local control over administrative control. This is a paradigm thing and your not going to change it. System V by contrast to BSD has voted for the strong administrative control. So I guess it's no surprise that the BSD mailing lists are set up to where the onus is on the users to block spam if they so choose. Inefficient, perhaps, but there's a certain freedom to that system that isn't present in one where filtering was done at the central mailing host. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message