Tim Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [Douglas Alan] >>> I've noticed that there is little to no spam in comp.lang.python >>> and am wondering how this is accomplished. > > [Skip Montanaro] >> Most mailing lists which originate on mail.python.org have SpamBayes >> filtering in front of them. > > BTW, python.org uses other gimmicks too, right? For example, I think > Greg Ward set up some other gimmicks to weed out obvious viruses.
I'm mostly the guilty party at the moment. Incoming mail on mail.python.org goes through an SMTP server implemented in Python. The server uses SpamBayes to filter spam. We disallow attachments with executable filenames (e.g. .scr). That kills almost all virus mail. We use a number of realtime blackhole lists; they also block quite a lot of virus junk and some spam. There is a set of manually maintained message patterns; those kill some annoying junk that's hard to block in other ways. We do greylisting (two different kinds, actually). Some IP addresses get blackholed using iptables (e.g. zombie machines blasting out virus junk). If SpamBayes is unsure about a message to a list then it gets held for moderation. I suspect there are people working behind the scenes to cleanup the NNTP feed. The short answer to Douglas's question: good tools and a fair amount of elbow grease. :-) Neil -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
