SCN: Why so much spam?

[patrick fisher]

The default setting should be: Taking down the mailing list pages.

Then, if someone wants to advertise their mailing list, they can do it on their web
site. If they don't have a web site and want lots of spam, we can post their mailing
lists on a new mailing lists page.

On top of that, the mailing lists page is a very labor-intensive operation.

I'm glad this topic came up and I thank JJ for mentioning it.

So, if anyone has an issue with the mailing lists page(s) going away, please let me
know and we will accommodate you. But the default setting is to not have mailing
lists posted on SCN.

Less work, less spam. Amazing how neatly that works.

Patrick


--- "J. Johnson" <jj at scn.org> wrote:
> A question I seem to be hearing more in recent months is:  "why am I
> getting so much spam?"  Roughly speaking, there are two answers.
> 
> First, spam is being sent directly to various SCN lists because they
> were posted on a web page, and subsequently harvested by spammers.
> There is not much we can do about that now, except fighting spam
> generally.
> 
> The second answer is:  because the systems that constitute the Internet
> still have holes the spammers can exploit to hide their identities.
> And unfortunately, until two days ago SCN was part of the problem:  we
> had a CGI script (FormMail.pl) with a widely known vulnerability,
> which was being used to pump spam into the Internet.  We have disabled
> that script, but it is still available on many other systems.  
> 
> There has been a long running contention in SCN that we should
> maximize services, regardless of cost or consequence, that security
> and other allegedly specious considerations should always yield to
> maximizing services and user friendliness.  Well, one of the
> consequences of slack security is--spam.
> 
> Fortunately, it does not have to be all or nothing.  It is possible to
> provide a reasonable suite of user services without egregious security
> blunders.  However, it does take a lot of work (yikes!), and a certain
> amount of discipline (a quality not heretofore notable here).  And we
> are making progress.  But there is a lot of work to be done, so relief
> from spam is going to take a while.
> 
> === JJ =============================================================
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
> .	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
> majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
> unsubscribe scn
> ==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
> * * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *


=====
Webmaster
Seattle Community Network
http://www.scn.org
"Powering our communities with technology"

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more
http://games.yahoo.com/
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
* * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *