On Fri, May 18, 2001 at 03:09:40PM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:
>
> When I was running majordomo as my list server, I started having a few
> domains kick back mail as spam -- because I was using the bulk_mailer
> program to speed delivery. anything that put that phrase in its received
> lines has to be spam, right? (that's why my copies of bulk_mailer now
> identify themselves in received lines as ulkbay_ailermay. honest. I
> couldn't make this stuff up....)
In a moderate defense of that practice, I must point out that
searching for the word "bulk" in X-Mailer and Received headers can
seem like an incredibly good way of finding dumb spammers. Even
a fairly large sample size may not provide a very high false positive
rate. I think that bulk_mailer is the *only* program with such a
name which is widely used for non-spammish purposes.
> > I analyzed the last couple and I noticed that there is now the email
> > equivalent of a "root kit" -- that is, we're now at the stage where a
> > clueless script kiddie can touch off an email worm without having a clue
> > about 'vbs' or self-replicating software or anything like that. So,
> > IMO,
> > things are going to get worse, perhaps a LOT worse, before they get
> > better.
>
> thank god I strip all mime off my lists. I've always planned to enhance
> demime to allow me to selectively strip mime, but I've never had time.
> Right now -- I'll just put that one on hold for a year.
whoa! This is supposed to be the part where you tell all us dinosaurs
to get rid of our C64s and embrace the new technology like you have!
Have I slipped into a parallel universe or something? :-)
