[volunteers] [svlug] The Loomis List Mailing List Confirmation

[Rick Moen]

[Cc'ing voluntesers at lists.svlug.org]

Quoting Joe Buck (Joe.Buck at synopsys.COM):

> It's quite likely that someone will manage to subscribe us to a list
> in the future, by accident or on purpose. 

Please do see:
http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2007q2/000168.html

Note and apology-in-advance:  Thank you for your concern, really.  If I
seem a little toasty, it's because the private correspondence with
numerous people about this matter has soaked up quite a bit of my time, 
both yesterday and today.


I'd already pointed out that follow-up coverage should please go by
preference to the public Volunteers list.  Our dialogue (below) now is
redundant to that -- and to my svlug at lists.svlug.org comments -- which
thus makes it not really an efficent use of your time and mine.
Moreover, other people would not see our private-mail exchange (thus my
CC); I've found myself holding several separate, redundant private
e-mail conversations with people.  See why I asked that people check on
the public Volunteers list for the outcome?  Would you please consider
so doing?  Thank you.

Anyway, as to your "It's quite likely...":

It's unprecedented in my (quite broad) experience for a (real) spammer
to go through Mailman's three-way subscribe confirmation.  I've known
only things like (rarely) a clueless PR person subscribing and
autoposting press releases.  The spam pros are too cautious about
leaving evidence.

> It should be possible to fix this without having complaints and
> reactions producing triple the noise sent by the original offender.

Please see URL cited above.

1.  Entry mode of this spammer was unexpected.  (Normally, they don't
join; You'll notice that spam from non-subscribed addresses is 100%
quietly discarded.)

2.  Because of the mode of entrance, I found it advisable to mention
once, on-list, that it was being dealt with.  That should have been the
sole traffic that resulted.

3.  Unfortunately, subscriber Mark S. Bilk saw fit to intervene, and
then post about having done so.  I couldn't help that, as I hope you
realise.  Seeing that, I found it desirable to post once again, thanking
him for his exercising leadership, but pointing out that it had resulted
in more undesirable traffic, and that he should in the future please
consider giving the listadmins time to take care of it.

4.  Because I'm inexperienced at blackholing Mailman _subscribers_
(proud to say, I've never needed to, before), I accidentally added the
offending address to the wrong blacklist, one apparently effective only
against NON-subscribed addreses.  So, today's 5:07 AM repeat spam
ensued.  I then found it desirable to explain on-list (mid-morning) that
I'd messed up the block technique, and was fixing my omission.

To sum:  I had intended there be ONE onlist comment.  Events required 
me to post additional comments.  Not my idea.


> I suggest that the way to handle this is to just quietly black-hole the
> offending sender, and that there should never be more than one short,
> factual message from a list admin about the blackholing.  

That was my intention.

I've explained all this onlist, and even explained why there was a
repeat incident, and explained why I found it desirable to comment
on-list a couple of more times, despite my preference to the contrary.

Since I explained that, I'm unclear on why I'm having to cover the
matter again with you, basically redundantly, in private mail.


> I also ask that all non-list-admins just quietly wait for the janitors
> to clean up the mess.

Please note that I included in my comment to Mark S. Bilk the same
request, phrased as a polite suggestion, and speaking explicitly in my
non-listadmin capacity, so as to respect his taking initiative and not
come across as trying to boss people around.