[OS X TeX] junk

[Ross Moore]

On 26/08/2004, at 8:38 AM, Matthias Damm wrote:

>
> Am 25.08.2004 um 23:31 schrieb Stephan Hochhaus:
>
>> Is it possible to adjust the mailing-list software so that a user who 
>> obviously spams the list is blocked until he contacts a list admin? 
>> The trigger could be a number of x messages in a given amount of 
>> time. Let's say a sender lets 10 mails lose on the list within two 
>> minutes (hoping that noone here can type that fast)
>
> It might be hard to find a proper solution here (x mails in y minutes 
> might not work too well, since people with dialup-connections or with 
> mobile computers might write a number of mails and send them later at 
> once), but I am sure that there are solutions here.

There is a low-tech way of guarding against this, that I use on another 
list:

   ** moderate the subscription requests **

An address like  garbage at 4readers.com  should raise alarm bells.
I'd refuse to let it join until a proper name or affiliation
was provided to satisfy me that there was a person there,
with a legitimate interest.

Yes, this means that it can take awhile before a legitimate user
is allowed to join, but in practice this is rarely more than a few 
hours.


An alternative is to allow the suspicious name to join the list,
but with moderated postings initially.

Mailman allows these options.

It doesn't have any features based upon the frequency of posting, 
though.



>
>> OR a sender sends ten messages with the same bodytext the block 
>> becomes active.
>> Any thoughts on such a solution in order to avoid 1200+ mails 
>> spamming every subscriber?
>
> A solution might include simply delaying postings of possible 
> mailing-list-flooders longer and longer the more postings they are 
> sending. If somebody sends really many postings, the delay might raise 
> to some hours or something. This reduces the negative effect for 
> dial-up users (their postings will be processed, but only some time 
> later), but although some postings might make it on the list in the 
> first place, but a catastrophe like the one we have seen cannot 
> happen.



> btw: Although the effect of the flooding was quite bad already (see 
> the posting from several people to the list), we still were lucky: It 
> were some 2200 messages, but each of them was rather small. Just 
> imagine if, just for example, the auto-responder would have included a 
> copy of the original message in every new message. Or if it would not 
> have been August, and there would have been not 10 but 100 messages to 
> the list in the loop!

Yes, it could have been much worse than it was.


Cheers,

	Ross



>
> Best,
> Matthias
>
> -- 
> Matthias Damm
> mad at macpla.net
> PGP key: http://macplanet.macbay.de/MatthiasDamm.asc
> PGP fingerprint: CED3 6074 7F7D 3148 C6F3  DFF2 05FF 3A0B 0D12 4D41
>
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Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia                                  fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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