Re: LYNX-DEV lynx-dev list status/problems

[Nelson Henry Eric]

> [Tom Z. is concerned about spammers mining his edress out of the

Not just Tom.  Spam is costly *period*  It's more efficient to
do "an ounce of prevention" than "a _ton_ of cure".

Klaus is right, namely just put it back the way it was.
The overwhelming majority want an open list.  If it can't
be open, then at the very least a message should be
returned explaining why the post was refused.

I really hesitate to even post, but it seems to go on and on.
I truly believe sig.net would be doing themselves, their
paying customers and lynx-dev subscribers a favor by
installing a filtering system.  The filter is as tight or
as lax as you feel comfortable with.  Filtering has nothing
to do with censoring.  Personally I've found procmail
quite effective, but there are other ways to go.  It would
not even be much of a trick to divert those autohelp
messages from old Lynxes.  There's no great technical
problem here.  Majordomo won't know the difference.  Raw
mail goes to procmail first, and after first trashing
the junk mail, procmail delivers it. 

What I would like to see (and I think this is Tom's point,
too) is a short script to mangle the From: header either
between procmail and Majordomo (my preference) or when
the posts are html'ed for the archive at Flora.  Something
like "address@hidden" to "poursoul at ona dot spam
dot list".

> From: and Sender: headers don't figure in message acceptance for
> distribution, outside of some possibility of domain blacklisting,

It goes way beyond domain blacklisting.  The scheme for creating
domains is analyzed.  By making their origin obscure, spammers
quite often leave tell-tale signs of tampering.

> I would consider it up to Bob and SigNet to decide whether they

Bob and Signet indeed should decide.  I even got spammed for
making that statement.  But I'll say it again!  I feel deeply
indebted to everyone at sig,net for volunteering their services.
Thank you Bob and sig.net.

> would agree to patch MajorDomo at all or whether they would allow
> the lynx-dev login to run Procmail to perform this filtering if
> MajorDomo can't do it.  

None of this makes sense.  Why does Majordomo have to be patched
or do anything other than its job?  It's a list manager plain-n-simple.
The lynx-dev login could run procmail, but why would you want to do
that when the whole system could be protected?  Root could run it,
nobody could run it.

This is the last one.  Gotta buy some duct tape and seal my trap.

__Henry
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