From: <rich...@buzzhost.co.uk>
Sent: Friday, 2009/December/04 01:57
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.
Color me smartassed but I want numbers not accusations. Can the
rhetoric and in bland neutral terms describe what you see in terms of
numbers, possible business relations, however loose, and so forth.
I do note I also want a précis's of what ReturnPath insists upon for
opting into receiving business emails. If it is double opt-in that is
good. If it's "I sent one inquiry, received an answer, and presumed
that was the end of the affair but messages keep coming" that is another.
(It is staggeringly bad marketing behavior. But, these days that is an
epidemic.)
Then let's compare what is seen with what is claimed on both sides of
this battle royale. The name calling creates no progress to a worthwhile
understanding. It may be that ReturnPath has a hole in their qualification
process they need to plug to restore their reputation. If it leads to
their DNS tool being a better tool for spam fighting so be it. (I suspect
the default is as wonkity off one way as your +10 is the other.)
If this were a debate JD would be winning at this point, mainly for
holding his rhetoric away from ad-hominem attacks.
{^_^}
