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Grex > Coop13 > #376: The problems with Grex, e-mail and spam | |
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krj
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The problems with Grex, e-mail and spam
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Nov 10 21:35 UTC 2006 |
This item is for discussion of Grex's current problems with e-mail,
and possible future directions Grex might take with e-mail
service.
The goal is to keep large-scale, big-picture discussion out of
item:4, the "System Problems" item.
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| 480 responses total. |
krj
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response 1 of 480:
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Nov 10 21:39 UTC 2006 |
What I wanted to tell Sindi is that e-mail systems everywhere are
staggering under the load of incoming spam, and network services
everywhere are plagued with problems with outgoing spam.
What's happening is not a Grex-specific problem. Just in the last
week, I think I have seen a 30-50% spike in the amount of spam
arriving at my work address.
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nharmon
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response 2 of 480:
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Nov 10 21:41 UTC 2006 |
I only use Grexmail to communicate with other Grexers. What would be an
easy way of redirecting email not from Grex to /dev/null?
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easlern
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response 3 of 480:
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Nov 10 21:44 UTC 2006 |
Re 1: That's interesting because we're seeing the same trend at my workplace.
At this rate, the whole system will be overwhelmed in just a few months.
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jadecat
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response 4 of 480:
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Nov 10 21:53 UTC 2006 |
I work for a computer services company- and we've had several of our
clients also complaining in a huge increase in spam.
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easlern
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response 5 of 480:
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Nov 10 21:55 UTC 2006 |
We have to stop them before they fill up the tubes with internets!
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ball
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response 6 of 480:
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Nov 10 23:24 UTC 2006 |
Re #2: I believe I would like to do that too.
Do Internet email messages have any kind of indelible post-
mark to indicate its source? I understand the From: field
is trivial to forge, but are they marked with a source IP
address? Can Grex be configured to refuse connections from
certain IP addresses or networks?
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keesan
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response 7 of 480:
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Nov 11 00:13 UTC 2006 |
Procmail can easily refuse mail from any IP number, or from senders on various
blacklists such as NJBL, SORBS, etc. The problem is that places like grex
end up on these lists when one spammer abuses them. I just add more IP
numbers when spam starts slipping through, but this week's spammer is mailing
from all over the place. I think today I got about 30-40 Hi messages all
addressed to some name starting in k, so I filtered on that. Some of the k
names were keesan but most were not. I presume other people are getting other
letters of the alphabet. And many of my other spams have started arriving
in triplicate (every few hours) in the past week or two - @grex, cyberspace,
and grex.cyberspace.
Most mail providers use a spam filter by default. You might be able to turn
it off at some places. Would this work for grex?
Why is there no inbox size limit on some accounts?
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ball
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response 8 of 480:
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Nov 11 00:53 UTC 2006 |
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the spams that seem to
come from all (IP) directions at once were generated by
machines that have been infected or otherwise compromised.
:-(
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mcnally
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response 9 of 480:
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Nov 11 03:03 UTC 2006 |
A huge amount of the spam that reaches your mailbox originates from
"zombie" or "bot" machines -- ordinary homeowner's computers that are
infected deliberately by a spammer using a customized virus or worm
that gives him control over the machine. They do this largely for two
reasons: (1) it makes IP-based blocking of spam sources much harder
because the spam comes from hundreds of thousands, possibly millions,
of sources, and (2) when a computer gets blocked for spamming or its
ISP shuts it down, the virus victims are the ones affected, not the
spammers.
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ball
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response 10 of 480:
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Nov 11 04:05 UTC 2006 |
That was my suspicion. MS Windows has a lot to answer for.
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mary
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response 11 of 480:
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Nov 11 13:15 UTC 2006 |
I suspect it's time we do what M-Net did and go to local mail only.
There are loads of free email providers out there. The problems
with email have exploded over the past five years or so. Trying
to solve them here will put a strain on our staff resources and
I don't think mail should be the priority.
