For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from now on.

--
geoff

In message , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Prolly - but, call me naive (without dipthong), I don't hide behind a
false address, nor do I use my business addy for posts to uk-diy

My reason for changing is more to do with being ISP independent rather
than an anti-spam measure

--
geoff

In article , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even further
--
..

Peter Ramm wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."
wrote:

In article , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even further

I once set up an e-mail address which I only used in a couple of
newsgroups - it very quickly became a magnet for all sorts of sh*t.
However, this was some time ago so things may be different now.

My Reply-to: address is valid and used only on Usenet. It gets
a little junk sent to it but not much. Most spam gets sent to E-Mail
addresses which appear on web pages, that's where the address
harvesters get most of their addresses.

I think the newsgroups on which the E-Mail address is used affect how
much junk at attracts quite a lot, it's also significant whether the
address appears in the body of the message or not. E.g. if you put
your address in your .sig it will attract quite a lot more junk than
if you have it only in the Reply-to: header.

--
Chris Green

wrote:
Peter Ramm wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."

wrote:

In article , Peter
Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from
now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most
harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff
arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without
an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a
problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even
further

I once set up an e-mail address which I only used in a couple of
newsgroups - it very quickly became a magnet for all sorts of sh*t.
However, this was some time ago so things may be different now.

My Reply-to: address is valid and used only on Usenet. It gets
a little junk sent to it but not much. Most spam gets sent to E-Mail
addresses which appear on web pages, that's where the address
harvesters get most of their addresses.

I think the newsgroups on which the E-Mail address is used affect how
much junk at attracts quite a lot, it's also significant whether the
address appears in the body of the message or not. E.g. if you put
your address in your .sig it will attract quite a lot more junk than
if you have it only in the Reply-to: header.

I beg to differ but my experience is totally opposite to yours. It took
years before I ever received any spam from putting an e-mail address on
a web site. My ISP allows any address before the @domain. So, by using
unique addresses whenever I list my email address, give it to an
on-line supplier, or register for something on a web page I know
*exactly* where spam originates and can easily filter it based on the
"to" address.

Then I posted in a usenet group (this one) with a unique address and
started receiving spam within 24 hours. The e-mail address was only in
the reply to, never in the body. Then it would die down but every time
I posted here I would get a further flurry of spam.
Now I use this hotmail alias for usenet and just ignore it.

MBQ

wrote:
I once set up an e-mail address which I only used in a couple of
newsgroups - it very quickly became a magnet for all sorts of sh*t.
However, this was some time ago so things may be different now.

My Reply-to: address is valid and used only on Usenet. It gets
a little junk sent to it but not much. Most spam gets sent to E-Mail
addresses which appear on web pages, that's where the address
harvesters get most of their addresses.

I think the newsgroups on which the E-Mail address is used affect how
much junk at attracts quite a lot, it's also significant whether the
address appears in the body of the message or not. E.g. if you put
your address in your .sig it will attract quite a lot more junk than
if you have it only in the Reply-to: header.

I beg to differ but my experience is totally opposite to yours. It took
years before I ever received any spam from putting an e-mail address on
a web site. My ISP allows any address before the @domain. So, by using
unique addresses whenever I list my email address, give it to an
on-line supplier, or register for something on a web page I know
*exactly* where spam originates and can easily filter it based on the
"to" address.

I didn't really mean an E-Mail address you use when posting to a web
site. The ones that really attract a lot of Spam are addresses
actually appearing on a web page, e.g. the Webmaster's address that
should be on every site.

Then I posted in a usenet group (this one) with a unique address and
started receiving spam within 24 hours. The e-mail address was only in
the reply to, never in the body. Then it would die down but every time
I posted here I would get a further flurry of spam.
Now I use this hotmail alias for usenet and just ignore it.

Well my view is backed up by the only real data on this subject
that I know about:-

http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml

--
Chris Green

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."
wrote:

In article , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even further


It's better to silently drop messages to users in your domain who are
not addressees rather than bouncing them. If you bounce them, the
spammer knows that he has a live domain and will then just try common
names at that domain.



--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

On 27 Jan 2005 13:39:50 GMT, wrote:

I didn't really mean an E-Mail address you use when posting to a web
site. The ones that really attract a lot of Spam are addresses
actually appearing on a web page, e.g. the Webmaster's address that
should be on every site.

