Vacation reply

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

Mark Haney wrote:
> sothish at hotmail.com wrote:
[snipped spam]

> can someone block this dimwit?

My company hosts many mailing lists and it seems to be a common concern
to many that by subscribing to a list server, one would get more spam.
My experience in years of subscribing to and hosting various lists is
that it's very rare that spam manages to get through to the list but
I've been saying for years that as we turn the screws on spammers with
ever more sophisticated anti-spam measures, they're going to get
desperate and start subscribing to mailing lists. I suppose it's a sign
of success of this list that someone went to the trouble of subscribing
just so he could set up a vacation reply with spam.

In the long run, I think list administrators are going to have to start
using list servers with something more sophisticated than email
addresses, which can be forged very easily, as a means of identifying
subscribers. I like Mailman but it doesn't offer certificate or
PGP-based authentication yet. I know Sympa offers certificate-based
authentication so it wouldn't matter if someone forged my address, for
example, in order to post spam to the list. The list would reject mail
from that address unless it was signed with my X509 certificate. By the
way, I got my free personal X509 certificate for email at
<http://thawte.com>. I have no affiliation with Thawte so I'm just
passing on neighbourly advice.

In any case, I'm sure the list administrator(s) will catch on and ban
this idiot so there is no need for us to further promulgate his spam by
quoting it in its entirety.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis
1419-3266 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

<http://dinamis.com>
+1 416-410-3326
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