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| Author |
Message |
spooked
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StoHHHHH
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Jan 8 00:29 UTC 2006 |
I hear a lot of problems with email on Grex, and yes it is a big problem
(with, to be fair, no quick-fix technical solutions). To a certain
degree, I don't see why anyone would rely on Grex for mail in this day and
age. To that end, I would not be sad to see Grex not offer email.
However, there is a simple policy solution to all of this - that is email
should only be available to members. That way, we don't support (or can
easily track) email abuse.
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| 65 responses total. |
naftee
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response 1 of 65:
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Jan 8 00:40 UTC 2006 |
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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keesan
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response 2 of 65:
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Jan 8 02:16 UTC 2006 |
I use email to try to help people learn to use 'talk'. At least allow
non-members to send/receive mail within grex.
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bhoward
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response 3 of 65:
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Jan 8 02:38 UTC 2006 |
I'd like to focus on the technical approaches to making grex
unattractive to spammers before proscribing mail entirely.
I believe mail within grex should always be available to
everyone, regardless of what gets decided for off system
mail privileges.
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naftee
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response 4 of 65:
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Jan 8 04:37 UTC 2006 |
Anyone else think the title of this item is spooky ?
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albaugh
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response 5 of 65:
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Jan 10 17:16 UTC 2006 |
I can tell you that I first came to grex 10 years ago because it offered
internet e-mail. If it didn't, I wouldn't have come, and I certainly wouldn't
have become a member just to get internet e-mail (at least I believe so).
I do believe that internet e-mail is / continues to be one drawing card for
new grex users & potentially members. The problem is that this has also been
abused. Also that e-mail got wiped out.
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mary
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response 6 of 65:
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Jan 10 20:36 UTC 2006 |
Ten years ago is, like, a long time ago by Internet standards.
There are lots of mega-sites offering free and dependable mail
service. We can't possibly compete with that and we shouldn't be
spending time trying to do so. Keep those who are here and
(for whatever reason) dependent on our mail connected? Sure.
But that's about it.
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bhoward
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response 7 of 65:
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Jan 11 01:36 UTC 2006 |
I don't think it is that grex is or ever has been trying to compete
with Google mail, hotmail or yahoo on the mail front.
It's more that offering access...whether to our online community
through the conferencing system or to programming tools and a shell,
to mail...on the most open possible basis is fundamental to what
we are. The problem is that the economics have changed and we have
to tighten things up.
I've probably taken down 20 or more spamming accounts in the last week
or so, Steve and others likely more. Cleaning up their mess is more
than a little annoying but with all that, I still want to keep mail
available and available to all, not just members.
We just have to throw in some more controls, to get the balance
back between openness and the realities of operating an open access
system on today's internet.
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keesan
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response 8 of 65:
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Jan 12 00:08 UTC 2006 |
Are there other free email accounts that don't require a browser or pop mail?
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tod
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response 9 of 65:
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Jan 12 07:44 UTC 2006 |
There are a bunch of freenets out there.
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nigger
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response 10 of 65:
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Jan 14 02:35 UTC 2006 |
new users should have to wait a month to send email, no spammer
will wait that long and as for the rest of us we can already send mail so
this shouldn't be an issue.
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bhoward
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response 11 of 65:
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Jan 14 03:27 UTC 2006 |
I'm hoping you are right.
But yesterday, I identified and closed down a number of "sleeper"
accounts that had been opened sometime in December and not used to
spam until earlier this week (just before I shutdown mail access
for newusers as it happens). Seems some of these folks are fairly
committed to their "art".
So we will still need to implement rate throttling because some
people may simply chose to accumulate a portfolio of accounts
in anticipation of planned spamming runs.
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cross
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response 12 of 65:
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Jan 14 16:19 UTC 2006 |
What about an opt-in registration system for local users who have no
other email access? The more I think about it, the less I see why grex
needs to offer outgoing email access to non-members. The only edge case
I can think of is those users who e.g., Sindi sets up with grex as their
only means of Internet access. Given that we can identify those users
by the tty's they login from, and theoretically someone can verify them
with a local telephone call, can we not set up a system where local users
request verification for off-site email privileges, and by default off-site
email is denied to non-members? I mean, if someone is logging into grex
over the Internet anyway, odds are good that they already have email
access.
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spooked
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response 13 of 65:
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Jan 14 22:26 UTC 2006 |
Exactly...
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steve
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response 14 of 65:
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Jan 15 00:13 UTC 2006 |
I agree with Bruce in #7 very much. Given the controls that we
now had with email, I'm fairly confident that we can do this.
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vivekm1234
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response 15 of 65:
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Feb 17 15:26 UTC 2006 |
Hi,
I am a fairly new Grex user. Just signed in. My name is Vivek (pronounced Vee
Wake). Just thought you might want my perspective as someone totally
new to grex.
I would like grex outbound mail. Th reason i dug out a shell account
on Google was because i thought that i may be having problems
with someones SPAM filter. I assumed that i would get through
to them from cyberspace. I use yahoo and thought that
they might have blocked yahoo inbound.
Anyway, it would be wonderful if we had outbound mail
but only if it could be implemented in a safe manner!
BTW: What i've seen of grex i've liked! I think mail
(outbound) is a important draw. Most things in life
are dangerous if used improperly. We don't stop
using them just because it's in-convenient
or dangerous. We try to figure out a safe
way to do so. Umm..I won't be doing the figuring
or writing of code..so..if you have the time
..heck! fix the freaking thing please!! :)
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aruba
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response 16 of 65:
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Feb 17 15:46 UTC 2006 |
Hi Vivek - welcome to Grex! I appreciate hearing your perspective.
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keesan
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response 17 of 65:
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Feb 17 20:20 UTC 2006 |
The reason new users don't have outbound mail right now is that grex was (and
maybe still is) on a blacklist so that mail from here to AOL and other places
bounces. We got on the blacklist because of spammers sending from here.
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glenda
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response 18 of 65:
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Feb 17 23:28 UTC 2006 |
No, we did not turn off outbound mail due to any blacklisting of grex. It
was turned off due to the amount of outbound spam mail being sent from grex
by users who seemed to have created accounts just for that reason. Outbound
mail for new users would have been turned off regardless of any blacklist we
ended up on.
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keesan
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response 19 of 65:
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Feb 18 02:03 UTC 2006 |
We turned off the mail to stop spammers because we were on a blacklist and
wanted to get off and not get on again. I think we are agreeing.
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cross
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response 20 of 65:
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Feb 18 03:56 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #18; The two are isomorphic.
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glenda
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response 21 of 65:
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Feb 18 06:09 UTC 2006 |
The blacklisting was NOT the reason. It was in the interest of good community
relations to stop spammers. It is our duty to do so when we can. Those who
blacklisted us do not know that we turned off outbound email and really don't
care whether we did or not. We have been blacklisted before and did nothing
about it. The inordinate amount of spam going out this time is what prompted
turning off outbound mail from new users.
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cross
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response 22 of 65:
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Feb 18 16:51 UTC 2006 |
Okay.
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other
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response 23 of 65:
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Feb 18 18:02 UTC 2006 |
In other words, A caused B and A caused C, but B did not cause C.
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cross
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response 24 of 65:
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Feb 18 18:44 UTC 2006 |
In reality, minutae is more important than substance.
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