SPAM from Usenet

Ruby
21

Le 6 juin 2009 à 01:06, trans a écrit :

On Jun 5, 6:52 pm, James G. [email protected] wrote:

If the spam we are getting here increases because users and emailing
us about problems, well that tells us something: the gateway is
annoying people. When that happens, we will need to agree on a
solution to that problem. Right?

I wonder how many people are using Usenet to interface with this list?

I do - in fact, I’m managing the NNTP server the gatway is using.

If it is few, I wonder if they might be encouraged to use another
service to do so. I know of at least three other interfaces besides
the standard email method, namely Google G., Gmane and Ruby Forum.

Ironically, AFAICT, Google G. (the web-NNTP part) is the main source
of spam nowadays.

Is there some advantage to using Usenet over these other methods?

In my opinion, a newsreader interface is vastly superior to any other
system when you want to follow high traffic lists (advanced thread
handling, scoring, kill files, archival and auto-expiry, etc, etc).

I manage the Google Group and I try to delete all the SPAM I come
across, so anything that can reduce it is helpful to me.

Well, if the community can come with a workable filter, I can certainly
integrate it to my filters server-side.

But I think there’s a lot of legitimate traffic coming from Google
Groups too, so we’d have to be careful.

Fred

22

On Jun 6, 2009, at 4:05 AM, Ryan D. wrote:

I think it is an unfair assumption that we’ll lose those people’s
posts to the list if we drop the gateway. (most) People are adaptable.

Hmm, my experience has been that the email vs. Usenet discussion is a
religious issue on part with vi vs. emacs. People just like what they
like and I think we’re unlikely to alter that too much.

James Edward G. II

23

On Jun 6, 9:00 am, “F. Senault” [email protected] wrote:

If it is few, I wonder if they might be encouraged to use another
service to do so. I know of at least three other interfaces besides
the standard email method, namely Google G., Gmane and Ruby Forum.

Ironically, AFAICT, Google G. (the web-NNTP part) is the main source
of spam nowadays.

I hear that a lot, but every time I take a deeper look, I find the
post came from Usenet. Or is the “web-NNTP” part different then
http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-talk-google?hl=en ?

T.

24

On Jun 6, 2009, at 12:24 AM, Eric H. wrote:

Gateway messages come from a address I setup for the purpose. You
are not reporting the spammer. Instead you are reporting me. Our
host has already threatened to shut the gateway down once due to
these complaints. If the complaint volume increases, we will be
forcefully terminated.

Is it possible to include the usenet Received headers in gateway
messages? They don’t seem to be there now. (maybe I’m mis-
remembering Usenet.) This might help my spam filter block these
messages for me.

Yeah, it looks like the gateway filters them out for some pseudo-
Received headers it adds. It has always done this and I’ve just never
touched that part. I’m not sure if there’s a reason for it, like
Usenet headers allowing different content. I would need to look into
that to say for sure if it could be changed.

James Edward G. II

25

On Jun 6, 10:17 am, James G. [email protected] wrote:

Yeah, it looks like the gateway filters them out for some pseudo-
Received headers it adds. It has always done this and I’ve just never
touched that part. I’m not sure if there’s a reason for it, like
Usenet headers allowing different content. I would need to look into
that to say for sure if it could be changed.

An interesting aspect of the Google Group is that in order to post to
the list via the group you still have to sign up as a member of the
actual ruby-talk mailing list (which means taking the time to turn off
email delivery). Yes it can be initially annoying, but it has the
advantage of making the Google Group much more immune to SPAM
delivery.

Can the Usenet gateway be setup in a similar fashion?

T.

26

I hear that a lot, but every time I take a deeper look, I find the
post came from Usenet. Or is the “web-NNTP” part different thenhttp://groups.google.com/group/ruby-talk-google?hl=en?

I think he refers to:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby

27

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 10:47 AM, trans[email protected] wrote:

An interesting aspect of the Google Group is that in order to post to
the list via the group you still have to sign up as a member of the
actual ruby-talk mailing list (which means taking the time to turn off
email delivery). Yes it can be initially annoying, but it has the
advantage of making the Google Group much more immune to SPAM
delivery.

I don’t think so.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/about

The google group is really just a proxy to the usenet group
comp.lang.ruby it just slurps up everything posted there.

