Re: Spamming list members

At 10:51 2002-09-12 -0700, Robin Lynn Frank wrote:
[snip - I believe in snipping]

> whitelist our customers, friends, associates, etc...and lists we subscribe
> to, of course.
Well, that puts you in a minority it seems. Nine times out of ten, when I 
receive an autoreply to something, the bugger is either totally 
unwarranted  (the sender wasn't an addressed recipient of my message), 
incorrectly addressed (vacation and what-not being addressed to From: 
instead of the appropriate reply-to or envelope sender), or totally screwed 
up on some other grounds (dufus companies sending "this employee no longer 
works here" - generally with the above two criteria met as well, but also 
sending the notice From: the very address they're claiming doesn't exist, 
rather than sending it from a mailer daemon).
Everybody is offloading THEIR email responsibilities on other parties, and 
on mailing lists, it's getting very aggravating.
> I found myself just a bit annoyed that anyone would complain about a 
> computer's owner controlling what data when in to or out of that computer.
User A (using a PYLM scheme) posts a question to a forum, asking people to 
take their time to answer their problem.  User A doesn't consider that 
they're asking OTHER people to take their time to help him, so he doesn't 
take a minimum of his time to whitelist the subject so that respondants 
aren't assaulted by PYLM.
User B takes his time to compose a thoughtful reply and sends it, only to 
have it bounced back at him asking him to prove that he's not a 
spammer.  All too often, these schemes don't mean that the originally sent 
message will somehow be lifted from quarantine, but that the author will 
have first read the BS PYLM message, comprehend the instructions, reply to 
it (sometimes with a code), and THEN RE-SEND their original message.  They 
get to do this because they took their time to help.
Resolution: if I get that from somebody, I don't bother wasting my time to 
help them in the future.  As a mailing list administrator, when I end up 
with this BS when some numnutz first subscribes to the list (I sometimes 
get hammered by these when someone's PYLM bounces the subscription 
confirmation or welcome message), I just drop that account.  Let THEM waste 
their time to figure out WTF is wrong - I'm not going to go through the 
process of *FORGING* messages so that they can subscribe and then promply 
assault all the other listmembers with their annoying scheme.
or

User A (with PYLM) subscribes to a list.

User B, C, D, E, ZzzzzY, post messages to that list - not TO User A, but to 
the list, in response to other messages on the list, and in return get 
assaulted by the PYLM crap from some user they don't know.  Often, for 
EVERY MESSAGE THEY SEND until they individually opt-in.  In some cases, the 
PYLM message contains NO REFERENCE AT ALL to the original message, thus 
making it appear like a random message they're recieving from some nutjobber.
Resolution: either outright trashbinning of the PYLM twit, or application 
of clever mail-looping systems.
or

User A (using PYLM) subs to a list, or sends email to you offlist.

User B (also using PYLM) doesn't receive the message because their PYLM 
kicked in and demanded that User A respond.
User A doesn't receive the request because the PYLM system hasn't received 
a valid confirmation from User B yet, but it happily generates a NEW PYLM 
request.
Ad nauseum.

Resolution: after you've pleaded with your sysadm to unlock your account, 
you hack in some logic for dealing with that _particular_ user or PYLM 
subject/etc, and wait to see what trips you up next time.

Since we're not talking about ONE consistent PYLM scheme, the above 
scenario is not entirely unlikely as more people start using PYLM.

---
 Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering

 Procmail disclaimer: <http://www.professional.org/procmail/disclaimer.html>
 Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies.  I'll get my copy from the list.

_______________________________________________
procmail mailing list
procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE
http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/procmail