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Re: [Asrg] Please critique my anti-spam system

2005-01-09 09:55:32
Sorry about the messed up reply.  He is what I wanted to send.

However, subscribing to mailinglists may be a bit difficult with
Michael's scheme:

Lets say, Our user Joe tries to subscriben to the mailinglist
<foo(_at_)example(_dot_)net>. So he creates a new subaddress (e.g.,
<joe(_dot_)b0263(_at_)example(_dot_)com>) and enters into a web form or sends 
it to
<foo-request(_at_)example(_dot_)net>. Typically, the mailing-list software 
will
reply with a confirmation request: from:
<mailinglistsoftware(_at_)example(_dot_)net> to: 
<joe(_dot_)b0263(_at_)example(_dot_)com>. When Joe
replies, his software will generate a new unique address, since he never
sent mail to <mailinglistsoftware(_at_)example(_dot_)net> before (e.g.,
<joe(_dot_)26ab0(_at_)example(_dot_)com>). So the Mailinglist-Software will 
receive a
confirmation from <joe(_dot_)26ab0(_at_)example(_dot_)com> to subscribe the 
address
<joe(_dot_)b0263(_at_)example(_dot_)com>. Some mailinglist software will 
refuse the
request if the two addresses don't match.

Even if he manages to subscribe, however, the first time he wants to
send something to the mailinglist, the software will create yet another
unique address (e.g., <joe(_dot_)6d7fc(_at_)example(_dot_)com>), since he 
hasn't sent
anything to <foo(_at_)example(_dot_)net> yet. Since most mailinglists only 
allow
postings from subscribed addresses, his message won't get through
(Some, but not all mailing lists allow you to specify alternate
addresses).

So at the very least, any software implementing Michael's proposal needs
to allow the user to override the automatic generation of new
subaddresses. (This of course means user interaction and it means user
errors - I know that I often make errors of that kind when I first post
to a new mailinglist)

The mailing list should be configured to view 
joe(_dot_)b0263(_at_)example(_dot_)com
and joe(_dot_)6d7fc(_at_)example(_dot_)com as a single entity.  Mailing lists 
don't do this
today, but if my system became prevalent then this simple modification
would be quickly adopted.

Michael Kaplan


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