Hi,
I have a spam-problem like anyone else. Most of the spam my listserver receives has some kind of impilict destination so the implicit rule catches most of the spam that way. This is fine. What is not so fine, however, is that this results in a moderation message to the sender. I'd like to stop that so that the spammer has no confirmation that the mail was received.
I can probably stop this in postfix before the mail reaches mailman3, but I'd prefer changing the behaviour of the rule. Is there any setting that could be used or should I just modify the rule?
Cheers. // David
My suggestion, which most don't people buy into, is don't worry about giving a response to a spammer. They are not going to magically drop your address just because they have not heard from you in 2 years. If it doesn't bounce you will be kept on the list and the e-mail list likely be sold. Go about your business and don't worry about sending confirmation to spammers.
If you want another suggestion that people really don't like, Reject with Notification to anybody posting to the list, but they are not a member. I know - the reply sent to them is awful, but that is what I do for all my lists.
Mike
On 8/26/2018 2:54 PM, David Krantz wrote:
Hi,
I have a spam-problem like anyone else. Most of the spam my listserver receives has some kind of impilict destination so the implicit rule catches most of the spam that way. This is fine. What is not so fine, however, is that this results in a moderation message to the sender. I'd like to stop that so that the spammer has no confirmation that the mail was received.
I can probably stop this in postfix before the mail reaches mailman3, but I'd prefer changing the behaviour of the rule. Is there any setting that could be used or should I just modify the rule?
Cheers. // David
On 08/26/2018 12:54 PM, David Krantz wrote:
I have a spam-problem like anyone else. Most of the spam my listserver receives has some kind of impilict destination so the implicit rule catches most of the spam that way. This is fine. What is not so fine, however, is that this results in a moderation message to the sender. I'd like to stop that so that the spammer has no confirmation that the mail was received.
That is not the issue. Sending the held message notice to a spammer, if it reaches the spammer, is probably inconsequential. The issue is that virtually always in spam the sender address is either undeliverable or is the address of an innocent 3rd party. Sending these notices to innocent 3rd parties is called backscatter and is a bad thing.
To avoid this backscatter, you can set the list's respond_to_post_requests attribute to False. There are two problems here. One is this setting is not currently exposed in Postorius, and the other is this will also stop desired held message notices such as those from list members.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 2:50 AM Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
That is not the issue. Sending the held message notice to a spammer, if it reaches the spammer, is probably inconsequential. The issue is that virtually always in spam the sender address is either undeliverable or is the address of an innocent 3rd party. Sending these notices to innocent 3rd parties is called backscatter and is a bad thing.
To avoid this backscatter, you can set the list's respond_to_post_requests attribute to False. There are two problems here. One is this setting is not currently exposed in Postorius, and the other is this will also stop desired held message notices such as those from list members.
Aha. That was a simple solution although with a bad consequence. Will it stop moderation mails to the moderator as well? I'll try. Otherwise it will not be a problem in my case. The lists where I have this problem are more of function addresses for a number of persons (like a board or workgroup) so they accept posts from non-members. I use mailman as a simple forward gets legit mail caught in the receivers spam filters and might cause more black-list problems.
You are of course entirely correct in that backscatter is the real problem, I should have thought of that. The thing in the spam I've received lately is somewhat sophisticated: the senders have correct (albeit strange) domains and correct SPF records so they try to seem legit although the senders are located in unexpected parts of the world. I just checked one example, in that case the MX pointed to the sender IP, the SPF was very sloppy (~all) and everything looked correct except for the fact that we usually do not receive mail from Ukraine and the cryptocurrency scam in the body. It almost got caught in the spam filter, but not quite.
cheers // David
On 08/27/2018 11:03 AM, David Krantz wrote:
On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 2:50 AM Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
To avoid this backscatter, you can set the list's respond_to_post_requests attribute to False. There are two problems here. One is this setting is not currently exposed in Postorius, and the other is this will also stop desired held message notices such as those from list members.
Aha. That was a simple solution although with a bad consequence. Will it stop moderation mails to the moderator as well?
No. The notices to the moderator will still be sent.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On 8/26/18 9:54 PM, David Krantz wrote:
Hi,
I have a spam-problem like anyone else. Most of the spam my listserver receives has some kind of impilict destination so the implicit rule catches most of the spam that way. This is fine. What is not so fine, however, is that this results in a moderation message to the sender. I'd like to stop that so that the spammer has no confirmation that the mail was received.
I can probably stop this in postfix before the mail reaches mailman3, but I'd prefer changing the behaviour of the rule. Is there any setting that could be used or should I just modify the rule?
Cheers. // David
I didn't use them myself yet, but have you tried the header filters?
You can configure them to drop the mail. That way the sender won't get a notification...
participants (4)
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David Krantz -
Mark Sapiro -
Mike -
Simon Hanna