On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 00:18 -0800, jdow wrote:
> From: "LuKreme" <krem...@kreme.com>
> Sent: Thursday, 2009/December/03 20:55
>
>
> > On Dec 3, 2009, at 13:43, "rich...@buzzhost.co.uk" <rich...@buzzhost.co.uk
> > > wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2009-12-03 at 11:23 -0700, J.D. Falk wrote:
> >>> On Dec 2, 2009, at 12:59 AM, rich...@buzzhost.co.uk wrote:
> >
> > Look, get a room. Or at least take this twisted courtship dance offlist
> > and spare us, please.
>
> With all the animosity on this issue I decided to give the HABEAS
> rules a score, a negligible score to be sure, just to see what the
> state of HABEAS is for me today.
>
> In the last four days - nothing either spam or ham.
>
> Those seeing HABEAS hits: are the hits ancient haiku hits or are they
> the modern DNS test version? I imagine the haiku is still used by
> some spammers. The DNS tests should legitimately show a rather small
> percentage of spam. It appears (weasel word notice) ReturnPath puts
> its members through a wringer to get the approval levels.
>
> And how was the email determined to be unsolicited? (I believe in one
> case it was a "never used spam trap address.")
>
> Let's lay some facts out on the table rather than heap a load of
> anecdotal poo on JD over various HABEAS hits.
>
> And JD, I don't see on your site what it "costs" people to get listed
> on your DNS approval lists other than some tests and documentation. Is
> it possible spammers simply submit some buttered up documentation, get
> approved, and accept getting it knocked back off your lists rapidly as
> a business "time" expense?
>
> Less shouting and more data and facts seems to be called for on both
> sides. And for the nonce I'll grant both sides the legitimacy of their
> frustrations on this HABEAS thing.
>
> I note that JD is quite willing to discuss (and seemed to recommend)
> a lowered default score. That seems quite reasonable.
>
> {^_^} (Another JD, Jolly Dirty Old Woman type.)
>
PREAMBLE:
It's simple for me - I'm not out to win friends or influence anyone and
I find those that grease the wheels for the wholesale distribution of
spam (be it they hold the view it is legitimate or not) in exchange for
money - whilst claiming to be anti-spam - sick individuals that deserve
a good kicking at the very least. That's just my personal view.
RETURN PATH OFFER A PAID FACILITY TO ASSIST IN THE DELIVERY OF UBE.
That's what they do - no matter how nicey nicey Mr Falk may appears to
be. It's his job.
SPAMASSASSIN is about assassinating spam - not facilitating it. Negative
scores applied to a bulk mailing service without the users consent (the
default for Spamassassin is to allow this rule at a minus score) has me
wondering just who's in bed with who? There may be a reasonable argument
that Spamassassin, as configured by default, gives unfair commercial
advantage to HABEAS registered spammers and I'm more curious to find out
WHY than anything else. It would be acceptable for me if it shipped with
a zero score by default with notes in the readme for giving it a minus
score at the users discretion.
Although this is only a few points in the wrong direction, the
implications this has for the integrity of Spamassassin as an anti-spam
system is in question. Are Return Path making regular donations to
Apache and wanting something in return? What possible plausible reason
is there for a bulk mailing whitelist to appear with a favourable score
in a program heavily used to block spam?
Being well known companies that a person may have once done a very small
amount of business with does not mean that their UBE habits are
acceptable in any way.
FACT
For me, until I changed it to a positive +10 score for HABEAS, the only
time I saw the name was in unwanted UBE - to me, that is SPAM. Making a
fuss on this list (and nowhere else) suddenly had IP's disappear off the
HABEAS list. {dark forces at work indeed}. The kind of people this has
appeared in are not the expected MAINSLEAZE, but shabby bottom feeders.
The kind that think registering with PaytoSpam services (be that a
listing in emailreg.org or Habeas Accreditation) will make them in some
way legitimate in their actions.
FINAL
This is not a social club, it's a question and issues list for
Spamassassin. My question and issue is why, by default, does
Spamassassin use the HABEAS white list, and why is it out of the box set
with a score to favour delivery of their junk? It's a fair question. The
answer 'just change the score' is not the correct answer. The correct
answer will be precisely why this state of affairs exists.
