This is similar to what I do as well. One issue I found was that the
from and replyto fields of an incoming spam ae often spoofed and have
the address of someone I know in them. This actic is becoming more and
more popular (witness the mail returned to my email address when I
didn't send it).
However that does seem to be a small price to pay for such excellent
performance.
I think there is a challenge and that is to make the handling of email a
lazy practice. I suspect that a large number of users have no interest
in doing anything but open their mail and have the stuff they want show
up and the stuff they don't want magically go away. Shades of the TV
dinner approach to eating. I want something good enough that doesn't put
me out too much.
Of course, for those of us in the network business, the issues are a bi
different. Wwe have to provide the defences, we have to keep our
customers' confidence high, we have to stop our own systems from being
inundated with junk... So what our end customers want and what we need
to do intersect, but are not congruent.
Has anyone here read David MacAuley's "Motel of the msyteries?" It is a
parable about archeologists discovering an ancient civilization (aka a
motel) that was buried when the government reduced the price of junk
snail mail. I suspect the members of this group will find the parable
instructive! I sure did.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org [mailto:asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org]
On
Behalf Of C. Wegrzyn
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 3:57 AM
To: Jon Kyme
Cc: ASRG
Subject: Re: [Asrg] 3. Requirements - Non Spam must go through
Let me tell you what I do with SPAM. I don't think this is all the
problematic.
In either C/R mode or Filter mode (I use Cyrus with Sieve to support
this) I move messages that I expect into my Inbox. The first line of
defense in my system is the C/R system. When I join a list or
want email
from someone I setup the C/R system to bypass it's work by adding the
appropriate email addresses (and where I expect to see them - To, CC,
etc). If the address is in the list, no C/R is required. If
the address
isn't in any list, a challenge is issued. If the response is
given, it
moves into the inbox. If no response is given within a day
the message
is put in to the Junk folder. If a response is given it is moved into
the inbox.
When I log in to my account the spam filters run (I use the Mozilla
email reader that supports Bayesan filtering). When the
filter catches
it goes into the Junk folder. Everything else stays in the
Inbox. What
has this done: I normally reject 99% or better of spam; I get
4-5 in my
inbox. I spend a few minutes to figure out what happened - how it got
through - and mostly adjust my filters. Yes, occassionally I do find
valid messages in the Junk folder, and for those I also train
the filter
to not pick them up.
Now it isn't a perfect system - it won't catch all spam and
mark it as
such. It will tag certain valid messages as spam (for instance the
filters originally put all messages from ASRG that had SPAM in the
hearder into the Junk folder! lol). But with a little work it
does get
rid of the problem, as far as I am concerned.
Chuck Wegrzyn
Jon Kyme wrote:
Just ran across this quote from the John Gilmore of the EFF
(http://www.politechbot.com/p-04927.html):
----snip----
After years of divisive discussions, a very similar
pledge/oath/policy
was what EFF was able to come to agreement on:
"Any measure for stopping spam must ensure that all
non-spam messages
reach their intended recipients."
Perhaps none of us has yet come up with a silver bullet to solve the
problem of spam -- but it IS within our power to solve the
problem of
overzealous anti-spam measures.
----snip----
Unless my "anti-spam" system is perfect, there must be no silent
false-positives for this to be true. Either a sender whose
message is
not delivered because of the action of some "anti-spam"
system must be
able to know this. And be able to find out what they can do
about it.
(This is a very strong argument for "spam" rejection to
happen during
the SMTP - or whatever - transaction; we don't want to be
sending DSN
or challenges to forged senders.) Or, the "receiver" must be be
informed that the message hasn't been delivered, and be able to do
something about it (but this imposes a cost on the receiver).
--
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg