SCN: Why so much spam?

[patrick fisher]

To clarify: The SCN-related mail lists would be listed. The IP and others who use
mailing lists would not, by default.

P


--- Michael Hanson <michaelh at scn.org> wrote:
> 
> Why remove totally.  Certainly listings for the mailing lists of IP's
> should be optional.  But it is important to publicize the existance of
> mailing lists that discuss the operation of SCN. 
> 
> It is often difficult to find out what is going on in SCN.  If we want to
> get people to pitch in and help out, we need to make the avenues of
> communication available so they can find out how to find out what is
> happening.  (Keeping the discussion lists hidden makes it even harder
> to get new recruits.)
> 
> Perhaps, instead of removing the page totally, we could consider
> simple obfuscation of the e-mail addresses.  (i.e. no mailto
> link, write it out in text 
> The following lists, all at scn.org:
> policy    - explanation of purpose
> services  - "            " "
> 
> Not quite as convenient for the user, but harvesting addresses from that
> would be a major AI project. 
> 
>   Michael
> 
> On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, patrick fisher wrote:
> 
> > 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 =============================================================
> > > 
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