[Beowulf] Apologies for the spam/virus yesterday

[Michael Will]

I would just have the end-user take care of the rare event of spam
getting through. They have to protect themselves already because beowulf
is not the only source of email for anybody.

I would vote for leaving it as it is.

Michael 

-----Original Message-----
From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org]
On Behalf Of Douglas Eadline
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 6:21 AM
To: Beowulf Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Apologies for the spam/virus yesterday

I would hate to see this resource change into another form. It truly is
an *incredibly valuable resource* with a high signal to noise ratio and
virtually spam free - thanks Don.

I would also be willing to bet that the collective minds of this list
can figure out a way to keep it intact. Whether it be more automated
control or the assistance of some trusted members to do the "Turing
Test" work.


--
Doug






>
> After having a near-perfect record of keeping out spam and virus 
> email, one slipped through yesterday.
>
> It's a good example of why mailing lists can't be auto-moderated.
> The current elaborate system requires heavy human moderation, and this

> message still slid past everything and was automatically approved.
>
> The message appeared to come from a subscribed user, so it passed the 
> first check.  (This is actually common: spammers and viruses use pairs

> of addresses from the same source, so evil mail is likely to come from

> someone you have heard of.)
>
> The message passed both ClamAV and SpamAssasin (although a compressed 
> zip file should have triggered something).  It didn't have any of the 
> keywords that are configured in Mailman's "hold" rules.  And finally, 
> that user was approved for auto-post for messages that passed all of 
> the previous rules.
>
> Please keep this event in mind before you complain that your message 
> was held for moderation.  95-99% (depending on the day) of inbound 
> mail to the mailing lists is immediately discarded as obvious viruses
and spam.
> Only very low scoring mail from approved subscribers is eligible for 
> auto-approval  The rest is held for manual moderation. Only about 2% 
> of those held messages are valid postings.  That means about 50 
> messages manually discarded for each manually approved posting.  And 
> except for a few weeks scattered over the history of the list, I've 
> been the sole or primary moderator.
>
> The bottom line is that we are considering a message board format to 
> replace the mailing list.  It would have required logins to post, and 
> retroactive moderation to delete advertising and trolls.
> Any opinions?
>
> --
> Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
> Scyld Software	 			Scyld Beowulf cluster
systems
> 914 Bay Ridge Road, Suite 220		www.scyld.com
> Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993
>
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>


--
Doug
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