–
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale

28

On Jun 5, 2009, at 22:37, Aaron T. [email protected] wrote:

Is it possible to include the usenet Received headers in gateway
messages?
They don’t seem to be there now. (maybe I’m mis-remembering
Usenet.) This
might help my spam filter block these messages for me.

I think you can use the “Newsgroups: comp.lang.ruby” header, but
unfortunately, I can’t get gmail to filter on misc headers. :frowning:

Specifically, I meant the SPAM messages. I want to read Luis’, etc.
messages

29

On Jun 6, 10:52 am, lith [email protected] wrote:

I hear that a lot, but every time I take a deeper look, I find the
post came from Usenet. Or is the “web-NNTP” part different thenhttp://groups.google.com/group/ruby-talk-google?hl=en?

I think he refers to:http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby

Ah. I see.

That’s just ironic. So we have:

Ruby-Talk ↔ Usenet comp.lang.ruby ↔ Google Group
comp.lang.ruby

and

Ruby-Talk ↔ Google Group ruby-talk-google

T.

30

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Bill K.[email protected] wrote:

This is starting to sound partly like a gmail problem.

I’m not sure I follow. How is it gmail’s fault that it is possible
for spammers to use the ruby-talk list? I just looked through the
first 500 messages in my spam folder and there wasn’t a single spam
from any other list. All the other lists who don’t want to require
people to subscribe before posting force their posts to go through a
moderator queue.

What does suck about gmail is I can’t match against arbitrary headers.

I see in the headers that we’re using SpamAssassin… maybe the
solution is to review it’s configuration and make sure it’s properly
learning?

31

On Jun 6, 2009, at 10:42, Bill K. wrote:

But in practice why are gmailers complaining about spam
on ruby-talk?

I’m the originator of this thread and I don’t use gmail.

32

From: “Robert K.” [email protected]

Actually, IMHO this is wrong for two reasons: first, you can read GMail
via POP or IMAP.

Oh. Didn’t know that, thanks.

Second, GMail’s spam filtering is pretty good and I
believe your spam marks train the filter. I believe at least in theory
a spam filter of a mail provider with web access can be much better than
a local filter because there is more training input.

Haha, yes. In theory.

But in practice why are gmailers complaining about spam
on ruby-talk?

:slight_smile:

Regards,

Bill

33

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Bill K.[email protected] wrote:

mail provider with web access can be much better than a local filter because
there is more training input.

Haha, yes. In theory.

But in practice why are gmailers complaining about spam
on ruby-talk?

Not working for Google I can’t but guess, but my belief is that it’s
one or both of:

  1. Gmail’s spam filtering see’s the spamassassin headers added by the
    gateway and uses that to augment it’s own ratings. Since SpamAssassin
    marks it clean, gmail thinks it is clean too.

  2. Gmail believes that mail sent via a mailing list has a lower
    likelihood of being spam since most lists nowadays are closed and
    spammers generally don’t bother subscribing and this skews the ratings
    sufficiently that it isn’t marked as spam.

As for training gmail, yes I do that. I can’t say it really helps.
I’d say 99% of the spam which reaches my inbox is via the ruby-talk
list even though ruby-talk spam is only 1-2% of the spam in my spam
folder. Also, earlier in the thread were were told NOT to do that
because it generates problems for the list maintainer… I’m not sure
why that is true though.

For those who want to read via NNTP, couldn’t they subscribe and turn
off delivery? That way they can read via news and we’d still have a
way to authenticate their posts. Also, I know the svn users list is
open, but they have a pool of mods who approve messages to keep spam
off the lists.

34

From: “Aaron T.” [email protected]

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Bill K.[email protected] wrote:

This is starting to sound partly like a gmail problem.

I’m not sure I follow. How is it gmail’s fault that it is possible
for spammers to use the ruby-talk list? I just looked through the
first 500 messages in my spam folder and there wasn’t a single spam
from any other list. All the other lists who don’t want to require
people to subscribe before posting force their posts to go through a
moderator queue.

Sorry, I think I was in a snarky mood last night.

I’m hardly seeing any ruby-talk spam here.

(Thus it seemed plausible there was some room for
improvement in gmail’s spam filtering. However, in
retrospect, I think my suggestion was probably
unhelpful. :slight_smile:

Regards,

Bill

35

On Fri, 5 Jun 2009 18:06:30 -0500, trans [email protected] wrote
in
[email protected]:

On Jun 5, 6:52 pm, James G. [email protected] wrote:

If the spam we are getting here increases because users and emailing
us about problems, well that tells us something: the gateway is
annoying people. When that happens, we will need to agree on a
solution to that problem. Right?

