From: "Matt Kettler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
jdow wrote:
This is a potential if a list will add a site on the basis of ONE
spam report. When it takes ten or twenty or more spam reports then
sites will get listed. Your Scotts example is an example of how a
large number of people would be likely to consider it to be spam
and complain. Upon receiving the complaints even a whois lookup to
confirm it was Scotts would not absolve the company for their spam
run. Their contest site did not ANYWHERE obvious say that you'd be
receiving promotional emailings from Scotts as well as contest data.
So question. Can anyone actually produce a promotional mailing
containing a winterizewithscotts.com URL in it?
Are you are proposing multiple BLs listed that site on a whim? Which
BLs WILL list based on one complaint? My read is that the complaints
obviously happened or the listing would not have happened. I can
see why it might have happened. It's annoying that it happens. But I
lay it down to overzealous marketdroids rather than overzealous
BL folks.
Also remember that CAN SPAM not withstanding (and in AOL speak) "NO
SANE PERSON EVER RESPONDS TO A TAKE ME OFF THIS LIST ADDRESS FOR A
MESSAGE THEY CONSIDER TO BE SPAM." I'll admit to moments of what might
be insanity in sending emails to a certain Acura dealer in Houston
and to Toyota corporate abuse address after receiving relatively large
amounts of "warranty related" spam from that fscking dealer in Houston,
a city I have visited maybe twice in my life. I never visited the dealer
let alone bought anything there, and I don't even own a Toyota.
Paul has theorized it may have happened. Did it? I've not seen a
sample-spam yet.
If the BL managers kept the offending emails that were relayed to
them I expect you're about to be overwhelmed with examples. But you
may be in luck. I'm not sure I'd keep the complaints around once I
had checked it out. However, after one persistent "problem" you can
bet I would and that I'd send a packet of the data to the person
complaining about the listing being spurious.
I personally never entered this contest. I got a link to it through
their lawn-care-update email service. Something I very much did opt-in
for. I've never gotten any other promotional materials from them, other
than the newsletter I subscribe to.
Personally, I kinda know more about spam filters than is healthy for an
individual so I almost never opt in to marketing mailing lists. If I do
I specifically whitelist them. (If they keep changing sending addresses,
as one does, I soon ignore them and let them feed my spam bucket. I take
that behavior to indicate they aren't worth reading.) I found that it is
generally better to put a bookmark in my browser and when I get bored
go visit it. I'm actually more sure to see that than the newsletters.
But that's me, a goofy old bi <er biddy>. {^_-}
Thus Scotts DID spam. They got listed. Find a better example.
Did they? Are you sure?
Jumping from "Reading with a skeptics mind I can see how their privacy
policy could be construed to allow marketing material" is quite a bit
different from "Scotts actually did send promotional email to unwitting
customers".
Well, wait a moment and view it from the standpoint of someone who received
a promotional emailing after signing up for the contest. THEY might view
the emailing as spam even if you might not due to using a more rigorous
definition. Now, if that is the case how are the BL reviewers supposed to
figure all this out?
Quite frankly, the way *I* read the scotts privacy policy, they CANNOT
send you promotional materials merely for entering the contest.
I'd very much like to see a sample of one, if it really did happen.
I kinda hope you get an avalanche. But am not sure you'd get it unless
Jeff is REALLY annoyed by now. {^_-}
Take Joe user, who gets a message he considers spam. He runs
spamassassin -r on it, reporting the message to spamcop, and Razor (e8
is uri based, so relevant here. Pyzor, and DCC will also be reported,
but less relevant). The Spamcop report would require multiple reports,
but if it happens that feeds into SC and AB, which then re-check
theURIs. He then pulls out a few URIs, and manualy reports them to
URIBL. He then goes to rulesemporium.com and reports it to WS. If he's
got an outblaze account, he could also report to OB.
Average user is one of your customers. Do THEY run spamassassin -r?
