Re: [amsat-bb] bb lag

[Nate Duehr <nate@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Emily Clarke wrote:

> I have also noticed this and the problem is spam - according to Paul, 
> almost 90% of the mail volume that is directed at amsat.org mail 
> aliases is spam.
>
> The AMSAT domain is not permitted by board decision to delete spam, so 
> the BB messages get backed up behind it. I've had a couple of 
> conversations with Paul about this (so please don't retread it back to 
> him - believe me when I say Paul is very aware and constantly looking 
> for solutions.) Under the current guidelines the servers are doing the 
> best they can without actually deleting messages they believe are spam.

Has he considered greylisting?  It's been pretty effective on the 
servers I admin, and there's plenty of documentation on how to set it up 
on various mail servers/MTA's out on the Net.

(Greylisting is where the mail server always delays the first message 
from any unknown address with a 4XX error code "try again later" -- most 
spammers are sneaking in time on someone else's network and don't bother 
to ever "try again later" -- normal mail servers will certainly "try 
again later" so a message from an unknown non-spam source is delayed by 
one retry attempt.  It also has the positive side effect of letting 
messages from known addresses through quickly.)

Another reasonable solution is to REJECT at STMP-time anything that's 
blatently spam.  A full 5XX rejection error will make sure that the 
person sending the message gets a message back from their ISP's 
mailserver that their original was "undeliverable".  So instead of 
accepting the mail and then filtering, I filter for really bad stuff 
right at SMTP connection time.  This can be hard on a busy server and 
shouldn't be done lightly but can be done.  And it addresses people's 
concerns about "throwing away" mail... by tweaking the mail server to 
completely reject the mail, it's up to the ISP to let their end-user 
know their message wasn't deliverable.  And then if it's a real person, 
it's REAL easy to see in the logs why it was rejected.

Also, I hope he's at least tagging the spam with something like 
SpamAssassin for you guys so you don't have to wade through it to find 
real mail. 

On any mail systems where I'm "not allowed" to delete spam or run 
Realtime Blackhole Lists to stop it from coming in in the first place, I 
deliver anything that's "suspected spam" (as determined by a number of 
programs/filters including SpamAssassin and a number of add-on checks 
from SARE) to a separate folder for each user called "Probably-Spam".  
The user then has a nice clean Inbox (relatively, anyway) and can wade 
through the cesspool in the Probably-Spam folder at their leisure. 

Nothing gets "lost" or purposefully deleted, but anything that looks 
like a spam message -- most users will have a delay their response to, 
because it'll be in the "messy" folder and not in their Inbox.  It has 
an added effect of discouraging behaviour that makes mail look like spam 
(HTML mail, etc.) because the person will be slow(er) to respond to it 
if it gets tagged.  Typing "Viagra" in an HTML e-mail to anyone on any 
of my systems will virtually guarantee your mail will end up in a filter 
folder or rejected altogether.  ;-)

Then of course, there's always the "divide and conquor" strategy -- 
never have the mailing list machine answser SMTP from the outside 
world... have other boxes get pounded with those deliveries, spam scan 
there, filter off those that need to be "checked" and then forward from 
those machines to the list server.  Segregation of duties to keep the 
main service (the list server) out of the high pressure scum-filled 
firehose, known as the Internet.  ;-)  (Can you tell I used to work at 
an ISP?)

Just some thoughts from an old spam-fighter... my e-mail address hasn't 
changed in almost 10 years and I run my own servers... you can imagine 
what it gets POUNDED with.  (Upwards of 3000 spam messages to a single 
mailbox in a week's time.  With my current setup, about four a day 
actually get through the filters to my Inbox.) 

By the way, as a side note - I have the registration for 
"hamradiomail.com" and never did my planned project with it.  Anyone 
have a worthy ham radio "mail" project that benefits a large ham 
population, and could use it?  I'd be happy to re-register it to you 
before it expires, or you can pick it up when it does... if I don't 
renew it.  (I'm still debating.)  It expires in December of this year, I 
think.  I'll have to double-check that.  I also have "highswr.com" but 
I'm not giving that one up!  ;-)

--
Nate Duehr, nate@natetech.com - WY0X
----
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