Re: Belling the cat

["Weng" <wtx@umem.com>]

Hi Daniel,
I have a suggestion to filter better and simpler:
Only emails that were sent from pci-sig registered email addresses can be
broadcast to pci-sig.

At least all scams now sent to pci-sig are not from pci-sig registered email
addresses. If someone uses his pci-sig registered email address to send a
scam, first give a warning, second he will lose his privilege to use this
pci-sig group.

Weng Tianxiang

wtx@umem.com
wengtianxiang@yahoo.com

Micro Memory Inc.
9540 Vassar Avenue
Chartsworth, CA 91311
Tel: 818-998-0070
Fax: 818-998-4459

----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel Weaver <dan.weaver@znyx.com>
To: <pci-sig@znyx.com>
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 10:31 AM
Subject: Belling the cat


> Hello Pci-sig members,
>
> I am the listmaster for the pci-sig mailing list and I have been fighting
> spam on this list for the last few years.  I get the impression that
> some of you have wrong idea of the magnitude of the problem.
>
> Spammers scan the Internet looking for mailto addresses.  When they
> find one they assume that the address is inviting mail both on and
> off topic.  These addresses are compiled and sold to other spammers as
> opt-in lists.  Meaning, they are sold as people who want spam.
>
> The pci-sig mailing list address is posted a number of places on the net.
> our mailto is easy to find and so our name goes on many lists.
>
> Submitting an article to pci-sig is totally automated.  If the article
> passes my spam filters then it is broadcast to the list.  My filters
> include catch phrases commonly used by spammers and generally do a
> good job.  When spam sneaks past my filters I go back and analyze
> the message and try to find some other phrase or identifying mark
> that I can use to filter out a recurrence of the same message.  This
> is an ad hoc approach to fighting a battle that I will ultimately lose.
> The more sophisticated spammers know they are being filtered and avoid
> those phrases.  Some use very short messages which are very hard to
> filter because they don't say much.
>
> This month I have gotten over 500 spam messages sent to pci-sig and
> pci-sig-request.  The trend is increasing.  It would be nice if there
> were a check box that I could enable to stop spam but I can't.  Each
> message must be stopped on it's own merit.  From: address and IP address
> are useless in stopping spam.  The From: address is usually a made up
> temporary name and the IP is typically a dial up account.
>
> Saying you want the spam to stop and doing something about is much like
> putting a bell on the cat.  It's a great idea but who is going to do it?
>
> If you are serious about stopping spam I suggest you write your
Congressman
> and ask him/her to make it illegal.
>
> At a more local level if you would like to volunteer to moderate this
> list I would be glad to hand the problem over to you.
>
> Other possible solutions would be to restrict submissions to names
> already on the list.  Non-member submissions would be moderated.
>
> Up to now our policy has been that quick posts and open submissions
> have been important to this list.  The price for this freedom is
> tolerance.  When the spam reaches the intolerable level some freedom
> will be lost.
>
> Sincerely,
> Dan Weaver
> pci-sig listmaster
> -----------------------------
> Dan Weaver, ZNYX Networks
> dan.weaver@znyx.com
>
>