I wonder how many people are using Usenet to interface with this list?

I am. I don’t know how many others there are.

If it is few, I wonder if they might be encouraged to use another
service to do so. I know of at least three other interfaces besides
the standard email method, namely Google G., Gmane and Ruby Forum.

No offense intended to anyone, but I don’t consider email, Google
Groups or web fora to be a good interface for discussions like this.
Usenet, for all of its flaws, has a number of advantages. I’d be very
disappointed to have to use one of the others.

Is there some advantage to using Usenet over these other methods?

Quite a number, actually.

  1. Since Usenet is distributed, it is not dependent on a single server
    or organization, unlike web fora.

  2. One can download only headers for browsing, then download bodies of
    interesting messages or threads.

  3. The standards of Usenet were designed for public discussions.
    Threading, for example, is part of the standard and has a high level
    of standard compliance among clients. Email support for threading is
    far more haphazard; even if I use a client with good support, someone
    who doesn’t can break threading unintentionally.

  4. One has a choice of clients, unlike most web fora.

  5. Any decent client supports killfiles, watch lists, and the like.
    Some, but not all, of this functionality can be replicated with email
    filters, but with a lot more effort.

I manage the Google Group and I try to delete all the SPAM I come
across, so anything that can reduce it is helpful to me.

On Usenet, there are some options:

  1. Complain to the ISP of the offender.

  2. Use killfiles to weed out identifiable spam.

  3. Newsmasters can implement filtering for their servers.

  4. Use a moderated group.

36

On Sat, 6 Jun 2009 13:12:12 -0500, Aaron T. [email protected]
wrote in
[email protected]:

For those who want to read via NNTP, couldn’t they subscribe and turn
off delivery? That way they can read via news and we’d still have a
way to authenticate their posts.

If I understand your suggest correctly, you’re saying that I should
read on Usenet, but reply via email?

37

“James G.” [email protected] schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:[email protected]…

On Jun 5, 2009, at 7:21 PM, Joshua C. wrote:

Yes, there is a bit of spam getting through, but it is not enough to
annoy me. I just hit ‘report spam’ in my Gmail account and I do not
get any more mail from that user.

Please never do this!

What will happen if some mad person reads this and tries to spoil the
list?

My suggestion:
Mark spams by replies from some responsible persons which add
[SPAMTHREAD]
in topic.
Most newsreaders should be able to hide a thread marked this way.

38

On Jun 6, 2009, at 1:12 PM, Aaron T. wrote:

As for training gmail, yes I do that. I can’t say it really helps.
I’d say 99% of the spam which reaches my inbox is via the ruby-talk
list even though ruby-talk spam is only 1-2% of the spam in my spam
folder. Also, earlier in the thread were were told NOT to do that
because it generates problems for the list maintainer… I’m not sure
why that is true though.

I did not say don’t train your filter. I said, please don’t report
(my) gateway email address to my host as a spammer.

James Edward G. II

39

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Charles C.[email protected] wrote:

On Sat, 6 Jun 2009 13:12:12 -0500, Aaron T. [email protected]
wrote in
[email protected]:

For those who want to read via NNTP, couldn’t they subscribe and turn
off delivery? That way they can read via news and we’d still have a
way to authenticate their posts.

If I understand your suggest correctly, you’re saying that I should
read on Usenet, but reply via email?

No. If you look above, your post via NNTP came as sent by
“[email protected]”- I’m assuming your actual email address (if not,
should be easy to change to a valid one). The list can thereby use
that to check to see if you’re “subscribed”.

In other words, your user experience wouldn’t change one bit, other
then having to do a one-time subscription (with delivery turned off)
in order to post.

40

On Jun 6, 2009, at 4:15 PM, Charles C. wrote:

I manage the Google Group and I try to delete all the SPAM I come
across, so anything that can reduce it is helpful to me.

On Usenet, there are some options:

  1. Complain to the ISP of the offender.

Yes and this is fine if Usenet folks complain about the message before
it was gated. Again, please do not complain about a message on Ruby
Talk after it was gated as you are then complaining about my email
address.

James Edward G. II