That doesn't always hold. I have an email addresss link on my web page
and have done so for seven years. My email address is also undisguised
in the "From" and "Reply to" fields of newsgroup messages though its
not put in the message itself.

As I acquire work via webpage and email, often from people who are
fairly computer illiterate, I consider it worth the risk of leaving
myself open to spam attack but as it happens I have never had
inordinate amounts of spam (nowadays about 15 spam messages per day)
and I don't filter my email at all, though I would if the spam rate
went up a lot

I suspect luck has a lot to do with it and I hope I stay lucky

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England
|""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs
/ ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc
|____| www.kettlenet.co.uk 01359 230642

In article , Andy Hall
writes
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."
wrote:

In article , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even further


It's better to silently drop messages to users in your domain who are
not addressees rather than bouncing them. If you bounce them, the
spammer knows that he has a live domain and will then just try common
names at that domain.

That has not been my experience Andy, I don't think the spammers even
post from an address that they go back to anyway, its usually a third
party with a link in the message. I think its a worldwide scattergun
approach that gets the 1 in 6 million replies that still makes it
worthwhile

--
David

wrote:
wrote:
I once set up an e-mail address which I only used in a couple
of
newsgroups - it very quickly became a magnet for all sorts of
sh*t.
However, this was some time ago so things may be different now.

My Reply-to: address is valid and used only on Usenet. It gets
a little junk sent to it but not much. Most spam gets sent to
E-Mail
addresses which appear on web pages, that's where the address
harvesters get most of their addresses.

I think the newsgroups on which the E-Mail address is used affect
how
much junk at attracts quite a lot, it's also significant whether
the
address appears in the body of the message or not. E.g. if you
put
your address in your .sig it will attract quite a lot more junk
than
if you have it only in the Reply-to: header.

I beg to differ but my experience is totally opposite to yours. It
took
years before I ever received any spam from putting an e-mail
address on
a web site. My ISP allows any address before the @domain. So, by
using
unique addresses whenever I list my email address, give it to an
on-line supplier, or register for something on a web page I know
*exactly* where spam originates and can easily filter it based on
the
"to" address.

I didn't really mean an E-Mail address you use when posting to a web
site. The ones that really attract a lot of Spam are addresses
actually appearing on a web page, e.g. the Webmaster's address that
should be on every site.

That's what I meant when I said "putting an e-mail address on a web
site".

Then I posted in a usenet group (this one) with a unique address
and
started receiving spam within 24 hours. The e-mail address was only
in
the reply to, never in the body. Then it would die down but every
time
I posted here I would get a further flurry of spam.
Now I use this hotmail alias for usenet and just ignore it.

Well my view is backed up by the only real data on this subject
that I know about:-

http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml


I don't see how this backs up your view that "Most spam gets sent to
E-Mail addresses which appear on web pages" at all.

The first line of the major finding says "e-mail addresses posted on
Web sites or in newsgroups attract the most spam". I.e., *both* are a
major source of spam.

MBQ

Andy Hall wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."

wrote:

In article , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from
now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most
harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a
problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even
further


It's better to silently drop messages to users in your domain who are
not addressees rather than bouncing them. If you bounce them, the
spammer knows that he has a live domain and will then just try common
names at that domain.

Surely though the lack of *any* failure also indicates that the spammer
has got a 'live' domain?

On 29 Jan 2005 01:57:00 -0800, "Mathew J. Newton"
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."

wrote:

In article , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from
now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most
harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a
problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even
further


It's better to silently drop messages to users in your domain who are
not addressees rather than bouncing them. If you bounce them, the
spammer knows that he has a live domain and will then just try common
names at that domain.

Surely though the lack of *any* failure also indicates that the spammer
has got a 'live' domain?

If you silently blackhole the messages, the spammer will assume they
got to the intended recipient and probably do nothing more. If the
mail is rejected as undeliverable with SMTP, it attracts attention.

I've tried three different methods:

- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

THe first two seem to both cause additional messages to users like
"postmaster" and common first names to be sent.

Being silent seems to stop this.



--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

In article , Andy Hall
writes
On 29 Jan 2005 01:57:00 -0800, "Mathew J. Newton"
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."

wrote:

In article , Peter Ramm
writes
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from
now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most
harvesters
only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a
problem.
Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even
further


It's better to silently drop messages to users in your domain who are
not addressees rather than bouncing them. If you bounce them, the
spammer knows that he has a live domain and will then just try common
names at that domain.

Surely though the lack of *any* failure also indicates that the spammer
has got a 'live' domain?

If you silently blackhole the messages, the spammer will assume they
got to the intended recipient and probably do nothing more. If the
mail is rejected as undeliverable with SMTP, it attracts attention.

I've tried three different methods:

- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

THe first two seem to both cause additional messages to users like
"postmaster" and common first names to be sent.

Being silent seems to stop this.

But AIUI most spamming is not done from an original address but from a
hijacked address (I have been the victim of this myself) so if this is
the case it doesn't matter whether you bounce or blackhole, the original
spammer never sees it anyway. You can argue that you waste bandwidth and
inconvenience any address that has been hijacked but as for getting a
response from the original source I can't see it myself.
--
David

.. wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
writes

On 29 Jan 2005 01:57:00 -0800, "Mathew J. Newton"
wrote:


Andy Hall wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:34:33 +0000, "."



wrote:


In article , Peter Ramm
writes

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:58:51 GMT, raden wrote:


For anyone interested, I shall be using this email address from

now on.

I'm sure spammers' address harvesters will be ;-)

Having been looking at this for a while... it seems that most

harvesters

only pick up the domain address so in my case lots of stuff arrives
@chapelhouse, I set a simple filter that bounces anything without an
addressee, this reduces the spam to the odd few which are not a

problem.

Demon are filtering spam now anyway which has cut it down even

further


It's better to silently drop messages to users in your domain who are
not addressees rather than bouncing them. If you bounce them, the
spammer knows that he has a live domain and will then just try common
names at that domain.

Surely though the lack of *any* failure also indicates that the spammer
has got a 'live' domain?

If you silently blackhole the messages, the spammer will assume they
got to the intended recipient and probably do nothing more. If the
mail is rejected as undeliverable with SMTP, it attracts attention.

I've tried three different methods:

- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

THe first two seem to both cause additional messages to users like
"postmaster" and common first names to be sent.

Being silent seems to stop this.


But AIUI most spamming is not done from an original address but from a
hijacked address (I have been the victim of this myself) so if this is
the case it doesn't matter whether you bounce or blackhole, the original
spammer never sees it anyway. You can argue that you waste bandwidth and
inconvenience any address that has been hijacked but as for getting a
response from the original source I can't see it myself.


I agree.

Spam comes in several carttegories.

One categories is 'no valid return address' and usually invites you t
visit a web site. Bouncing it is useless - there is nowhere to bounce,
and chances are the bounce will bounce back to YOU as the originator of
the bounce.

Black hole it.

Anoher class is that which uses hijacked valid addresses to escape being
bounced as invalid return address. Chances are that bouncing this back
to teh poor sucker whos adress is nicked will cause grief and extra
traffic.

Black hole it.

Anoher class is that which uses a temporary address on MSN, AOL, or
Yahoo. Tes have limits obn recipeint lists for uploading, so teh normal
way tehse guys work is to use an open relay, which will very soon get
blocked off and blacklisetd. So anything fo a blacklisted relay may be
safely black holed.

The final class of spam is from quasi legitimate business that have
acquired your e-mail address, and are sending circulars. Most of these
will get throiugh spam filters, and most of tehm will allow you to
de-register. If not, you know who they are and can bounce messages back
if you like.

I have been developing my spam filters on my ISP, and have now a very
good combiantion.

- addresses to individuals in my domains that do not exist, are bounced
with a 'no known user' - this takes care of all te crap fora similarly
named domain I used to get.

- addresses from blacklisted relays are silently refused at SMTP level
- addresses from individuals on spoof non existent return addresses are
junked.
- all mail from AOL, yahoo and MSN is junked, with named exceptions for
the very few pople I know that actually are dumb enough to use it.
- address from certain companbies that still spam me after requests not
to are returned with pithy messages.

All this is done at my ISP (ww.calar.net) site on their machines, but
under MY control. That way I do not have to download spam - they reject
it or dump it there, saving me time and bandwidth.

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:10:10 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

I've tried three different methods:

- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

And, of course...

- Reject the initial connection if the sending IP is on a reliable
blacklist (e.g. SBL/XBL)

--
Bob Eager
begin a new life...dump Windows!

