The Saturday 2004-10-23 at 19:24 +0300, Hugo wrote:
O.K. nice discussion about that, but how we do get rid of this bots?
Some of the suggestions I didn't understand.
I'll try again :-) When we post an email, it goes out with a "From" header with our own address. There is also a hidden header, added automatically later, called "envelope from" - the reason doesn't matter, and I don't know with precision. There is a mail howto that explains it, I think. The SuSE email list server daemon program (ezmlm), only looks at the "envelope from", not at the "from" address inside - like the mail man looks at the envelope, and not at the inside of the letter. This allows a trick. The poster (ie, you, me) can post using a false "From" address, but a real "envelope from" address. It works. But anybody seeing the list will never see the "envelope header", it is not saved: thus any direct replies will fail. The problem is how to set that "envelope from" in this way: only mutt allows it. And of course, only works for those posters capable of setting it, not for everybody. For example, not for me.
So, I'll just give and example of working system from a list that has been running for 10 years and doesn't have problems with spam or bots.
- Subscription done so that it can not be confirmed by just hitting reply
Yes, I agree with that.
- Replies to the list (not to the sender like here)
Arguable. It also has other problems. Don't think will ever change. You know that the welcome email to some of SuSE email lists actually recommends always replying to the original poster, not to the list, and when finally the problem is solved, the original poster should post to the list a second time, explaining the solution. This is on the Spanish list (R5.4). It was not before.
- Limit posting to subscribers (others bounce)
Yes, that is done here as well.
- Check the posts for list admin footer, if it is included bounce. This gets rid of sloppy quoting also as if the footer is included, then somebody replied to the email, wrote their answer on top and included everything else without deleting unneeded stuff. Not nice, so bounce. Bots automatically answering always include everything and thus they are bounced.
Ah, interesting trick... it should bounce with an explanation, or will cause endless complaints.
- If some bot is actually subscribed, kick them out (some subscriber might set up a holiday notification...)
Manually? That is done here also, of course - when found. Some are difficult to track, it appears.
There are other filters in place also (html, attachments...), but these I think are the main filters. No bots and no spam.
I think some of SuSE lists do have such filters, some not. It depends. Attachments can be helpful to send logs, for example - in the other hand, sending a large log instead of an excerpt seems excessive some times. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson