[OT] Attn. All GMAIL users

[Tommy Trussell]

On 7/27/05, David Woyciesjes <woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>         Actually, IIRC, that Reply-To field is there if you want to override
> the default reply address, which is taken from the From: field. Have a
> look at the headers in an e-mail message.

Yes, I understand, but the email list software Ubuntu uses modifies
the "reply-to" field, so in your case your message says

> Reply-To: Ubuntu Help and User Discussions <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>

but the spammers don't bother with that ... they can find a valid
email address WHEREVER it appears in the message and since you need a
valid address to use the list, we're stuck getting spammed using this
model.

I didn't really intend to fan the debate too much -- I probably didn't
word my initial response very well, but my intent was to point out
that changing some parts of the message would ultimately NOT have the
intended effect of reducing spam. If you "lie" to the list server to
avoid publishing your address, it won't accept your message, because
spammers lie about their addresses to abuse list servers. We can't
trust anybody!

I have been impressed at how well gmail has trapped the spam, and I
try to help their filters by "releasing" the few non-spam Ubuntu list
messages that accidentally get trapped.

By the way, forums software Ubuntu uses is somewhat protected against
spam, but for whatever reason the discussions seem to flow more
actively on the email lists. Maybe we have too many options....