In message , Andy Hall
writes
- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

Can someone explain exactly what black holing is

(apart from DIM^2's newly revealed fave pastime)
--
geoff

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:45:20 GMT, raden wrote:

In message , Andy Hall
writes
- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

Can someone explain exactly what black holing is

(apart from DIM^2's newly revealed fave pastime)

That doesn't bear thinking about, does it?


In the context of email, if you have your own SMTP server which you
manage yourself (or have appropriate access to a managed one), it is
usually set up to receive email for your domain. This might be
because it is permanently connected to the public Internet and a
domain name server is advertising its address as that to be used for
mail to your domain (using a DNS MX or mail exchanger) record; or
could be because your ISP initially receives mail for your domain but
forwards it to your SMTP server. Demon do this as an option to give
one example.

All of this is as opposed to a POP3 account at an ISP; where the ISP
handles the SMTP part.

So if you have said SMTP server or can manage one carrying your mail,
you can set rules for delivery with most software (e.g. sendmail,
postfix, etc.) One strategy is to bounce mail that doesn't match a
local mail user name. Another is to accept it and then silently throw
it away. In other words the difference between throwing the junk
mail in the bin as opposed to writing the address of the sender on it
and popping it into the postbox.

It disappears into a black hole.


A similar technique is used by some ISPs and carriers to handle one of
the other pains in the arse, the denial of service, or DOS attack (not
to be confused with Microsoft, although some would say that they are
similar in that they prevent doing anything useful).
There are various kinds of DOS attack, but a common one is for the
miscreant to use a large number of trojan/virus compromised PCs to
target a web site or other internet service and to swamp it with
various types of traffic or attempted access such that it becomes
unusable for legitimate users.
There are several ways to combat it, but a common one is for the
carrier/ISP to install a black holing router and to direct the traffic
to it for the duration of the attack rather than to allow it through
to the intended target. The black holing router simply silently
drops the DOS traffic. Depending on the type of attack, the miscreant
may not even know that this is being done.









--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

In message , Andy Hall
writes
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:45:20 GMT, raden wrote:

In message , Andy Hall
writes
- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

Can someone explain exactly what black holing is

(apart from DIM^2's newly revealed fave pastime)

That doesn't bear thinking about, does it?


In the context of email, if you have your own SMTP server which you
manage yourself (or have appropriate access to a managed one), it is
usually set up to receive email for your domain. This might be
because it is permanently connected to the public Internet and a
domain name server is advertising its address as that to be used for
mail to your domain (using a DNS MX or mail exchanger) record; or
could be because your ISP initially receives mail for your domain but
forwards it to your SMTP server. Demon do this as an option to give
one example.

All of this is as opposed to a POP3 account at an ISP; where the ISP
handles the SMTP part.

So if you have said SMTP server or can manage one carrying your mail,
you can set rules for delivery with most software (e.g. sendmail,
postfix, etc.) One strategy is to bounce mail that doesn't match a
local mail user name. Another is to accept it and then silently throw
it away. In other words the difference between throwing the junk
mail in the bin as opposed to writing the address of the sender on it
and popping it into the postbox.

It disappears into a black hole.


A similar technique is used by some ISPs and carriers to handle one of
the other pains in the arse, the denial of service, or DOS attack (not
to be confused with Microsoft, although some would say that they are
similar in that they prevent doing anything useful).
There are various kinds of DOS attack, but a common one is for the
miscreant to use a large number of trojan/virus compromised PCs to
target a web site or other internet service and to swamp it with
various types of traffic or attempted access such that it becomes
unusable for legitimate users.
There are several ways to combat it, but a common one is for the
carrier/ISP to install a black holing router and to direct the traffic
to it for the duration of the attack rather than to allow it through
to the intended target. The black holing router simply silently
drops the DOS traffic. Depending on the type of attack, the miscreant
may not even know that this is being done.

Cheers

--
geoff

raden wrote:

In message , Andy Hall
writes

- Bounce the message back after accepting it on the SMTP server.

- Reject it as undeliverable to the specific user by the SMTP server.

- Silently black hole.

Can someone explain exactly what black holing is

(apart from DIM^2's newly revealed fave pastime)

Go directly to nowhere. Do not respond, do not accept. Th emnessge is
simply refused, or accepted and thrown away.