[LINK] Who are you?

[Craig Sanders]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 03:38:14PM +1000, Kate Lance wrote:
> The list discussed a few weeks ago that it was probably an automatic message
> from the mailing-list software because of some unfortunate incident at ANU.
> It's certainly not personal. If ANU wants to do this - for a mailing-list
> on their infrastructure whose benefits we've enjoyed for free for decades -
> then of course they can.

This seems to have started in March this year.

My guess is that it's inserting that scamwatch message to any message with
a From: header containing an outlook.com or gmail.com address (maybe other
well-known e-mail account providers too).

(and it's probably happening at ANU's mail servers, not the mailing-list
server - lots of spam/scam/virus email gets sent directly to recipients, not
to lists)

Given the amount of spam from those domains, someone probably thought this was
a reasonable compromise compared to simply blocking such mail.

I disagree - IMO, you should either accept or reject a message, never change
it. But a) I can understand why someone might think it's reasonable especially
when they're receiving mail for many thousands of probably-not-tech-savvy
and possibly clueless or gullible staff and students and b) it's not my mail
server so I have no say in it.

I know on my own mail server I wish I could just block mail from those domains
but there's also a lot of legitimate mail from them, too much to simply block
them.  Instead, most mail from outlook & gmail gets caught by my header and
body check anti-spam filters (which costs a lot more processing power and time
than simply blocking the domains during the SMTP session) and ends up in the
quarrantine folder.


I just grepped my current LINK inbox, and Stephen is the ONLY person sending
from an outlook.com address in the last several years (since 2017 or so).
And there's only one person sending with a From: header matching @gmail.com.
They're the only messages that have had the scamwatch warning added.

Stephen, you can test this by trying to send a message from an alternate
address if you have one.  You may have to subscribe from the alternate first,
depending on whether LINK only accepts mail from subscribers or not.


craig