Hello Lyle, On Tue, 13 Aug 2002 10:14:58 -0700 GMT (14/08/02, 00:14 +0700 GMT), Lyle Scully wrote:
MT>>> Unfounded at that. No they're not professionals. LS> Actually most of them are in roles just like I am. And I do consider LS> myself a professional. I have been using SpamAssassin on our mail LS> server for a year now. I use it personally, and rely on it. LS> And yes for the record, I am a mid-size ISP. Thank you for coming forward. I am sure you are a professional. What I was driving at is that the decision we could witness at SpamAssassin was not done in a professional way. Let me elaborate. TF>> act" leaves to be desired. It is obvious that they are not TF>> professionals. LS> Just out of curiosity, what makes you feel they are not professionals? I think I said that in my previous mail. Professionals do not just seee 4 spam mails (out of how many?) with a certain X-Mailer header, and then discuss blocking the mailer based on anecdotal information. LS> They are attempting to do something that users are begging for, yet LS> all you are doing is talking trash about them. Why don't you do some LS> "research before you act", as you say, and find out more about the LS> project? I understand what they intend to do, and that is a good thing. But from that snippet we got, I can hardly see how they can get there; they might be doing more harm than good. I can only hope you are right in your lashing out at me, and that the thread we saw was an exception and Matt actually meant to ridicule them for whatever grudge he holds against them. Somehow I didn't have the feeling. CMIIR. TF>> If they even discuss stopping spam on the basis of an email client TF>> that was used for 4 spam-mails, it is unprofessional. If their service TF>> is used by professionals, it is scary. LS> This isn't how the whole thing works. These people are no different LS> than the people at Yahoo! everyone has been complaining about lately. I have no problem with Yahoo, have not heard complaints, and have not received spam from them. Sorry, I don't understand your reference. LS> They are looking at the headers for patterns. If they see that a lot LS> of SPAM is being sent (he saw four messages, I see many every day) LS> with this 1.53d version of The Bat!, then they will take steps to LS> track down information (which they did) and if they find it a valid LS> concern, will add it to the filter. You actually think it is a good idea to filter on an X-Mailer header? You are aware that it can be faked, of course. But how about the fact that I, on my machine, receive over 90% of legit mail from senders who use TB, and most spam apparently sent with Micorsoft Outlook? But back to the 4 spammails. You say you receive some 250 spam mails a night, and the poster said he had cleared out his spam folder 4 days earlier. Let's assume he receives as many spam messages as you do (IIRC). Makes some 1000 messages in the spam folder, i.e. 0.4% showing The Bat as X-Mailer. No, he didn't say anything about the version number. I wonder what would have had happened had he grepped for Outlook. LS> Wouldn't you think that if Yahoo! and others are looking into The Bat! LS> being used as a spam program, that maybe, just maybe they have a valid LS> concern? Thankfully they are not blocking it "on a whim" as you seem LS> to think they do. OK, so the thread we were treated to was not representative, or the part where the anecdotal information was used for decision-making was doctored into it? Please give me an URL where I can read something (hard facts, no rumours) about Yahoo thinking about blocking The Bat. I'd be really interested in their decision-making process. LS> These are not the RBL or ORBS people. They actually do look into LS> it before they take radical steps. I would be interested in their approach, i.e. *how* they usually "look into it". I know how ORBS adds to their blacklists, and how you can get off the list again, ORBS is very professional (IMHO). TF>> there is no way but to discourage anybody from using their TF>> "spamassassin". LS> If you used it on a daily basis, you wouldn't be so quick to urge LS> that. SA works, and it works incredibly well. It is the decision-making process that we were treated to witness that scares me. You really want to rely on that? What if someone had said, his second counsin's third wife uses TB for spamming? Would TB have made it onto the blacklist? TF>> No mistake in posting it. The lack of additional information is what TF>> irritates me. And that the people who replied to his message didn't LS> Then get on that list and see the additional information that you LS> obvious want or need. Please tell me that you are saying we saw only a weird section of the discussion, and the main thread was in-depth. In that case, I am wrong and you can blame me for not having read the whole thread. But alas, my time is too valuable to become a member of that list and read through the thing based on the assumption that there might be something in their favour. If there were, I am sure you have have clearly said so already. LS> This was posted in response to other sites blocking The Bat!. I LS> found it very useful as I hadn't seen the message on the SA list LS> yet. Let's see the information we got from that thread (if we did indeed get the complete thread): 1.) Someone has 4 spammails showing The Bat (with unknown version number) as X-Mailer in a spamfolder of unkown size (but known age, which is irrelevant information). 2.) The people in the thread discuss whether or not to block mails as spam based on the X-Mailer header. 3.) Two people in the thread know people (second-hand information) that use TB and are not spammers. No professional discussion at all here. The only useful information I can find is something about the decision-making process, which we find in sentence number 2. >>>> Sorry, but if these guys have anything to say in ISPs, the >>>> internet is doomed. LS> Laughing...if SA dooms the Internet, then it was doomed at conception. There as no spam-filtering based on X-Mailer headers (mind you, I am not even talking about the mail client used, but only the header shown) at conception of the internet. If you think it is OK to consider blocking mails as spam only because the X-Mailer header shows an legitimate commercial email program that some (assumingly very few) people also use for spam, and that another completely unrelated software for spammers claims to be (in one version), then the internet is doomed. Am I right in assuming that you won't block Outlook, because "you can't do *that*!" ? - Please look up "double jeopardy" in a library of books about Marketing (it has a different meaning in Law, which I don't mean) and see what you are dong to small companies that are trying to give users an alternative. What you are doing is like filtering all ISP's from which I have *apparently* received spam (maybe some spammer forges a Received header showing your own ISP?), but excepting AOL and the other big ones, because they are just so big. You would be out of business in no time. LS> I will take whatever steps I have to for my clients, and myself. SA is LS> the best bet we have in what many System Administrators consider a LS> war. Call it what you will, but for us on the front lines, we consider LS> this theft. Theft of our bandwidth, our time, and even our rights. I agree with that. I don't agree to the way decisions appear to be made at SpamAssassin. LS> This isn't meant as any sort of attack. What is so frustrating, is LS> that mail administrators are trying to do something about a valid LS> concern. And a good job you are doing (and 6 out of 7 of my ISP's are doing). I appreciate that you are trying. But please take a look (and do some google) on decision-making processes, and why we should only rely on companies that use a professional approach. And why what we have seen of SpamAssassin was not professional. (I still hope it was an exception.) LS> We are sorry if your favorite mail program is being checked LS> for validity. We all know and love The Bat! as it is simply the best. LS> SA is simply the best there is right now for spam control. The is not about The Bat (and that's why we should not continue this thread here but move to TBOT). This is about how to approach, indentify, and eventually solve problems. 1.) An X-Mailer header cannot even be considered a criterion for spam-filtering by any internet professional. 2.) Anecdotal information about a schoolfriend's third-degree cousin (this is what got me really off, and anecdotal info were the *only* responses - and the decision was based on that) is absolutely irrelevant. It would disqualify me in any management meeting - I would probably be asked to take a leave. f'up2:tbot -- Cheers, Thomas. Moderator der deutschen The Bat! Beginner Liste. Don't use no double negatives. Message reply created with The Bat! 1.62/Beta1 under Chinese Windows 98 4.10 Build 2222 A using an AMD Athlon K7 1.2GHz, 128MB RAM ________________________________________________________ Current version is 1.61 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
