[LINK] Fwd: Please confirm your message

[Adam Todd]

At 03:39 PM 4/12/2006, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>On 04/12/2006, at 3:17 PM, Steve Jenkin wrote:
>>On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 03:01:13PM +1100, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>>>Linkers
>>>
>>>Does anyone else find this kind of behaviour tiresome, frustrating,
>>>and pointless?
>>
>>No - it isn't very widespread yet. If it was universal, would not be a
>>question...
>>As yet, is a reasonable SPAM blocker approach. Not perfect.
>
>I disagree. This is not blocking spam, this is blocking a reply to an
>e-mail sent to my mailbox via Link.

Eventually, Ivan, mail servers will require some kind of authentication 
prior to allowing a connection from a remote server or any kind.  This is, 
in my view, a stepping stone, to that authentication process.

The benefit is that this process is totally controlled by the end users and 
not ISP's between the end users.

I much prefer that control of the Internet, access and authentication is in 
the hands of users and NOT ISPs.

It isn't a perfect SPAM blocking system.  IN fact it doesn't block spam at 
all.  All a SPAMMER has to do it click on the link.

What it does is create a HUMAN process to the sending of an email.  Rather 
than leaving it wide open to any random automated process.

>>>There are better, simpler, and less time and bandwidth-wasteful
>>>methods of performing the simple task of sending an e-mail response.
>>
>>Such as? I'd like to hear what the alternatives are

Ditto.  I would to.

As I have constantly reported;

My Sendmail server rejects over 75,000 SMTP connections a day based on RBL, 
reverse lookup and access lists.

My personal choice to activate TMDA quarantines, at the present time, 5128 
messages for the last 7 days.

I'd like nothing more than to have a totally transparent quarantine system 
in place, but the entire definition of quarantine is that an in party, a 
supervising party and a removing party are subject to the process.

>Virtually any other spam filter/blocker will better determine what is
>and what isn't spam without the requirement for the person replying
>to confirm the message's intent. I'm sure that I don't need to list
>them all here.

List the best then.  I've only been researching and blocking/rejecting SPAM 
since 1995 when AH.NET was the first server in Australia to be hit by relay 
mail.

>>- this approach
>>makes it everyone elses' problem, not the recipient.  Not a
>>very sociable solution :-)

No not true at all.

>Entirely my point. But it's not my loss - I refuse to confirm that I
>did indeed reply to the person involved. I've got better things to do
>with my time.

Such as instead of clicking on a single link and be done with you, write a 
message to a mail list complaining about it, then write a handful of replies.

>>>I don't particularly care that this activity is meant to reduce the
>>>recipient's spam levels: I'm not at all interested in bouncing
>>>messages back and forth.
>>
>>My guess is that this is some sort of phising or e-mail verification
>>scam.

Ha!  Hardly!

>Well, of course it is, but it places the onus on someone who has made
>a genuine reply to an email to further confirm that the message was
>indeed not spam. I regard this as an annoyance that I can well do
>without, and thus I'll leave the intended respondent with one less e- mail 
>in his inbox.

Ivan, I eventually find all the legitimate ones :)

>>Anyone using a 'whitelist' system would've subscribed with a
>>specific list address, and hence not generated this. If you did a
>>'reply-all', not just the list, that could explain it.

Yes Link is in the white list, with strict parameters because of the volume 
of SPAM associated with earlier Link incarnations.

However the address that I post to LINK from is a prohibited address.  It's 
been too easily harvested in the past.

Other email addresses I use are not intercepted by TMDA.

>And indeed it could, but this is not the point. I reiterate that
>there are better tools than this type of email verification/ 
>authentication which do this job. Even my rather primitive DSPAM
>config does a better job of identifying whitelist respondents,
>without any requirement of follow-up by the sender.

That require constant human intervention and regular updates.

It sounds like as a user you might end up doing more and more and more, 
than less.

>The point of this rant is that communication is made MORE DIFFICULT
>by this unnecessary impost, and it effectively means that spammers
>have won in this instance.

Goodness no.  SPAMERS haven't won anything.  Until they start clicking on 
the links releasing their messages, and that won't be a pleasant experience 
for them!

>And I reiterate that it's not my loss, since it was merely a reply to
>Adam Todd anyway.

Which is strange because we have corresponded in private since the 
application of TMDA on my servers.  So I'm rather puzzled as to why you 
even got a confirmation request.