SpamBGone!! Was: New weight loss discovery found

From: Jon Steiger (stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 04 1998 - 03:08:14 EST


At 11:28 PM 3/3/98 -0600, Michael Clark wrote:
>you_can_lose_it@slimmer4life.com wrote:
>> Sincerely,
>> Technolife Partners & Co., Inc.
>

   Geezz... They sent 2! One was too many. :-(

>
>Jon, I thought you had to be a member to post to the list. How's all
>this junk mail making it through? Can buffnet help us out with getting
>rid of some of this? Seems like Fredonia never had any junk mail, but
>here lately I've noticed a bunch of it... Doesn't bother me too much,
>but it seems to be getting worse as time goes on. I'd hate to see the
>list get overrun with junk email....
>--

  Me too, Mike! :-)

  To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not sure why some of it gets
through. If it makes you feel any better, there's gotta be a TON of it
that never makes it past "security". :-) There are a few that have
managed to slip past, although I'm not sure why. It wasn't some
trickery, I tested it and sent a message as you_can_lose_it@slimmer4life.com,
and it made it through to the list... (well, not to the list, but it
did make it through the "old" security (i'll explain later))

   For some reason majordomo thought that the address
you_can_lose_it@slimmer4life.com was subscribed, although it is not, and
has never been. There are some regular expressions underneath all this
stuff that might be slightly off. So, for whatever reason, the listserv
thought that this address was subscribed. You are right, by the way Mike;
only subscribers can post. That definitely cuts down on the amount of
garbage. :-)

  After those jerks sent through the second message, I did some research
and I found a way to restrict this stuff even more. I've added a few
"taboo" headers, such as X-Advertisement, etc. which may block some of
the stuff that slips through. Also, I told the list to reject any post
from slimmer4life.com. Any other e-mail addresses that somehow slips
through will meet with the same fate. (So if they do get through, they'll
only get through once...)

  By the way, in case anyone is interested, here's the current "security"
setup:

   When an e-mail message is sent to dakota-truck@buffnet.net, first it
has to get to buffnet.net. They are running a filter which actually
blocks e-mail from known spammers and even some entire domains (of ISPs
that don't stop their users from spamming) - [some of you have had problems
subscribing to the list because your domain was blocked; for these cases,
I had to contact Buffnet and have them stop blocking your sites]. Next,
it goes to dakota-truck, where the majordomo software checks to make sure
that the sender is a subscriber to that list). Next, it goes into some
list-specific checks. (These are the ones I have just set up.) After that,
the message is sent to the "resender" which makes a few changes (adds headers,
etc) and then mails it out to everyone on the list. So, as you can see,
it is no easy feat for a piece of spam to sneak in here. (And I intend to
continue to work to make it even harder for it to do so. I'm going to
try and block more of those "leave / unsubscribe requests too...)

Just to reassure you all that yes, there is someone flying the plane... :-)

                                              -Jon-

  .--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu -- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---.
  | DoD# 1038, EAA# 518210, NMA# 117376, USUA# A46209, KotWitDoDFAQ, RP-SEL |
  | '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT Club Cab, '96 Kolb FireFly 447 (#FF019) |
  `-------------------------------------------------------------------------'
   I do not speak for the SUNY College at Fredonia; any opinions are my own.



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