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nharmon
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response 12 of 480:
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Nov 11 15:39 UTC 2006 |
I don't think M-Net has even local mail, does it? I think they shut down
mail completely.
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keesan
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response 13 of 480:
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Nov 11 16:08 UTC 2006 |
I use grex email because I can turn on my computer, boot into DOS, dial grex
directly, and be into mail in about 30 seconds. I can't do that if I have
to ssh from grex to my other account at freeshell - it doubles the time that
it takes to check mail. And freeshell does not have spamassassin. Obviously
a lot of other people also use their mail here, or there would be no
discussion.
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cyklone
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response 14 of 480:
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Nov 11 16:24 UTC 2006 |
So ssh'ing to another email provider doubles your time to 60 seconds
instead of 30? That hardly sounds like an inconvenience.
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keesan
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response 15 of 480:
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Nov 11 22:20 UTC 2006 |
It is an inconvenience. And grex has better spam filtering available.
Freeshell offers a 'filter' that throws out all mail with html in it.
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cyklone
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response 16 of 480:
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Nov 12 00:19 UTC 2006 |
But you want staff to devote hours of time to save you 30 seconds of login
time. That hardly seems rational or justifiable to me.
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keesan
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response 17 of 480:
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Nov 12 01:21 UTC 2006 |
No, I want staff to do something so everyone can use grex mail, maybe even
new users eventually. Obviously a lot of us still want to use it.
And you continue to ignore my comments on the lack of a spam filter at
freeshell.
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ball
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response 18 of 480:
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Nov 12 04:56 UTC 2006 |
Ideally I would like Grex to have mail working both locally
and for the Internet. I understand that given the nature of
the problem and the limited resources that Grex has, that
may not be practical. If Internet email were disabled, I
hope that local email could continue to work because I find
it a useful way to keep in touch with other Grexers. If it
ever came down to a choice between no email (of either kind)
and no Grex, I would be grateful for the years that we had
email and thankful that Grex were still around. My 2p worth.
Are there any inexpensive dial-up Internet services that
adhere to the appropriate standards, so that people could
dial in using DOS, BSD or Linux? Earthlink works, but it's
almost as expensive as DSL.
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keesan
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response 19 of 480:
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Nov 12 05:10 UTC 2006 |
VTISP - 5 hours/day, no phone support, no email, no webspace, $40/year, and
it is working for a friend in a rural area of Kentucky. They have phone
coverage for most of the country. For $5/month you can probably find
something with no time limit. Search on 'cheap ISP'.
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ball
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response 20 of 480:
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Nov 12 05:48 UTC 2006 |
My DSL service probably comes with email and Internet news
if their registration system were not Windows-only. :-/
Never mind, at least it gets me on the net.
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cyklone
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response 21 of 480:
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Nov 12 06:19 UTC 2006 |
Re #17: Your freeshell account is kind of irrelevant to the overall
decision-making process of grex.
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gull
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response 22 of 480:
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Nov 13 04:08 UTC 2006 |
I would hate to see Grex eliminate email. I don't read email here
anymore, but my cyberspace.org address is convenient because I can
forward it to whatever ISP I'm currently using.
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denise
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response 23 of 480:
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Nov 13 04:27 UTC 2006 |
Has anyone else been getting tons of spam from 'debora-something/variant'?
I've probably gotten 150-200 of them just this week! Every time I log in, I
have probably 10-20 or more of them.
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keesan
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response 24 of 480:
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Nov 13 04:46 UTC 2006 |
Yes, lots of Deborahs. Why don't you set up a filter to get rid of them,
using procmail. Just dump anything From Deborah. Spamassassin gets most
of my Debora mail. I set up a sample procmailrc.sample and procmailrc.simple
(not as many additional filters). Copy to your home directory as .procmailrc
and also copy .forward and you will see 90% less spam. I can explain how to
eliminate anything from Deborah if you can't figure it out.
I forget what Deborah is selling - viagra or stocks?
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