Re: [exim] SPAM Filtering - Losing the war!

Sometime around Tue, 24 Oct 2006 03:14:09 +0800, it may be that W B
Hacker wrote:
> - *WE* - the mailadmins of the world - have handed the spammers the
> environment they need to grow and prosper. The time for 'be generous
> as to what you accept..' and fawn over 'false positives' is gone.
> Ancient history.

To some extent, although I've never liked the 'false positive'
phrase. When I'm checking rDNS (unfortunately now only enabled on a
per-user basis here) and I defer mail, if that blocks mail from a
legitimate company with an incompetent mail administrator, then it
ain't no false positive.

However I'm not convinced that the mail admins are to blame for a
permissive environment allowing spammers to run riot. I remember a time
when mail admins would terminate anybody doing anything like spamming
without regard to commercial pressures. We can't have that time back
again.

Incidentally it's odd that as soon as spammers start doing stuff that
annoys network administrators (stealing IP networks, ASNs, etc) their
networks get routed to null0 pretty quickly ... even when their network
provider has a grey-tinged hat.

Sigmonster earns a dog biscuit ...

--
Mike Meredith, Senior Informatics Officer
University of Portsmouth: Hostmaster, Postmaster and Security
"Spammers on the Internet are like hula hoops, pet rocks, or subway
alligators; only incredibly fertile, incontinent, and able to fly.
And it's still illegal to shoot them, so bring an umbrella." SC, on
SPAM-L.