[R-390] That's more like it!!!

[Dave Kamp, KW0D]

Hi All!

At 12:43 PM 01/27/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>You overlook the obvious problem.  With the generous help of this reflector,
>all the R-390's and R-390A's from 2 -3 years ago have been fixed...

Yes, this is true... Or, consider that many hit the 'reply' button, and it
goes directly to the poster, rather than back to the reflector.

I know there've been volleys over the subject before, as well as
accidentally-publicised 'posts' that were intended to be private.

On most reflectors I've been on, replies are returned to the reflector for
all-to-see... like being in a 75m group chat.  Some folks don't like that
(understandable) but some people don't like silent reflectors, either (also
understandable).  In all cases, the list moderator gets harrassed by
everybody to change something, so it doesn't take long for one to grow
tired of this 'job' (understandable), and when folks don't get their way,
they either unsubscribe (understandable) or start a flame-war and get
blacklisted by the moderator (understandable).

The one point-of-it that never seems to come up, is the unknown part about
reflectors nowdays...   With the facist fury of SPAM and other InterTrash,
most everybody's mail goes through some sort of crap-abatement (and
bandwidth-preservation) filter.  Mine goes through an outfit (which I
didn't choose) called Postini.  It's a good idea to use filtration, 'cause
it catches a whole lotta junk, but SPAM filters are oftentimes like
separating sand from grain through a perforated dumpster... some grain
falls out, some sand falls out, but lots of both gets trapped inside.
Spammers are getting both more brutal, AND more sophisticated- they're
dumping more volume, and employing all sorts of tactics to defeat abadement
systems.

If I go look at my inbox, I'll see a dozen or so legitemate messages, and
about half of 'em will be junk.  If I look at Postini's website, I'll
invariably find 2,000 pieces of mail, wherin all but mebbie 20 of 'em are
really junk... 

...and most of them will be messages from HAMs.  Dunno why, but apparently
the filters think that something from an address as random as
WA2RKJ@HOTMAIL.COM must be trash.

Fortunately, places like Postini allow you to have a 'blacklist', where you
can totally block all mail coming from one mail address, or one domain.
You can also insert addresses into a "white list", where certain addresses
or domains can be allowed to pass without scrutiny.  UNfortunately, there's
a limit to how many you can plug in... and I exceeded that long ago.

Abatement systems also use a technique called 'blacklist sharing'... where
if you're put on a blacklist at one place, it will 'tattle' that to many
others, so that if you're ever 'blacklisted' as a spammer, you'll
effectively be shut out everywhere.  That's a great idea, until your
machine gets hit with a worm and unbeknownst to you, becomes a relay site
for spam...   OR, someone who once got a message that had YOUR address in
it... gets the KLEZ worm, and starts sending out mail with YOUR address as
the FROM....  so now you get blacklisted because of something that someone
else's machine (unknowingly) did.  I'm regularly suprised by clients who
call me, asking if I ever got their Email... and how often I find it buried
within the 2,000 spams in Postini's system.  Unfortunately, I can't
possibly keep up, sorting through all that trash, just to find a few messages.

The fortunate part is, if the spam-abatement system supports whitelistings
(like Postini does), and the mail is actually being sent by a reflector
(with the reflector as "FROM", one can insert the address of the reflector,
and ALL POSTS then make it through.

I've found that a suprising number of my legitemate responses never make it
to their intended recipients.  Aggrivating as it is, it's understandable... 

Of course, if I were to ever identify and locate an individual who is in
some way directly responsible for spamming, I will personally see to it
that everything they know about everything will be evenly distributed
across the back corner of my farm...

Life was so much nicer before SPAM, Malware, and Spyware.
DK  :-)
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73's from KW0D Dave in LeClaire, Iowa