[NTLUG:Discuss] the breaking point of spam

[brian@pongonova.net]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2006 at 10:24:09AM -0500, Richard Geoffrion wrote:
> Something is wrong with the technology when 91% of an email server's mail is
> spam. 

Personally, I hold a dim view on lists that automatically blacklist
dynamic addresses.  Why?  Because most of the "big" ISPs (including
your favorite) no longer give non-business users the option of a
static IP.  I've seen outbound messages sit for hours in Comcast/Yahoo
queues, so I choose to run my own mail server.  I've gotten to the
point now where I delete most bounced e-mails that are returned as
blacklisted simply because I'm sending from a dynamic block (even
though I've had the same dynamic address for over a year!).

I used to run a challenge/response system (TMDA), but decided that the
there were too many people out there who simply do not know what to do
when presented with a confirmation e-mail.  

SPF is a failure.  I see way too many spams get through that have been
verified through SPF.

So now I run SpamAssassin.  It catches about 95% of the spam that
arrives (about 50% of that seems to be rejected upon initial
connectiion).  False positive rate is close to zero (out of thousands
of spams, I've not picked up a single false positive in many months,
but this was after several months of tweaking the SA filters and
scores).

The ISPs won't begin to address the problem until they are forced to
do so.  And I really don't want Congress getting involved (just look
at how badly the CAN-SPAM Act was screwed up), legislating what we can
and can't do.  I've stopped being pissed off about spam, and simply
deal with it the best I can.

I doubt the Linux community has enough clout to really get anything
done.  

  --Brian