John Clizbe wrote: > I agree. Specific spam defenses are in many ways worse than useless. > They stop an insignificant fraction of spam and add a layer of > complexity to your system. ... [t]here are better ways of fighting > SPAM than making it difficult for others to communicate.
I agree wholeheartedly with what John says here. This is an agreement and a slight addition, not a dissent. A Greek named Xenophon wrote, "in the end, the art of war is about keeping your freedom to act." In the 2500 years since he wrote that, no general has managed to improve on it. As long as you're able to act, you're still in the fight. The instant you lose that ability, you're either a casualty or about to become one. General spam defenses work very well because even after spam gets through them, you can still take action. You can tweak the Bayesian filter. You can use a different realtime black hole list. You can switch from one filtering system to another. Even if the spam gets through, there are still effective actions you can take: you're still in the game. As John points out, sheltering your email address doesn't work. Once it gets out there even once, then it's out for good. You're investing time and work in a battle that you know you're going to lose, which you know you're going to lose soon. You have no move once it gets out; once you suffer any breach, you can't mitigate things. General spam defenses leave you with freedom to act even after you get hit. Suppressing your email address doesn't. Take a lesson from Xenophon. Focus on defenses that maximize your ability to act. _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
