Re: [h-e-w] spam problem, moderation [sic] enabled, members only

[Eric S. Johansson]

Bill Pringlemeir wrote:

 >  Bill> Publicly visible lists which do not have a "members only"
>  Bill> posting restriction are just a more focused form of an open
>  Bill> SMTP relay.  It's a modest pain to make someone subscribe to a
>  Bill> list just to post to it, but it's way below my threshold of
>  Bill> "pain that matters".
>
> I am not so sure about this.  The SPAMMERS are very clever.  They can
> use a subscription to harvest poster email addresses and then forge
> SPAMs with these from addresses.  I don't see how "From" addresses are
> such a good form of authentication.
>
> However, the bulk of present spam should be averted by David method. I
> understand Michael's argument, but I think that the net benefit to
> the list is on David's side at the moment.  What expert is going to
> listen to a mailing list full of spam to help the newcomers?  If
> spammers start to subvert this mechanism, then it should be
> reconsidered.

spammers may be very clever but they can also be very dumb.  I converted 
all of my mailing lists to the members only white list and I have had 
very little problems with spam coming through.  It's not perfect and I 
think that had one breakthrough in two years but it's better than most.

I'm believe my work with sender pays[1] systems will pay off and provide 
a more robust barrier.  look for initial announcements in the next 
couple weeks on its fresh meat.

---eric

[1] and yes, it won't hurt mailing lists.

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