[Cialug] Easy fixes for today's list spam

[Nicolai]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 02:10:08PM +0000, Josh More wrote:

> I have temporarily set the list to require admin approval for new
> members.  If it is not too burdensome, I may keep it this way.

I hope this is a temporary move, because (politically) it centralizes
the group.  And I don't think that's compatable with open source
ideals.  root should not be democratic, but list membership, for
the most part, should be.  Besides, you yourself note that you "no
longer have time in [your] life to be an email admin." :-)

> I will not be turning on spamhaus, XBL or blocking broken DNS.  It's
> not that I think it's a bad idea, it's that I no longer have time
> in my life to be an email admin.  I will, however, re-iterate my
> invite to the group for anyone out there that wants to serve as a
> co-admin with Kevin and me.  It would be nice to get some help here.

I'd be happy to help.  I ran Postfix for a while at an ISP a long time
ago (11 years) before upgrading to qmail.  Been using it ever since, so
I'm well comfortable with mail and am not a stranger to Postfix.  Email
and security are my two most important "subjects."

How I would do things: small changes, announced publically, tested
first using identically-configured "test" lists containing only my
own accounts as subscribers before applying those changes to the
main list.  I would probably only make a few small changes and then
not touch it much, because system configs are not toys.

I would probably use the Spamhaus XBL & SBL lists but not Zen because
Zen includes PBL (residential lines).  And some people here probably
post from their cable modem and I think that's cool, besides the
fact that open networking should be encouraged and can be easily
supported in this situation.

As for broken DNS: I'd allow people time to fix their setups.  Known
broken netblocks could be allowed as well in the meantime, so changes
would appear seamless.

This would all take about 2 minutes in qmail, not sure in Postfix.  But
it has more built-in capabilities than qmail, so it's only a matter of
investigating.

Nicolai