I did say it was an extreme example. I'm not talking about the common,
I'm talking about what's possible in the worst-case.
It would require someone interested enough in lawn care or racing to
sign up for the offer or otherwise get suckered into giving Scotts an
email address who is also motivated to complain to the BLs, and in fact
multiple BLs before a single complaint is issued. I am not sure the set
intersection for BL reporters and lawn care enthusiasts is all that
large. And it would have to be large enough to trigger the mark as spam
thresholds at the BL listers. If the listings were false alarms by
people wanting to use the BL complaint to get off the lists that would
take the above intersection set itself intersected with the set of
people fuggheaded enought to choose to use that "unsubscribe" technique.
That the listing happened is VERY strong indication that a large number
of people received what THEY considered to be unsolicited emails from
Scotts. Or else the list maintainers are getting sloppy because this
is tedious mind numbing work they are doing.
...
That's why I'm suggesting we consider a base+offset approach to surbl.
It allows each list to be scored independently, but also allows the
perceptron to allocate scores that reflect the overlap.
You are suggesting something that may well be valid. What are your
testing results from the suggestion? YOU control the scores on your
site, in the final analysis. An /etc/mail/spamassassin/ZZZ_local.cf
will get parsed last and can override the BL scores. Feed it your
score suggestions and report the results.
I fully intend to do so when I'm next at my site.
And I am anxious to hear the results. 4000 messages a day is not really
very much more than we field here between Loren and me. We're running
about 9000 a week through the filters. So we're a little under a third
of your volume. I am willing to bet our interest sets have a moderately
small intersection set. {^_-} (Oddly I suspect we may have a larger
<cough> (nominal) lawn area than you might. And with all this space I
want to put up some nice masts for some large wire antennas for lower
frequencies. But Loren is resisting the idea. Guy wires are rough on
the neck when you run into them while riding the lawn tractor. {^_-})
Vast increase.... From one in 100,000 to one in 1,000? That would be
dramatic and it would lead to a multiple list hit overlap issue, as well.
The overlap might be down in the one in 10,000 level. But with a million
mails a day to handle that's 100 complaints, more than any sane ISP would
enjoy handling.
I'm processing about 4k messages per day, with about half of that being
spam (I'm partially greylisting to reduce my spam totals before SA).
Greylisting first - maybe we're down at a 10th your total incoming. But
still, the statistics I posted are over the last 10 weeks. So that should
match one of your weeks.
I'm seeing enough to find a double-list between uribl and surbl once a week.
I see a LOT of double-lists. But I'm not sure I see any BAD double-lists.
{^_-}
At the moment you are focused on something you see as a sure cure.
No, I see it as worthy of consideration. And testing, which I'm already
planing on.
Right now I'm already testing all those MULTI meta rules with negative
scores in-hand (-1.5 for URIBL_OVERLAP, -0.5 for SURBL_MULTI1 and 2,
-0.2 for the rest.)
That should be equivalent to your proposal. Although your proposal
would likely result in fewer rules to process than the negative rules
approach.
I can only test one approach at a time.
Me may be a bi<oops>ddy but me do understand. {^_-}
You might
be right. Only you are in the position to TEST your proposal. I don't see
anyone here rushing in to take the risk of it being wrong so that you can
point a finger when the idea backfires. (Hey, after 40 years in industry
a person learns about this trick and gets, perhaps, a little overly
cynical from repeated experience. {^_-})
You MIGHT also think out of the box. Are there other things that can be
done to mitigate the problem? I suspect there are. They'd require some
tool
construction. If there is somebody on the list wanting some
suggestions for
some perl hacking I can dredge my emails to Matt for some interesting
tool
ideas. Some might directly help Jeff more than Matt while others would
benefit someone in Matt's shoes more than most other folks.
That would be interesting too.
(For some reason I had thought you had an ISP operation rather than such
an apparently small setup - sounds like a small office setup almost. Or
else you have a large family for whom you're doing email off site.)
{^_^}
